Making logical-semantic relations in science writing: Korean graduate students’ use of relative clauses in science and engineering journal papers

Abstract

This study presents how English relative clauses are used in original, pre-published manuscripts written by Korean science and engineering graduate students and junior researchers. Relative clauses promote semantic clarity and syntactic maturity but they are one of the most difficult grammatical features for non-native learners due to L1 interference, their diverse functions, and forms unique to the English language. With pedagogical purposes in mind, this research aims to explore how relative clauses used by Korean science and engineering graduate students and junior researchers differ from those used in leading science and engineering journal papers in terms of their frequency, structure, and distinctive attributes. A 536,575 word corpus based on 155 manuscripts has revealed a low frequency of nonrestrictive relative clauses and '(,) preposition + which' structure. This study has also highlighted several types of inappropriate uses of relative clauses and made comparisons between those and others identified in published papers of CELL, JACS, and IEEE. Some pedagogical suggestions are provided to help non-native science and engineering graduate students and junior researchers use English relative clauses in more suitable and acceptable ways within their respective discourse communities.