摘 要

为了全面深入了解国内英语学习者运用因果类连接语的特点，本研究以国内两组不同英语水平的学习者在不同写作条件下（有时限、无时限）完成的两组作文为对象，通过手工识别和统计方法对其中具有因果语义关系的连接语进行分析，并结合文本对具体连接词展开深入调查，结果发现写作时间对国内高水平EFL学习者书面语中因果连接词的使用没有明显的影响，其中对低水平的学习者而言，无时间限制的作品中因果连接词的丰富度和密度都不如有时间限制的作品，同时还发现低水平学习者倾向于使用较多的口语词汇和较多的前置因果连接词，文体趋于非正式，存在过多使用SO的情况。研究还结合发现对国内英语写作教学提出可行性建议。
  
关键词：语篇衔接；因果连接词；对比；特征

Abstract

In order to have a comprehensive recognition on the features of the use of causal connectors in the Chinese EFL learners’ written products, this thesis conducts a study on the two groups of compositions written by different levels of English proficiency under different writing situations and analyzes the features of connectors with causal relations using the method of manual work and statistics. At the same time, this thesis conducts a deep investigation on the specific causal connectors according to the compositions collected in this study. The present study finds out that writing time has no obvious influence on the use of causal connectors in the written products written by those Chinese EFL learners who have a high proficiency of English but the study also finds out that poor English students tend to use less causal connectors both in variety and in intensity without time limit than that with limited time. In the meantime, this study gets the results that those Chinese EFL learners with low English proficiency are inclined to use more colloquial words and place causal connectors in the initial position of a sentence or clause and also overuse the word SO and their written products tend to be informal. This study also gives some reasonable suggestions to the teaching and learning of writing in China.

Keywords: textual cohesion; causal connectors; comparison; features

Chapter 1 Theoretical Background
Traditional grammar focuses on individual and independent sentences, and mainly studies the form and usage of words, different components of a sentence and their distributional patterns. In the research of traditional grammar, sentence is the highest level in structure. However, in discourse analysis, the sentence arrangement, cohesion and coherence in text is the focus of the study. “The analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use…While some linguists may concentrate on determining the formal properties of a language, the discourse analysis is committed to an investigation of what that language is used of.” From the view of discourse analysis, the texts are not sentences simply added together but sentences which have inter-relationship combined together to realize communication.