Abstract
The ability to use discourse markers (DMs) to create cohesion and coherence of a text is essential for EFL learners at the university level to express ideas and thoughts in various types of writing assignments, such as academic papers and reflections. Hence, this study attempted to shed more light on the use of DMs in academic and non-academic writings of Thai EFL learners. The main objective was to investigate the types, overall frequency, and differences, and similarities of discourse markers in both styles of writing. Sixty essays, consisting of 20 academic essays and 40 non-academic ones, were selected as the primary data. Academic essays were selected from the Critical Reading and Writing course of Xavier Learning Community (XLC), Thailand, while the non-academic ones were selected from the XLC English Newsletter. The data were analyzed based on Fraser’s taxonomy (2009). The results showed that 2.521 DMs distributed in five types, namely contrastive discourse, elaborative discourse, inferential discourse, temporal discourse, and spoken discourse markers, were identified in the 20 academic and 40 non-academic essays. The most frequently used DM was elaborative discourse markers (EDM), F=1,703. This study concluded that raising awareness of DMs would assist Thai EFL learners in producing an effective and coherent piece of writing.
Highlights
From 20 academic essays and 40 non-academic essays written by Thai EFL learners in this study, five discourse markers (DMs) were identified, namely contrastive discourse, elaborative discourse, inferential discourse, temporal discourse, and spoken discourse markers
It is worth noting that the findings above showed reconfirmation of some other studies (Kusumayati, 2020; Modhish, 2012; Rahimi, 2011; Semahat, 2017; Tadayyon & Farahani, 2017) which discovered that elaborative discourse markers were dominantly employed by their participants
The marker ‘’ in example [23] was used to emphasize the statement that what he or she said was definitely true. The results of this present study indicated that 60 essays produced by the Thai EFL learners at the Xavier Learning Community presented the ‘superiority’ of four categories of DMs in academic writing (F=1.524) over the non-academic writing (F=997), except for Temporal Discourse Markers (TDMs) that were employed more frequently in the non-academic essays
Summary
As a cognitive process that requires a writer to generate ideas and thoughts and position them together into a text (Nunan, 2003), has been commonly recognized by numerous scholars as a demanding task for ESL and EFL learners (Ab Manan & Raslee, 2017; Aidinlou & Mehr, 2012; Arindra & Ardi, 2020; Asprillia & Hardjanto, 2020; Dülger, 2007; Modhish, 2012; Norrish, 1983; Prasetyawati & Ardi, 2020; Sharndama & Yakubu, 2013; Tadayyon & Farahani, 2017) for the reason that they need to “draw upon different grammatical, cognitive, and communicative knowledge” (Tadayyon & Farahani, 2017, p. 133). In line with Prommas and Sinwongsuwat (2011), even English native speakers judge writing as the most problematical language skill among the four because of various essential components, such as word choices, grammatical errors, and overall organization patterns (Dumlao & Wilang, 2019), need to be considered by writers. Academic and non-academic writings have different styles, and both are fundamental for all EFL learners. Despite the differences, both writing types are essential because they serve different and specific purposes (Al-Khazraji, 2019). Non-academic writing is more personal, emotional, and subjective. In other words, it is “a kind of individual text in which writers think, feel or believe in something” It is written in an informal tone and not intended for an academic audience
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