| Discourse markers are profuse in our daily conversation and English writing. They can indicate logical relations of segments and arouse the attention of readers and listeners, forming a coherent discourse and maintaining smooth communication. Scholars in foreign countries mainly employ different theories to conduct studies on discourse markers, attempting to explore their functions and existing principles, yet researches of discourse markers at home are more concerned with case study of individual discourse marker, which have achieved fruitful results. However, contrastive discourse markers(CDMs) in Chinese learners’ writing have received comparatively less attention. In English writing, as one of the cohesive devices, discourse markers not only help to construct a meaning-coherent discourse, but also help to seek the best contextual assumption and contextual effect to reduce misunderstandings. Due to the unique contrastive semantic features of contrastive discourse markers and their importance in the process of communication, this thesis attempts to probe into the specific features of contrastive discourse markers used by junior and senior English majors in writing.This thesis adopts contrastive interlanguage analysis to compare the similarities and differences between junior English majors(JEM), senior English majors(SEM) divided by WECCL, and NESSIE corpus, trying to investigate the use conditions of contrastive discourse markers by Chinese English majors in view of the following the question:1. What are the lexical properties of contrastive discourse markers used by junior English majors and senior English majors compared with native speakers?2. What are the characteristics in the use of CDMs by juniors and seniors compared with native learners in terms of syntactic position?3. What are the possible causes of the problems in the use of CDMs by Chinese English majors?The major findings are shown from the analysis:(1) Generally speaking, Chinese English majors use contrastive discourse markers more frequently than natives, especially junior English majors. Chinese English majors overuse some simple and early-acquired contrastive discourse markers such as but, though, on the contrary, but underuse other markers, like however, conversely, nonetheless, leading to a lack of diversity in the use of CDMs. There are also mistakes in the use of contrastive discourse markers.(2) As to the syntactic position, most of the contrastive discourse markers are put in the initial position by both English natives and Chinese English majors; however, as for but and however, English natives prefer to put them in the medial position, while Chinese English majors tend to put them in the initial.(3) The possible reasons for the characteristics of the contrastive discourse markers in JEM and SEM are language transfer, avoidance and personal preference, and some external factors. Based on the findings above, some suggestions are put forward in hope that it could improve learners’ English writing ability and help the teaching and learning of discourse markers. |
PDF Full Text Request