Discourse Markers in the Genre of Formal Letters Written by Intermediate Students of English as a Foreign Language

Bibliographic Data

ID12866242
AuthorsОлександр Капранов (0000-0002-9056-3311, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume0
Issue33
Publication date2018-12-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies About Languages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1648-2824 • E-ISSN: 2029-7203
PublisherKaunas University of Technology (KTU) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5755/j01.sal.0.33.20672
OpenAlexW2905393456
LanguageEN
References cited19

This article involves a quantitative computer-assisted study of the use of discourse markers in the genre of formal letters written by a group of students of English as a foreign language (EFL) at the intermediate level of EFL proficiency. The aim of the study was to examine how the group of EFL students uses English discourse markers in a written task involving the genre of formal letters. The study employed a quantitative computer-assisted methodology of computing the frequencies of discourse markers by software program WordSmith (Scott 2008). The results of the data analysis indicated that the group of EFL students at the intermediate level of EFL proficiency exhibited awareness of the genre conventions associated with the usage of discourse markers in the task. The EFL students’ genre awareness was manifested by the use of stylistically neutral discourse markers (e.g., also, but, however) concurrently with those discourse markers that are typically associated with a formal register of the English language (e.g., furthermore, hereby, therefore). These findings and their didactic implications to the teaching of EFL writing are further discussed in the article.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.33.0.20672

English as a foreign language · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Task (project management · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Philosophy · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning

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