The Conjunction WHILE In Advanced Chinese EFL Learners' Writing

Connectives,which indicate the relations between linguistic units in discourse,are of great importance in daily communication.The conjunction while is frequently used to introduce adverbial clauses of time or concession.However,many Chinese EFL learners are unable to use this conjunction appropriately in speaking or writing.The study based on the learner corpus SWECCL 2.0 and the native speaker corpus LOCNESS,conducted within the analytical framework of contrastive interlanguage analysis,explores the characteristics of advanced Chinese EFL learners' use of the conjunction while in argumentative writing.The research investigates:(1)the general features of advanced Chinese EFL learners' use of while(including overall frequency,clause construction,placement and indicated relation),(2)the respective features of advanced Chinese EFL learners' use of while indicating same time,contrast and concession(including frequency and placement),and(3)the typical errors of while and the underlying reasons.The major findings are as follows.(1)No significant difference occurs in the overall frequency of the conjunction while used by advanced Chinese EFL learners and American university students,but advanced Chinese EFL learners are more likely to place while at the medial position.Moreover,they only produce two types of while constructions,while+finite clauses and while+-ing clauses,and they use the most while to indicate contrast,fewer to indicate same time and the fewest to indicate concession.(2)No significant difference occurs in the frequency of while indicating simultaneity in the two corpora,but advanced Chinese EFL learners tend to place temporal while at the medial position.They highly significantly overuse while indicating contrast,but rarely put contrastive while at the beginning of a sentence.In addition,advanced Chinese EFL learners highly significantly underuse while indicating concession,and they commit more errors of concessive while at the beginning of sentences.(3)Typical misuse of while includes grammar errors in form,word class and ellipsis,as well as misplacement of concessive while,and lexical errors in attachment,collocation and logic,and the underlying reasons for these errors include L1 interference,Chinese thinking pattern,overgeneralization and incomplete application of English rules,andmisleading learning materials.The study sheds some light on investigations of EFL/ESL learners' use of connectives,especially of individual connectives,as well as connective teaching and learning.