A Comparative Analysis of Conjunctions in Ph.D. Dissertations by Spanish, Turkish, and English Researchers

Abstract

In academic writing, conjunctions are crucial because they promote coherence, cohesion, and logical connections between ideas. The current study scrutinizes the frequencies of the ten most widespread B2 level conjunctions in the British Academic Written English Corpus as found in published PhD theses written in the English Language Teaching field by native English, native Turkish, and native Spanish researchers. The aim of this comparative study is to learn more about the similarities and differences in conjunction usage among researchers with various linguistic backgrounds. The comparison of English language users with Turkish and Spanish researchers is a novel feature of this study. A plausible dataset of published PhD dissertations was subjected to a corpus-based analysis in order to identify and quantify the frequencies of the target conjunctions. The results of this study offer insightful information on how researchers with various linguistic backgrounds use conjunctions at the B2 level in academic writing. The findings aid in the comprehension of language transfer effects and could provide researchers and language educators with information on potential language-specific difficulties faced by non-native English speakers while writing academically. The study also gives information on how native language influences conjunction usage, laying the groundwork for future studies in contrastive linguistics and second language teaching.