Causal and Contrastive Discourse Markers in Novice Academic Writing

Abstract

Causal and contrastive relations between adjacent or more distant segments of discourse play an important role in expressing coherence relations (Taboada 2006) in academic discourse including discourse written by university students of English. By overtly signalling how the writer intends the discourse segment that follows to relate to the previous segment(s), discourse markers (DMs), in particular those expressing causal and contrastive relations, contribute to cohesion and enhance the establishment and maintenance of coherence in academic written discourse 1. While analysing a corpus of Master's theses written by non-native novice writers the author attempts to find out which DMs Czech students of English use when expressing causal and contrastive relations, whether they are able to use selected DMs correctly and, in addition, whether there are any differences in the preferences of students that accord with the fields of study-linguistics, literature and culture, and methodology-in which the Master's theses are written.

Discourse markers in academic and non-academic writings of Thai EFL learners

“…This finding is in line with Sitthirak (2013, p. 875), who asserted that "Thai learners found a variety of DMs difficult to distinguish and the apparent interchangeability of the CDMs can also be the cause of confusion". Additionally, the finding that 'but' was the most frequent CDMs used in this study also resonated and supported other studies, which revealed the extreme reliance on the use of 'but' among EFL learners, such as the studies of Povolná (2012) and Dumlao and Wilang (2019).…”

“…Therefore, it is worth noting that the proper understanding of DMs is considered necessary for good writing production. In other words, an awareness of discourse markers will assist EFL learners in producing an effective and coherent piece of writing (Povolná, 2012).…”

Konstrukcijos su nederinamuoju neveikiamosios rūšies dalyviu „galima“: diskurso žymiklio link

“…Tačiau, kaip pastebi Traugott ir Dasheris (2002: 154), daugelis diskurso žymiklių nėra apriboti tam tikro diskurso tipo, jie randami įvairiuose tekstuose, įskaitant ir formalųjį rašytinį diskursą. Diskurso žymikliai tyrinėti įvairiose rašytinės akademinės kalbos atmainose (Bondi 2004;Povolná 2012;Rezanova, Kogut 2015), dalis Furkó (2020) diskurso žymiklių tyrimo skirta jų vartosenai verslo anglų kalbos vadovėliuose, Lansari (2020) pasitelkia internete esančių tekstų (forumų, blogų, laikraščių straipsnių) tekstyną sakymo diskurso žymiklių (angl. discourse markers of saying) anglų ir prancūzų kalbose analizei.…”

Discourse markers in online writing by early balanced English/Italian bilinguals

“…BLP 1 uses 6 contrastive DMs over the total observation period, whereas 14 contrastive DMs are found on BLP2's status updates and 7 contrastive DMs are employed by BLP 3. Whereas the contrastive DMs are used by the participants within the discursive space of mini-narratives that reflect their everyday routines, these DMs seem to signal that "there is a sense of dissonance" (Fraser 1988: 30;Povolná 2012). For instance, when the participant BLP 3 writes about going out to see a film with the actor Russell Crowe, she indicates that "I'm not a fan.…”