Cohesive conjunctions in the English writing of Cantonese speaking students from Hong Kong
Student writers in Hong Kong have a distinctive style in ordering their thoughts for academic essay assignments which consists of frequent prefacing of their points with cohesive conjunctions. Applied linguists in Hong Kong have studied this use of conjunction to ascertain how it differs from native speaker use, to gauge the extent to which teaching, textbooks and transfer are influential and to analyse the extent of misuse and unnecessary use. This work is reviewed with close attention to Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesion theory and further research directions and teaching implications are presented in the light of this theory.
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