Cohesive Devices in CMC Texts Produced by American and Korean EFL Writers = Cohesive Devices in CMC Texts Produced by American and Korean EFL Writers

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study presents a comparative analysis of cohesive devices employed in computer-mediated communication (CMC) texts of native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English. Specifically, the study focuses on the five categories of cohesive devices including reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical devices in CMC texts jointly created by Korean EFL learners and American college-level students in an intercultural CMC project. The purpose of this study is to determine the specific differences and similarities in the uses of such cohesion devices in a NS and NNS corpus of 161 CMC texts. This study also aims to identify common features and errors produced by NNSs by using samples of NSs for comparison. The analysis of common cohesive devices in NS and NNS CMC texts indicates that NNSs employ certain cohesive devices (conjunction and lexical cohesion) at significantly higher frequency rates than do NSs. It also indicates that Korean EFL learners rely on a restricted repertoire of cohesive features as well as displaying misuses of some cohesive devices in constructing CMC texts. Based on the results of the study, teaching implications for L2 writing are presented. (Chonnam National University)