A Corpus-based Study of Connectors in Student Writing: A Comparison between a Native Speaker (NS) Corpus and a Non-native Speaker (NNS) Learner Corpus

The present study offers a corpus-based analysis of two written corpora, i.e. a native speaker corpus (part of the Louvain Corpus of English Essays) and a non-native speaker corpus, which is composed of several essays written by Hong Kong first year university students. It aims to find out the differences in the use of connectors. Altogether twenty-five connectors used in the two corpora have been examined, with the frequency of their usage being calculated. The reasons that have led to the variations in using these connectors are further discussed. This corpus-based study on connectors would have some pedagogic implications on writing teaching. As connectors have played a significant role in both sentence construction and coherence, based on our analysis, we hope that they should be taught explicitly, practiced extensively, and illustrated with learning materials given to students, so as to avoid the overuse and misuse in writing.