Usage of English speech like expressions in Turkish students' written works

Abstract

The present study investigates the usage of speech like expressions in written works of Turkish learners of English. It also aims to find out the differences between advanced and intermediate level learners in terms of the frequency and types of speech like expressions. Speech like expressions were identified based on previous literature. To illustrate some of them, Tannen (1984) claimed that spoken language includes the usage of but, and, so, and because instead of more formal expressions such as in addition, therefore, and since. In addition, Cullen and Kuo (2007) indicated that phrasal chunks such as sort of, kind of, stuff like that, and I mean are also regarded as a feature of spoken English. The participants in this study were 21 intermediate and 33 advanced level students at a state university in Turkey. For this study, students' writing assignments were collected. For the frequency analysis, manual counting of the words was used. For the types of speech like expressions, the data were divided into different groups of speech like expressions based on the framework of previous studies. The analysis of the data showed that intermediate level learners use speech like expressions much more commonly than advanced level learners. In addition, there were also some differences in terms of the types of the speech like expressions used by advanced and intermediate level learners.