A Corpus-based Study on the Use of Pragmatic Markers as Speech-like Features in Turkish EFL Learners’ Argumentative Essays

Authentic learner data is important when investigating the use of the target language by learners during second language acquisition process. Whether it is written or spoken, corpus-based learner data provides an explanation for how learners actually use a foreign language and serves as a relatively narrow empirical basis that second language acquisition research tends to be based on. Analysing learner data has two main goals: to help researchers to better understand the second language acquisition process and to highlight the factors that influence this process (Granger, 2008, ). Gilquin & Paquot (2007) state that many learners use features more typical of speech than of writing, giving their essays an overly oral tone that may be problematic for learners, as academic writing requires an awareness of the appropriate stylistic use of tone. According to Aijmer (2004), learners may overuse or underuse certain structures in their writing in comparison with native speakers. Pragmatic markers are linguistic features that are more peculiar to conversation than writing, for instance well, you know, I think, etc. and learners may mistakenly include them in their academic writing. This study examines the pragmatic markers in the written text of Turkish English as foreign language (EFL) learners. The study's aim is to analyse the learners’ use of speech-like features when writing an academic essay. In addition, it is important to investigate whether or not learners overuse or underuse such features when compared to native speakers. Data were gathered from three corpora: the Turkish Corpus of Learner English, the Japanese Corpus of Learner English, and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. Frequency counts and log-likelihood calculations were utilized as quantitative methods to measure the overuse/underuse and to determine whether the possible differences are statistically significant. The results indicated that Turkish EFL learners tend to use oral features in their argumentative essays, which may negatively influence their writing in terms of a stylistically appropriate tone.