O UPORABI ADITIVNIH KONEKTORA U NJEMAČKOM I ENGLESKOM KAO STRANIM JEZICIMA
ON THE USE OF ADDITIVE CONNECTIVES IN GERMAN AND ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Summary/Abstract: One of the main goals of foreign language instruction is the development of writing skills. In order for texts in a foreign language to be written clearly and appropriately, it is necessary to master the various ways in which cohesive devices are used. Explicit cohesive devices include coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions and adverbial connectors. Previous research has shown that the use of connectives in second language (L2) writing is characterized by limited variation, often accompanied by overuse, underuse, or inappropriate use of specific connectives (e.g., Granger & Tyson, 1996; Bagarić Medve & Pavičić Takač, 2013; Pon & Kramarić, 2017; Breindl, 2018; Maamuujav et al., 2021; Bagarić Medve & Karlak, 2023; Pon, 2024; Karlak & Šarić Šokčević, 2024a). Studies also show that additive connectives are the most frequently used type in texts written by learners of German and English as foreign languages (e.g., Mihaljević Djigunović & Vickov, 2010; Mohamed-Sayidina, 2010; Muddhi & Hussein, 2014; Breindl, 2016; Pon & Kramarić, 2017; Bagarić Medve & Karlak, 2023; Karlak & Šarić Šokčević, 2024a). The aim of this study is to analyze how Croatian students of German and English express additive semantic relations between sentences and to identify which connectives they use most frequently, as well as the types of errors they make. The corpus comprises a total of 120 argumentative essays, 60 of which constitute the German L2 subcorpus and 60 the English L2 subcorpus, all written at the B2 level according to the CEFR. The results show that German studies students use additive connectives in argumentative writing more frequently than English studies students, while also making considerably more errors, especially syntactic ones.

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