Chinese ESL Writers’ Use of English Contrastive Markers

This study explores multiple and newer methods of research on connector usage by L2 writers. L2 writing samples of Chinese ESL writers were analyzed for frequencies of contrastive connectives (but, although, though, however, yet), and compared to a corpus from native English-speaking writers. The data show that Chinese ESL writers, particularly those at the graduate level, overused but, tended to use but excessively or less formally, and used it with shorter and simpler clauses; they also tended to underuse other contrastive markers. A qualitative examination of the data also reveals more about the types of problems that these writers had with effectively using contrastive conjunctions in argumentation. The findings provide stronger empirical support and further details for findings from previous studies. This study also demonstrates a novel method of statistical analysis and mixed methods triangulation for a small corpus data set in L2 writing research, which can be applied to larger corpora in the future. Finally, implications of these results are discussed, such as linguistic aspects of such connectors, the similar difficulties experienced by Chinese and Korean students, and the need for more attention to connectors in ESL/EFL writing, as increasingly more Chinese students attend Korean universities. (197 words)