Finally, some cross-linguistic using parallel written texts in chinese and English (Yan 1985) reveals that in written texts that deal with the same topic and that are of approximately the same length. Chinese uses one-third fewer relative clause than English. The difference is particularly significant in view of the fact that Chinese exhibits a structural diversity similar to English in its inventory of relative clauses types. This suggests that Chinese and English nay use relative clauses for discourse functions. Making it all the more imperative that ESL/EFL teachers present relative clauses to learners in rich and clearly defined discourse contexts rather than simply at the sentence level.