Revisiting cohesion in academic writing: A corpus-based analysis of EFL learners’ use of conjunctions

Abstract

Grammatical and semantic devices writers utilize to maintain text cohesion have received noticeable attention for over forty years. Among the most addressed of these devices are conjunctions, which are believed to improve communication and academic writing quality. While there has been considerable research on how EFL learners utilize conjunctions in their academic writings, the existing body of work remains inadequate. Findings in this strand revealed that EFL learners misuse conjunctions. Based on such findings, learning materials and academic writing programs implemented conjunction instruction techniques. Nevertheless, the persisting problem requires further examination using current research methods and writing conventions. Accordingly, the present study adopted the corpus linguistic method to analyze EFL learners’ use of conjunctions in a 125,000-word corpus and compare it to an equivalent native speaker corpus taking Halliday and Hassan’s categorization as a benchmark for the analysis. It is hypothesized that EFL learners misuse conjunctions in terms of both quantity and quality. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate EFL learners' usage of conjunctions by employing a contemporary research method. This method was expected to demonstrate how current analysis techniques using authentic data can provide meaningful insights remarks into this issue. The study revealed varied uses of conjunctions in the two corpora. However, these variations were not at all levels, as there were observable similarities in some aspects of use in the two corpora. The findings imply updating conjunction instruction and learning materials. Further research adopting corpora and longitudinal approaches is suggested to validate the findings.