<p>Adverbial connectors join together sentences and units in a text to signal logical relations. Appropriately used, they can help the reader to make sense of the text. The usage of adverbial connectors can create problems for foreign language learners, and is often shown as under- , over- and misuse of connectors. In this study, a quantitative analysis of connector usage of advanced EFL learners’ and native speakers’ student writing is presented. For the current corpus-based study, three sub-corpora of the SUSEC (<em>Stockholm University Student English Corpus</em>) were chosen. The sample includes 164 linguistic essays from students at Stockholm University and 82 linguistic essays from students at King’s College in London. The analysis, where the learners’ connector usage is compared to that of native speakers, is based on 69 connectors. The results show that both the learners and the native speakers rely on a rather small set of these connectors in their writing. As a group, the advanced Swedish EFL learners underuse connectors in their written production. Additionally, the learners significantly overuse 12 and underuse 6 connectors. Similarities between the learners and the native speakers were found in the positioning of the connectors. Both groups prefer the most frequently used connectors in the medial position of a sentence, and prefer mostly the same set of connectors in the different positions of a sentence, although some differences in the positioning were also found. The findings create a basis for future research where a qualitative analysis of the connector usage could be carried out in order to increase knowledge of the interlanguage of the learners. The findings could also be used for pedagogical purposes.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>Translation is not an easy task. There is a plethora of problems and difficulties which needs to be tackled in the process of translating a text from one language to another. This analysis concentrates on three of them – terminology, connectors and cultural aspects. The study is based on the Swedish translation of an English text concerning the medical and ritual use of chocolate in ancient Native American cultures as well as in Europe during the colonial era. The main problem encountered in the translation of this text was how to generalize it so it would suit the Swedish public but still maintain the level of formality of the source text. The specialized terminology found belongs to the fields of medicine and botany and these terms were often explained or replaced with more common words. A couple of the cultural aspects were also explained, since, for example, the cultural area Mesoamerica may not be known to the target readers unless they are knowledgeable in anthropology or archaeology. This made the target text somewhat less formal than the original so, to compensate, the translation of the adverbial connectors however and thus were on occasion translated with the more formal Swedish emellertid and således.</p>

Adverbial connectors join together sentences and units in a text to signal logical relations. Appropriately used, they can help the reader to make sense of the text. The usage of adverbial connectors can create problems for foreign language learners, and is often shown as under- , over- and misuse of connectors. In this study, a quantitative analysis of connector usage of advanced EFL learners’ and native speakers’ student writing is presented. For the current corpus-based study, three sub-corpora of the SUSEC (Stockholm University Student English Corpus) were chosen. The sample includes 164 linguistic essays from students at Stockholm University and 82 linguistic essays from students at King’s College in London. The analysis, where the learners’ connector usage is compared to that of native speakers, is based on 69 connectors. The results show that both the learners and the native speakers rely on a rather small set of these connectors in their writing. As a group, the advanced Swedish EFL learners underuse connectors in their written production. Additionally, the learners significantly overuse 12 and underuse 6 connectors. Similarities between the learners and the native speakers were found in the positioning of the connectors. Both groups prefer the most frequently used connectors in the medial position of a sentence, and prefer mostly the same set of connectors in the different positions of a sentence, although some differences in the positioning were also found. The findings create a basis for future research where a qualitative analysis of the connector usage could be carried out in order to increase knowledge of the interlanguage of the learners. The findings could also be used for pedagogical purposes.

Abstract Translation is not an easy task. There is a plethora of problems and difficulties which needs to be tackled in the process of translating a text from one language to another. This analysis concentrates on three of them – terminology, connectors and cultural aspects. The study is based on the Swedish translation of an English text concerning the medical and ritual use of chocolate in ancient Native American cultures as well as in Europe during the colonial era. The main problem encountered in the translation of this text was how to generalize it so it would suit the Swedish public but still maintain the level of formality of the source text. The specialized terminology found belongs to the fields of medicine and botany and these terms were often explained or replaced with more common words. A couple of the cultural aspects were also explained, since, for example, the cultural area Mesoamerica may not be known to the target readers unless they are knowledgeable in anthropology or archaeology. This made the target text somewhat less formal than the original so, to compensate, the translation of the adverbial connectors however and thus were on occasion translated with the more formal Swedish emellertid and således.