Transitions in the Writing of Learners of English as a Foreign Language: a Corpus-based Analysis

Abstract

The study investigates the differences in the use of metadiscourse markers in the writings of upper-intermediate and master learners of English. It aims to investigate how language proficiency influences the use of metadiscourse markers, the relation between the number of tokens and the types used, and the types used by both levels. The methodology used is an analysis of a corpus of a random sample of the conclusion section of 40 students’ writings of two different levels of education (upper intermediate level represented by 20 undergraduate students and advanced level represented by 20 MA students). The data were analyzed using Stephen Bax's Text Inspector software. One important and possible contribution that the study is expected to make is that the results can be used as a source of information about the students’ competence in using transitions and as a source for further studies. The results demonstrated that the number of both types and tokens is higher in the upper-intermediate than the master level. However, the master level students were more creative and diversified in using different types with the same meaning, indicating a high level of language proficiency.