A Corpus–based Study of Conjunctive Adjuncts in the Writings of Native and Non-native Speakers of English

Abstract

This study explored the use of conjunctive adjuncts by Kuwaiti EFL learners and native speakers of English. It investigated the frequency of occurrence of conjunctive adjuncts in the writings of Kuwaiti EFL learners and native speakers of English. It also attempted to find out the frequency of the semantic categories of conjunctive adjuncts such as additive, contrastive, causal, temporal and continuatives in KLC and NSC. Finally, it aimed to find out the overused and underused conjunctive adjuncts in the two corpora.
To achieve the goals of this study, we utilized two language corpora. The first consisted of essays collected from Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers and the second was compiled by the researchers. Forty essays written by Kuwaiti EFL learners enrolled at Kuwaiti universities were then collected, classified and analyzed.
Results of this study showed that Kuwaiti EFL learners overused conjunctive adjuncts, namely, additives and causals. Native speakers of English used adversatives frequently. However, Kuwaiti EFL learners did not use the various types of conjunctive adjuncts as native speakers did. In addition, the results showed that Kuwaiti EFL learners overused certain conjunctive adjuncts such as in addition, for, and but and underused certain conjunctive adjuncts such as however, though and also.