earticle

영어

Research has shown that non-native speaker(NNS) students tend to overuse certain linking adverbials(LAs) as cohesion devices in their English writing. This study examined the uses of on the other hand, one of the most frequently used LAs in academic prose, and some other related connectives by Korean university students in their English argumentative essays and compared them with those by native speaker(NS) student writers and published writers. Results showed that while the Korean student writers used the LA far more frequently than the two other groups of writers but used it overwhelmingly for a single rhetorical function and only in the sentence-initial position, striking a unique contrast with the NS students and journal article authors respectively. In addition, they were shown to use a very small range of connectives to mark what can be collectively grouped as contrastive/cancellative relations while severely underusing simple but multi-functional connectives. This paper concludes with pedagogical suggestions based on the findings.