A Corpus-based Study on the Use of Conjunctions in Thai Japanese Learners’ Essays

Abstract

This research aims to study and compare the use of conjunctions in the essays of Thai Japanese learners and native Japanese. The data analyzed in this study was collected from the I-JAS corpus language archives. The study found that the use of conjunctions in essays by Thai learners is both similar and different to that of Japanese native speakers. Regardling similarities, Thai learners use the conjunction ‘shikashi’ ‘mata’ and ‘soshite’ as often as apanese native speakers. This may be because the data in this study are largely focused on the description of fast food and homemade food. Therefore, the participants use these conjuctions in order to form comparisons about the pros and cons, adding information, and explaining their reasoning. Regarding differences, Thai learners use more conjunctions like ‘soreni’ and ‘dakara’ in their essays compared to the essays of Japanese native speakers who use less conjunctions. This may be because native Japanese speakers understand the use of ‘soreni’ requires a connecting point between front-ended body text. For the conjunction ‘dakara’, it is primarily a spoken word. The native Japanese rarely use it in writing. Moreover, the research found that Thai Japanese learners overuse unnecessary conjuctions and they also omit necessary ones.