A multi-corpus approach to the placement of however: Nativeness vs expertise

While in recent years, many studies have been devoted to the frequency of connectors in second-language (L2) writing, the issue of connector placement has received scant attention. In this study we focus on the highly frequent and mobile connector however to identify L2 learners’ placement preferences. The study aims to contribute to the current debate around the notions of nativeness/non-nativeness and expertise/noviceness, and for this purpose relies on three corpora that differ in terms of nativeness and expertise. The results show that novice writers with English as a first language (L1) are not significantly different from novice writers from other L1s, both populations favouring initial positioning of however, while expert writers display more flexible positioning.