The aim of this research is, through a general comparison between learners’ corpora and NSs’ corpora, to probe into the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners with regard to their use of linking adverbials in speaking and writing, and give a detailed description about the non-nativeness that the learners demonstrate in the use of linking adverbials. In this research, we mainly adopt learner corpus based approach. This research has been conducted through three steps. The first step is to find out the related corpora. The corpora used in this study contain two parts, namely, the learner corpora (CLEC and COLSEC) and the native speakers’ corpora (LLC and LOCNESS). Second, with the aid of MicroConcord, we search the linking adverbials one by one in the four corpora respectively, and get the normalized frequencies and the context information. The final step is data processing and multifold analyses. We carry out a contrastive study on the individual linking adverbials used by the two groups through investigating the frequencies and the context information and try to find out the differences. It is found: (1) Chinese EFL learners have shown an overall overusing tendency in using linking adverbials in their speaking and writing. (2) Despite the general overusing tendency, Chinese EFL learners display two opposite tendencies in the use of corroborative adverbials in different registers. Namely, they overuse the corroborative linking adverbials in their speaking, but underuse them in their writing. (3) Chinese EFL learners demonstrate a different pattern of writing-speaking difference as the NSs do in the use of linking adverbials, i.e., they tend to use more linking adverbials in their speaking than they do in their writing; conversely, NSs use more linking adverbials in their writing than they do in their speaking. (4) The results have shown that the factors which contributing to Chinese EFL learners’ use of linking adverbials are multifold, such as mother tongue transfer, pedagogical instructions, stylistic awareness, semantic understanding, pragmatic considerations. The implications of this research for EFL learning and teaching are also discussed.