However and other transitions in the Han CH-EN corpus

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21726289
AutoresChao Han (0009-0007-9698-759X, Lanzhou University), Sheena Gardner (0000-0003-1924-5270, Coventry University, autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume51
Páginas100984
Data de publicação2021-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of English for Academic Purposes (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1475-1585 • E-ISSN: 1878-1497
EditoraElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.jeap.2021.100984
OpenAlexW3135146341
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas16

Research on the frequency of transitions, or transition markers, has led to contested claims. Comparisons by L1 speaker (e.g. Leedham, 2015; Lei, 2012) argue that Chinese writers overuse and underuse certain transitions when compared to L1 English writers. Moreover, Biber et al. (1999) suggest transitions are frequent in technical scientific writing, while Hyland (2005) suggests they are more frequent in the discursive writing of the soft disciplines. Our study contributes to both these areas with evidence from a contrastive analysis of transition use by Chinese and English writers in the Han CH-EN corpus, a closely matched corpus of successful university student writing in English. A frequency comparison of transition use by Chinese and English writers finds no significant difference for most transitions. The transition used most often by both groups is however, which is examined across contexts. English writers use however significantly more than Chinese writers, but only in a small number of disciplines, genres and sentence positions. An examination of the literacy practices in these contexts suggests that terms such as ‘overuse’ and ‘underuse’ with their negative connotations should only be used when frequency data is combined with investigations of appropriate use in context

Linguistics · Literacy · Pedagogy · Sentence · Sociology · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning · Second Language Learning and Teaching