Published: 2001-01-25
ISBN:
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
The aim of the present study is to describe how the explicit connections between sentences in a paragraph and between paragraphs are used by two different writer groups. The material consists of 54 essays in Swedish; half of which were written by students with Finnish as their mother tongue; the other half by students with Swedish as their mother tongue. The students were asked to write a short newspaper article based on 23 given facts; referred to as information units.
About 35 % of the explicit connections consist of those between sentences in a paragraph and between paragraphs; so they are much more uncommon than those within a sentence. The two writer groups use the connections in quite a similar way. The only differences between the groups can be seen in the way they use thematisation. The Swedish-speaking writers use more often this type of connection in their essays than the Finnish-speaking writers. One reason for this is probably the lack of a construction like this in Finnish. However; there are notable individual differences within the writer groups. Some writers hardly use any connections of this type at all; while some use them so much that it feels disturbing.
