چکیده:
While several researchers have studied discourse markers to determine their roles in language skills, still research needs to address these devices in relation to second language learners writing proficiency Hence, the present study had two main goals: identifying the usage of discourse markers used in Iranian writing compositions without instruction, and describing how treatment of discourse markers functions in learners’ writing.. Participants in this study were 60 upper-intermediate and intermediate learners studying English as the second language at Safir, Qazvin branch. Descriptive composition writing was assigned to students to write on the topics, selected by the researchers and based on Fraser's (1990, 1999) taxonomy of discourse markers. The results indicate that within the explorative section, with the proficiency level rising, the frequency and the type of the discourse markers used subconsciously without the treatment rise. At the same time, the treatment and discourse marker awareness among the learners can be of significant value in both the quality and quantity of discourse markers. Of course, the type of the treatment must be adjusted to the proficiency level of the learners. This is in keeping with the previous research that reported a positive impact of instruction of DMs on success in language writing (Feng, 2010).
خلاصه ماشینی:
"DMs have been investigated in classroom oral discourse (Hays, 1992), informal settings (Lee, 1999; Muller, 2004; Trillo, 2002), reading (Abdullah Zadeh, 2006; Jalilifar & Alipour, 2007), lectures (Dailey-O’Cain, 2000; Perez & Macia, 2002), academic genres (Abdi, 2002; Blagojevic, 2003; Bunton, 1999; Longo, 1994; Mauranen, 1993; Ventola & Mauranen, 1993), and student writings (Connor, 1984; Field & Yip, 1992; Intraprawat & Steffensen, 1995; Johns, 1984; Johnson, 1992; Karasi, 1994; Norment, 1994; Steffensen & Cheng, 1996).
And Steffensen and Cheng (1996) analyzed texts written by students who worked on the propositional content of their essays and were taught using a process approach and students who concentrated on the pragmatic functions of DMs by enjoying direct teaching of DMs. In most of these studies,results have shown that conjuncts were overused and lexical cohesion was moderately used by native speakers (Johns, 1984), that non-native students of English used more conjunctions than Australian students did, (Field & Yip, 1992), that there was a difference between text types in the use of cohesive devices (Norment, 1994), that differences between essays that received good ratings and essays that received poor ratings were found in the number of words, T-units, and density of DMs (Intraprawat & Steffensen, 1995), and that students receiving direct instruction on DMs used them more effectively and also became more sensitive to their readers’ needs thereby making global changes that improved their papers (Steffensen & Cheng, 1996).
The present study, then, reports on the use of discourse markers in academic compositions of Iranian students at upper- intermediate level of language proficiency taking a more bottom- up and mixed process-product view."