A Corpus-based Study of Chinese EFL Learners’ Employment of although

Although is a frequently used subordinating conjunction in English. However, non-nativeness is often observed in Chinese EFL learners’ although output during pedagogical practice. This paper aims at exploring the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’ although employment in Chinese EFL learners’ writing. The study is a corpus-based analysis launched under the analytical framework of contrastive interlanguage analysis. The interlanguage hypothesis lays the theoretical foundation of the present study. Texts from two corpora—the Chinese learner English corpus [CLEC] and the “arts and humanities” disciplinary group of the British academic written English corpus [sub-BAWEC]—are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively with the help of concordance software Antconc 3.2.1 and statistics program PASW Statistics 18. Based on the findings, conclusions are drawn as follows: 1) Chinese EFL learners tend to underuse although and produce mono-structural although clauses in their writing. Nevertheless, they share similar preference on deciding although placement in clauses with native English speakers; and 2) Factors such as interlingual difference between English and Mandarin Chinese, pedagogical neglect in English classrooms and different cognitive styles influence Chinese EFL learners’ although employment.