Lina Bikelienė

Vilnius University

3 September, 2010

Connector usage in advanced Lithuanian learners’ English

writing

Introduction

Foreign-soundingness (Granger, 1999:192)

Controversial findings:

–No overall connector overuse in IL (Granger and Tyson 1996, Altenberg and Tapper 1998)

–Overuse in IL

(Tankó 2004)

Aim

• Quantitative analysis of the use of adverbial connectors by Lithuanian learners

• Comparison with native speakers’ usage

• Brief comparison with non-native speakers’ usage

Material

• LICLE – 154,992 words

• LOCNESS:

LOCNESS-BR – 95,695 words

Material 2

• Learners with other mother-tongue background :

Swedish - Altenberg and Tapper (1998) French - Granger and Tyson (1996)Hungarian - Tankó (2004)Chinese - Ai and Peng (2006)Polish - Leńko-Szymańska (2007)Taiwanese - Chen (2006) Japanese - Narita et al (2004)

Methodology

CIA (Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis) – ‘establishes comparisons <...> between native and learner varieties of one and the same language’ (Granger, 1996: 43)

• Connectors extracted using TextSTAT-2 and AntConc3.2.1w

• Grouped into the categories distinguished by Quirk et al (1991: 634-636)

• Log-likelihood calculator (http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/llwizard.html)p<0.01, critical value 6.63

(a) LISTING(i) enumerative (first of all, finally)(ii) additive: equative (in the same way)

reinforcing (moreover)(b) SUMMATIVE (in conclusion, altogether)(c) APPOSITIONAL (namely, for example)(d) RESULTIVE (consequently, so)(e) INFERENTIAL (otherwise, in that case) (f) CONTRASTIVE

(i) reformulatory (more precisely, rather)(ii) replacive (again, alternatively)(iii) antithetic (instead, on the contrary)(iv) concessive (however, nevertheless)

(g) TRANSITIONAL(i) discoursal (by the way, incidentally)(ii) temporal (meanwhile,in the meantime)

Quirk et al (1991:634-636)

Overall figures

LICLE LOCNESS-BRTotal number of

connectors 2710 1381

Number of connectors (10 000 words)

174.85 144.31

Number of connectors per essay

10.11 15.34

Essay length (in words)

578 1063

Ratio of connector usage 

LICLE : LOCNESS-BR 1.22 : 1

FRENCH NNS : NS 0.92 : 1

SWICLE : LOCNESS 0.74 : 1

HUNGARIAN CORPUS : LOCNESS 2.13 : 1

• ...the learners use most frequently those connectors which add to, exemplify, or emphasize a point, rather than those which change the direction of the argument or take the argument logically forward.

Granger and Tyson (1996: 20)

Category LICLE LOCNESS-BR

LL

1. Listing 63.7 43.50 +44.71

2. Summative 10.32 0.63 +113.80

3. Appositive 17.68 10.76 +19.72

4. Resultive 37.49 38.87 -0.30

5. Inferential 1.87 1.67 +0.13

6. Contrastive 43.03 45.77 -1,00

7. Transitional 1.23 3.13 -19,07

Total 174.85 144.31 +34.36

Top four semantic categories  LICLE LOCNESS-BR SWICLE Hungarian

Corpus

1 Listing Contrastive Contrastive Listing

2 Contrastive Listing Resultive Resultive

3 Resultive Resultive Appositive Contrastive

4 Appositive Appositive Listing Summative

Commonly overused connectors

Category Swedish learners French learners Lithuanian

learners

O Listing moreover moreover moreover

V Appositive for instance for instance for instance

E namely namely namely

R Contrastive on the contrary on the contrary on the contrary

U

S

E

still STILL

(UNDERUSE)

Commonly underused connectors

U Resultive hence hence hence

N therefore therefore therefore

D

E

thus thus THUS

(OVERUSE)

R

U

Contrastive however however HOWEVER

(OVERUSE)

S yet yet yet

E instead instead

LICLE LOCNESS-BR SWICLE PICLE Hungarian

Corpus

Chinese Corpus Taiwanese

Corpus

1. however however for example also however first however

2. also also however however also second therefore

3. for example therefore of course therefore therefore however for instance/ for

example

4. thus so so for example thus secondly thus

5. so thus therefore so furthermore for example moreover

6. therefore for example thus thus moreover although besides

7. moreover yet for instance moreover secondly though also

8. first of all again that is on the other

hand

though finally first

9. of course on the other

hand

still consequently in addition firstly then

10. on the other

hand

too furthermore nevertheless first of all of course in addition

LICLE LOCNESS-BR SWICLE PICLE Hungarian

Corpus

Chinese Corpus Taiwanese

Corpus

1. however however for example also however first however

2. also also however however also second therefore

3. for example therefore of course therefore therefore however for instance/ for

example ???

4. thus so so for example thus secondly thus

5. so thus therefore so furthermore for example moreover

6. therefore for example thus thus moreover although besides

7. moreover yet for instance moreover secondly though also

8. first of all again that is on the other

hand

though finally first

9. of course on the other

hand

still consequently in addition firstly then

10. on the other

hand

too furthermore nevertheless first of all of course in addition

LICLE LOCNESS-BR SWICLE PICLE Hungarian

Corpus

Chinese Corpus Taiwanese

Corpus

1. however however for example also however first however

2. also also however however also second therefore

3. for example therefore of course therefore therefore however for instance/ for

example ???

4. thus so so for example thus secondly thus

5. so thus therefore so furthermore for example moreover

6. therefore for example thus thus moreover although besides

7. moreover yet for instance moreover secondly though also

8. first of all again that is on the other

hand

though finally first

9. of course on the other

hand

still consequently in addition firstly then

10. on the other

hand

too furthermore nevertheless first of all of course in addition

Top ten

6773

6068 66

0102030405060708090

100

LICLE LOCNESS-BR SWICLE PICLE HUNGARIANCORPUS

Types of connectorsCategory LICLE LOCNESS-BR

1. Listing 26 25

2. Summative 6 4

3. Apppositive 5 6

4. Resultive 8 8

5. Inferential 3 2

6. Contrastive 16 18

7. Transitional 5 4

Total 69 67

Sentence position

0

20

40

60

80

100

percentage LICLE

LOCNESS-BR

LICLE 61 37 2

LOCNESS-BR 26 71 3

SI SM SF

Position in LICLE(semantic categories)

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

SI

SM

SF

Possible explanation

• Features of interlanguage• SI position

• Developmental errors• Register confusion <...> seems to be as much part of the process of acquiring a

foreign language as it is art of the process of becoming an expert writer.

(Guilquin and Paquot, 2007:7)

e.g. Number of listing connectors in LICLE and LOCNESS-A-level

• L2 instruction • Non-native teachers’ discourse

• L1 transfer• Inadequate material

• Lack of clear information in dictionaries and grammars– lists of connectors in textbooks

Conclusions

• The Lithuanian learners overuse connectors.• The Lithuanian learners tend to rely on the most

frequent connectors.• The Lithuanian learners share a set of under- and

overused connectors with the learners from different mother-tongue backgrounds.

• Sentence distribution of connectors in LICLE is similar to distribution in other NNS corpora.