Punctuation Marks as Discourse Structure Indicators Used by Iraqi EFL Learners

Abstract

Lexical, punctuation and graphical markers represent the interdependent systems in language texts to indicate the structure of discourse. This study concerns with punctuation marks which are an integral part in the written phase of discourse. Punctuations are tools supporting the writers/ the readers to disambiguate the sentence meaning and confusion and to make reading be easier. The aim of the study is to investigate the most frequent use of punctuation marks utilized by the Iraqi EFL learners. Also, it is to make a comparison between Iraqi male and female EFL learners in the use of punctuation marks based on the accuracy and frequency to unravel the most frequent use in the monthly test of writing essays regarding punctuations as a part of written system. The data of the study are random samples of 30 students' essays in the 3rd stage/ Department of English in College of Education for Humanities, University of Anbar. The results of the study, relying on the frequency and the percentage scales for each punctuation marks have shown that the most frequent uses of punctuation marks are capital letters, full stops, commas and apostrophe consecutively. In addition, the accuracy and frequency levels between the two genders are variable from one mark to another. In other words, the Iraqi female EFL learners are more accurate than males in this aspect.