Cohesive devices as an indicator of L2 students' writing fluency

Author(s):  
Yu Tian ◽  
Minkyung Kim ◽  
Scott Crossley ◽  
Qian Wan
SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110321
Author(s):  
Hesham Suleiman Alyousef

This qualitative study examined multimodal cohesive devices in English oral biology texts by eight high-achieving Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language students enrolled in a Bachelor of Science Dentistry program. A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) of the textual and logical cohesive devices in oral biology texts was conducted, employing Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion analysis scheme. The findings showed that students used varied cohesive devices: lexical cohesion, followed by reference and conjunctions. Although ellipsis was minimally employed in the oral biology texts, its discipline-specific uses emerged: the use of bullet points and numbered lists that facilitate recall. The SF-MDA of cohesion in multimodal semiotic resources highlighted the processes underlying construction of conceptual and linguistic knowledge of cohesive devices in oral biology texts. The results indicate that oral biology discourse is interdisciplinary, including a number of subfields in biology. The SF-MDA of pictorial oral biology representations indicates that they include instances of cohesive devices that illustrate and complement verbal texts. The results indicate that undergraduate students need to be provided with a variety of multimodal high-cohesion texts so that they can successfully extend underlying conceptual and logical meaning-making relations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (9) ◽  
pp. 1343-1353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Onofre de Lira ◽  
Thaís Soares Cianciarullo Minett ◽  
Paulo Henrique Ferreira Bertolucci ◽  
Karin Zazo Ortiz

ABSTRACTIntroduction:Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a degenerative syndrome that impairs cognitive functioning, including speech and language. Discourse can be used to analyze language processing, which is organized into microlinguistic and macrolinguistic dimensions.Objectives:To identify the occurrence of changes in the macrolinguistic dimension of oral discourse in AD patients. Design: This was developed as a cross-sectional study. Setting: Outpatient clinic of the Behavioural Neurology Division of São Paulo Federal University.Participants:121 elderly patients, with ≥ 4 years of education, divided into AD and comparison groups.Measurements:The subjects were asked to create a narrative based on seven figures that made up a story. The macrolinguistic aspects of the narratives were analyzed.Results:The performance of the AD group was inferior to that of the comparison group on content-related, no-content-related complete and incomplete propositions as well as macropropositions, main information units, appropriated local and global coherence, cohesive devices and all subtypes, cohesive errors and some of their subtypes. Global coherence, macropropositions and ellipsis subtype of cohesive devices were the variables that best differentiated the groups.Conclusions:Changes were observed in most aspects of the macrolinguistic dimension of oral discourse in patients with AD.


2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Arhire

Formal links are naturally associated with cohesion as one of the main features of discourse. Cohesion has been extensively discussed in the literature especially in terms of the mechanisms generating it, but also in terms of its equivalence in translation. As with any type of discourse, the communicative value of translated texts is enhanced by their cohesive texture. Less attention has been granted to the translation of formal links carrying additional functions though. This study examines some cohesive devices in student translations with a special focus on the translatability of ellipsis, substitution and reference when they are enriched with stylistic, sociolectal and rhetorical values. The study is based on a translational learner corpus consisting of Romanian graduate students’ translations of a short story from English into Romanian. The methodology for assessing and analyzing the learner corpus is of both quantitative and qualitative nature and employs simplification, explicitation and neutralization. The conclusions comprise insights into some problematic areas in the trainees’ translations, as well as observations related to contrastive aspects of cohesive devices between English and Romanian. A teaching methodology is subsequently derived from the findings in an attempt to offer a more comprehensive approach to the pedagogy of translating cohesive devices with stylistic load.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 515
Author(s):  
Emi Emilia ◽  
Nurfitri Habibi ◽  
Lungguh Ariang Bangga

The paper reports on the results of a study aiming to investigate the cohesion of exposition texts written by eleventh graders of a school in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The study used a qualitative case study research design, especially text analysis, involving 32 students. In the interest of space, the paper will present the data obtained from six texts written by 6 students, representing low, mid, and high achievers. The texts were analyzed using systemic functional linguistics (SFL), especially in terms of schematic structure and linguistic features, especially those contributing to the cohesion of the texts, such as Theme progression and cohesive devices. The results show that all texts show students’ grasp and understanding of the schematic structure of an exposition, including thesis, argument, and restatement of the thesis. All texts also successfully use the zig-zag and the Theme reiteration patterns, which indicate the students’ emerging capacity to create a text with cohesion at the clause level. However, only texts written by high achievers employ the multiple Theme pattern, indicating the students’ emerging capacity to create a text with better sense of connectedness, unity, and flow of information at the global level. High achiever texts also employ discourse features which allow the reader to predict how the text will unfold and guide them to a line of understanding of a text as a whole. Moreover, in terms of cohesive devices, all texts use some simple cohesive devices—reference, lexical cohesion, and conjunction. It should be mentioned that all texts are rudimentary with some inappropriate word choices and grammatical problems. This suggests that the students still needed more guidance and time to do research on the topic in focus, to go through the process of writing as professional do, to allow them to create a better text with more elaboration and characteristics of written language with consistency and accuracy. It is recommended that further research on different perspectives and foci of analysis of different text types using systemic functional linguistics, with more representative samples, and studies on the teaching of writing be conducted.


2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (01) ◽  
pp. 51-62
Author(s):  
Ratnasari Nugraheni ◽  
Keyword(s):  

ELT in Focus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
Hanif Nurcholish Adiantika

This study aims to investigate the use of lexical cohesion in students’ expository texts. It reveals thetypes of lexical cohesion employed by the students in their expository texts and the contribution oflexical cohesion to the text’ cohesion. This study employs qualitative research by using a case studydesign. Nine students of twelfth grade in a public senior high school in Kuningan regent, West Java,are chosen as the participants. The data in this study include the documents of students’ expositorytexts. The data are analyzed by using the concept of cohesive devices proposed by Halliday andHasan (1976). The findings show that there are two lexical cohesions identified in nine students’expository texts i.e. reiteration (covering i.e. antonymy, repetition, synonymy, meronymy, andhyponymy) and collocation. This study also indicates that lexical cohesion contribute to the processof keeping track of the participants and engaging the readers to the core argument of the text.Moreover, it can be stated that the contribution of lexical cohesion towards students’ expositorytexts is considered low. Therefore, there must be an encouragement for the students to use properlexical cohesion to make their text more cohesive.


Author(s):  
Siti Sulastri

The main objectives of the research are: (1) to identify whether pictures can improve students’ paragraph writing skill for the tenth graders of Senior High School in SMAN 1 Magetan; (2) to identify the students’s motivation when the pictures are used to teach paragraph writing skill for the tenth graders of Senior High School in SMAN 1 Magetan in academic year 2018/2019. The Research was carried out at SMAN 1 Magetan, East Java, in second semester from January 2019 to May 2019. The subjects of the research are 34 students of grade X. MIPA -1 consisting of 14 boys and 20 girls. The data were obtained from several techniques: test, observation, interview, questioners, and document analysis. To analyze the qualitative data, I used interactive model; while to analyze quantitative data, I applied a descriptive statistics. It is done by comparing the mean of pre-test and post-test. There are some findings of the research which include: pictures can improve students’ paragraph writing skill for the tenth graders of Senior High School in SMAN 1 Magetan. The improvements of paragraph writing skill comprise: (1) writing topic sentence; (2) writing supporting sentences; and (3) using correct grammar and cohesive devices (conjunctions). In addition, the students’ motivation is better when the pictures are used to teach paragraph writing skill for the tenth graders of Senior High School in SMAN 1 Magetan. Based on the result of the research, it can be concluded that applying pictures as media can improve students’ paragraph writing. Therefore, it is recommended that the teachers can use pictures as an effective media to improve the students’ paragraph writing skill.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Qingxin Chen

<p>Due to the effect of many years of traditional teaching methods, College English writing teaching pays too much attention to grammar and equivalence at word or clause level, but ignores cohesion and coherence of the text as a unified whole. This paper mainly studies the problems concerning cohesion and coherence that most students in Ordos Institute of Technology(OIT) face in writing, reasons, and ways to help students exploit cohesive devices properly to ensure the coherence of the text and improve their writings.</p>


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