Positive, negative, and nil effects of connectives in written stories: Analysis by proficiency groups

Inconsistent findings about the significance of connectives in prior studies may be due to the fact that connectives were not analyzed according to their different semantic types as well as language users' proficiency levels. The present study therefore divided connectives into four semantic types (additive, adversative, causal, and temporal) and examined how much their occurrences were related to the quality of free writing and whether the results varied because of proficiency levels. The participants were groups of different English writing proficiency (N = 242): Korean EFL elementary school immersion students and native English speakers who were middle or high school students attending an army-based American school. They were given a writing task which required them to create a story based on a picture. The stories were analyzed for connective occurrences and writing qualities such as content, text length, and vocabulary. The results show the following. As students become more proficient, the overall occurrences of connectives decreased. Additive and temporal connectives were most prevalent. However, their effects on writing qualities were different. In the stories by EFL students, the frequent occurrences of additive connectives negatively influenced the quality of content, while temporal connectives enhanced it. Such effects did not exist in the stories by native speakers; none of the connective types made any significant influence on the quality of content, indicating that with or without connectives content is comprehensible in the writings of proficient writers. (Kyungpook National University)