A corpus-based study of connectors in student academic writing

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the results of an investigation which dealt with the use of connectors in a corpus composed of assignments written by Brazilians studying in British universities (BrAWE) as compared to another corpus which comprises academic texts written by a group of students with high marks in British universities (BAWE). Connectors are important because they are one of the linguistic devices that provide cohesion to the text. This paper brings together theoretical assumptions from Corpus Linguistics, English for Academic Purposes and connectors. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in the use of the entire range of connectors in the investigated corpora, with Brazilian students overusing connectors as a whole and, more specifically, connectors which express additional ideas. This research points to the importance of corpus-based studies as they provide evidences of language use, and help in the creation of pedagogical material for English language classrooms.