A Corpus Linguistic Study on the Use of However in British Academic Spoken and Written English

Year 2018, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 31 - 62, 17.12.2018

Yelda Orhon , Demet Kulaç Püren Emine Güzel

Abstract

Corpus studies shed light on academic discourse
in terms of genre, lexicon, and grammar. In order to expand grammatical
knowledge, this corpus-based study takes as an evidence based approach and
focuses on however, a single adverb reported as being one of the most commonly
used linking adverbials in academic discourse, and analyses the uses of however
in British academic spoken and written English. Analysis of British Academic
Written English (BAWE) and British Academic Spoken English (BASE) Corpus provided
comprehensive linguistic information on the use of linking adverbial however in
terms of its frequency, positional distribution in clauses, collocations and
clusters. The findings indicated that contrary to common  pedagogic academic writing and English as a
Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) grammar
books,  however has various functions in
British academic English. Furthermore, usages of however differ in written and
spoken academic discourse. 

Keywords

however, conjunction, academic discourse, BAWE, BASE, EAP

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