A Study Of University EFL Learners' Development In Discourse Markers Use In English Expository Writing

Discourse markers,as a linguistic phenomenon,are a hot topic in discourse analysis and pragmatic research.Discourse markers include conjunctions,adverbs as well as prepositional phrases.As they are applied in spoken language and written language extensively,different researchers analyze them from different perspectives.Based on different perspectives,an agreement on the definitions,classifications and functions of discourse markers hasn't been reached.There are more studies on the use of discourse markers focusing on oral discourse than written language.To some degree,discourse markers in written language do not get enough attention.Hence more and more researchers start to keep a watchful eye on discourse markers in written language.This thesis adopts Wang and Zhu's taxonomy of discourse markers and it takes the junior students as subjects,EFL learners from a comprehensive university.The writing samples are collected at four different times over a semester with 30 pieces each time.Discourse markers are manually calculated from every writing sample based on Wang and Zhu's taxonomy.The general frequency and category of discourse markers can be gotten from the four writing tasks,a total of 120 pieces of expository compositions.A comparative analysis among the four writing tasks is made to find out whether there are some changes on the use of discourse markers in frequency,category,location and accuracy over time.The major findings of this study are as follows:1.Discourse markers are applied to writing at a high frequency and the categories based on the classification of Wang and Zhu's are nearly all involved in students' writings with different proportions.2.Comparative analysis among the four writing tasks shows that(a)the changes of frequency mainly appear among those discourse markers with high frequency of use and the frequency of these discourse markers declines over time;(b)the categories of discourse markers increase over time;(c)with regard to the location of discourse markers in writing,there are no obvious changes as practices proceed;(d)as for the accuracy of the use of discourse markers,both the number of improper use and the proportion between improper use and proper use decline over time,which shows that there is a better accuracy of discourse markers use over time.At last,the author puts forward several suggestions on how to improve student's ability to master discourse markers and apply them to their writings.