A Study on the Use of English Relative Clauses in Korean EFL Learners' Writing

This study attempted to examine the frequency and types of English relative clauses used by Korean EFL adult writers of different proficiency levels. A total of 60 argumentative essays were randomly selected from the TOEFL trial tests and analyzed in terms of the frequency and types of English relative clauses. The results did not confirm completely what the previous studies found: the order of frequency on the four basic types of relative clauses (OS, OO, SS, & SO) was not identical to that of the current study. High level learners used more SS type than OO type, a reversed phenomenon comparing to the findings from the previous studies even though they used OS type most frequently. On the other hand, intermediate-low level learners employed SS and OS types excessively while they rarely used the others. In spite of unconformity with the results of the previous studies, this study diagnosed the status on how often Korean EFL learners used relative clauses as well as took a close look at the types of structures the learners employed relative clauses in according to different proficiency levels.