A corpus-based study on the conjunction types in the ma theses of the Turkish speakers and the native speakers of English in the field of elt

The aim of this study is to examine the similarities and the differences of conjunction types between the Turkish speakers (TSs) of English and the Native speakers (NSs) of English in the field of ELT. This study focuses on the question of whether the types of conjunctions in the introduction and conclusion sections of the MA theses written by the Turkish speakers (TSs) of English and the Native speakers (NSs) of English indicate any difference in the field of ELT. On the other hand, the primary goal of the present corpus-based study is to investigate the frequencies of the English conjunctions in the non-native corpora and the native corpora. Key Word in Context (KWIC) and Log-likelihood (LL) programmes are used to analyse the collected data. In this study conjunction types are analysed as percentage and frequency of occurrence per 1,000 words and also these conjunction types are interpreted by calculating probability levels to discover whether there is any frequency–based difference between the Turkish speakers (TSs) of English and the Native speakers (NSs) of English MA theses, and if so, to analyse the nature of these differences. Also, the second phase of the study aims at categorizing conjunctions used by both groups. According to the results of this present study NSs generally overuse conjunction types in their MA theses. It was found that, cohesive devices are underused by TSs in writing.