BOOK OF ABSTRACTS & PROCEEDINGS 8 th International Conference on Narrative and Language Studies Karadeniz Technical University, May 2-3, 2019, Trabzon, Turkey http://conference.nalans.org ISBN: 978-605-031-979-8 13 The Use of Adverbial Connectors in Academic Writings of Native and Non-native Speakers 1 Ali Şükrü ÖZBAY Faculty of Letters, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey ozbay@ktu.edu.tr Tuncer AYDEMİR Faculty of Letters, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey tunceraydemir@ktu.edu.tr Aleyna YILMAZ PEKTAŞ Faculty of Letters, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey alynaylmz_1905@hotmail.com Abstract It is a well-known fact that among the most problematic issues in academic writing for EFL learners, there lies the use of adverbial connectors, which present complexity in different levels of meaning. In fact, the probable conflicting situations in the use of adverbial connectors both in native and non-native students' academic productions has been investigated widely all over the world so far. With this purpose in mind, investigating adverbials in learner English through native and non-native corpora, the present study aimed to compare the most distinguishing adverbial usages as well as the overuse and underuse patterns in native and non-native corpora. The two academic written corpora employed for this purpose which included “British Academic Written English” (BAWE) and “Karadeniz Technical University Corpus of Academic Learner English” (KTUCALE), which were designed according to strict design criteria. In the analysis of the corpus data, Sketch Engine online interface was used, and the obtained findings were presented in numerical order in the form of tables, figures and graphics. Initial findings indicated strong overuse and underuse patterns in the use of adverbials between the two corpora. There were various but limited number of adverbials employed in non- native corpus data. Findings also indicated that native corpora significantly differed from the non-native corpus in the use of certain adverbials. Keywords Adverbial connectors, academic writing, EFL learners, native speakers, corpus, BAWE, KTUCALE. Full-Text Introduction Coherence and clarity are the most important elements for a well-written essay. It is possible to mark the connections between two clauses by using adverbial connectors. These also ensure better understanding in written a text. Hartnett (1986) states that the more connectives are used wisely and properly the more they are such a good helper in a text, but if not, they may cause confusion. Connectors also have a positive effect on the clarity and comprehensibility of discourse (Tapper, 2005, p.80). Biber et al （1999) observe that the primary function of adverbial connectors is to state the speaker/writer’s perception of the relationship between two units of discourse and to help to create textual cohesion (cited in Yaochen, 2006, p.32). However, several studies 1 1 The paper has been presented at the ICRAL Conference 2019, Konya, Turkey.