Hong Kong and Singaporean students are more formal in tone than L1 and Thai students when using adversative and resultive connectives¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
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This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? When using adversative, causal or resultive DCs, L1 and Thai students are more informal than Hong Kong and Singaporean students, who favour formal forms such as however, nevertheless and hence. → Hu 2015
Evidence¶
Hu 2015¶
Hu, C., & Li, Y. (2015). Discourse Connectives in L1 and L2 Argumentative Writing. Higher Education Studies. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v5n4p30
q2 · i? · the article prints no effect size for this finding · associational · r2
Frequency comparison of formal versus informal adversative and resultive DCs across sub-corpora (Section 4.2.3). The article reports the same trend for so (149 times in L1) versus therefore (40 times), and notes Singaporean students use the formal hence frequently whereas it does not occur in L1 and Thai essays.
"the more formal adversative connective however occurs only 48 times whereas its informal equivalent but occurs 178 times in L1 writers’ essays. In sharp contrast, but occurs only 49 times whereas however occurs 129 times in essays written by Singaporean students."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Hong Kong students overuse enumerating, resultive and summative discourse connectives relative to L1, Singaporean and Thai writers — related
- Thai students overuse the causal connective because, a pattern the article attributes to L1 influence — related
- L1 and L2 writers share a core set of high-frequency connectives but with strikingly different frequencies, and is nearly three times more frequent in L1 essays — related
- L2 writers tend to overuse more discourse connectives than they underuse, and both L1 and L2 students have a limited range of DCs at their disposal — related
- Hong Kong and Singaporean L2 students underuse discourse connectives overall compared with L1 writers, while Thai students do not differ significantly — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
hk-sin-formal-tone-adversative-resultive |
title |
Hong Kong and Singaporean students are more formal in tone than L1 and Thai students when using adversative and resultive connectives |
description |
Hong Kong and Singaporean students are more formal in tone than L1 and Thai students when using adversative and resultive connectives |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2015 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-09-26 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — hu-2015 |
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