scholarly journals The Usage of Cohesive Devices by High-Achieving EFL Students in Writing Argumentative Essays

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-58
Author(s):  
Andri Saputra ◽  
M. Arif Rahman Hakim
Keyword(s):  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Good Writing ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
High Achieving ◽  
Argumentative Essays

This study aims to investigate types of cohesive devices frequently used in writing argumentative essays by high-achieving college students in Indonesia and to analyse their awareness of usage of these. Participants were asked to write an essay on a pre-determined topic; analysis was then conducted to investigate the most frequent cohesive devices used. Data on the second study question, understanding of the usage of cohesive devices, were gathered though semi-structured interviews. The data indicate that students effectively used various types of grammatical cohesive devices, particularly reference devices. However, some claimed not to know that they were using other cohesive devices. They believed that conjunctions were the only type that functions to connect ideas across sentences and paragraphs, and did not realise that this, that, the, and other reference devices are cohesive devices. In terms of the use of lexical cohesive devices, participants used synonyms more than other sub-types of lexical cohesive devices. The most frequently used device was the, which functions both as a cohesive device and an article. All participants agreed that though links or cohesive devices are necessary to achieve coherence, two claimed that these are not determining factors in producing good writing quality. They argued that high-quality writing needs to contain linguistic features related to sophisticated language and text difficulty. The first suggestion is that focused programs should be adopted to teach the writing of argumentative essays to help lower-achieving students attain the same writing level as high-achieving students. Second, a teaching programme integrating the use of sophisticated grammar, lexical diversity and cohesive devices should be a curriculum priority. 

scholarly journals The Effect of Using Conjunction as Cohesive Device on the Undergraduates’ Quality of Writing in Argumentative Essays of Jordanian EFL Learners

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rawhi Yousef Salman Al Shamalat ◽  
Che An Binti Abdul Ghani
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Mu'tah University

The goal of this research was to investigate the effect of use conjunctions on the overall quality of argumentative writing of Jordanian English as foreign language (EFL) learners. This mixed-method research included sixty (n=60) undergraduate students at the Department. of English Language and Literature at Mu’tah University in Jordan. The participants of the research were selected using purposive sampling method. The data of the research were collected using written essays and interviews. The data was analyzed using SPSS. The data was collected using analytical scale Jacob et al., (1981) to measure the quality of argumentative essays. The result of this research showed that there was a weak negative but irrelevant correlation between writing quality and the frequency of conjunctions as cohesive devices. This correlation indicates that the frequent and general use of devices in the writing of Jordanian students did not contribute to the quality of the writing under any conditions. Also the finding revealed that there is an extremely negative but irrelevant correlation between the use of conjunctions devices by Jordanian EFL students and their writing quality. Therefore, the correlation was negative and insignificant for Jordanian EFL students. More specifically, the result shows that the frequencies of conjunctions were not found as an indicator of good writing quality for Jordanian EFL students. This research is significant for providing a considerable number of pedagogical implications for further research that will offer great contribution to the field of teaching writing in EFL setting in Jordan in particular and English as second language (ESL) context in general. Moreover, the research has shown a better understanding of cohesive devices / conjunctions by Jordanian EFL students at Mu’tah University.

Beyond Differences: Assessing Effects of Shared Linguistic Features on L2 Writing Quality of Two Genres

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaopeng Zhang ◽  
Xiaofei Lu ◽  
Wenwen Li
Keyword(s):  
Latent Variables ◽  
Moving Average ◽  
College Level ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Efl Writing ◽  
Test Corpus ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Complex Nominals

Abstract This study explored the relationship between linguistic features and the rated quality of letters of application (LAs) and argumentative essays (AEs) composed in English by Chinese college-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. A corpus of 260 LAs and 260 AEs were analyzed via a confirmatory factor analysis. Latent variables were EFL writing quality, captured by writing scores, and lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and cohesion, each captured by different linguistic features in the two genres of writing. Results indicated that lexical decision times, moving average type-token ratio with a 50-word window, and complex nominals per clause explained 55.5 per cent of the variance in the holistic scores of both genres of writing. This pattern of predictivity was further validated with a test corpus of 110 LAs and 110 AEs, revealing that, albeit differing in genre, higher-rated LAs and AEs were likely to contain more sophisticated words and complex nominals and exhibit a higher type-token ratio with a 50-word window. These findings help enrich our understanding of the shared features of different genres of EFL writing and have potentially useful implications for EFL writing pedagogy and assessment.

scholarly journals A Systemic Functional Linguistic Analysis of Cohesion and The Writing Quality of Saudi Female EFL Undergraduate Students

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khawater Fahad Alshalan
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Writing Assessment ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistic ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Qualitative Data Analysis Software ◽  
Writing Scores

This study aims to investigate how frequently Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesive devices were used as well as their relationship with the writing quality of 100 Saudi EFL undergraduate students in Al Imam Muhammed Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It uses a mixed method approach, where the students’ essays were analyzed using systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in terms of the textual meta-function of cohesive devices. The five types of the cohesive devices are the following: lexical cohesion, reference, conjunction, substitutions, and ellipses. Moreover, each of their subcategories were analyzed in the students’ texts. The NVivo qualitative data analysis software and the corpus analysis (conducted using AntConc) were used to calculate the frequencies of each cohesive device found in the data. The IELTS writing assessment scale was also used to evaluate the students’ writing scores. The results show that the most frequently used device was lexical cohesion, specifically repetition. Saudi EFL undergraduate students tended to repeatedly stay focused on the central idea of the topic. Furthermore, Pearson’s correlation coefficient found a relationship between the students’ writing scores and length of their essays, the use of cohesive ties and the scores, and cohesive ties and the length of the students’ essays. This study recommends that EFL teachers provide Saudi EFL students several cohesive tools in order to help them improve their writing skills and connect their ideas smoothly.

What Linguistic Features Are Indicative of Writing Quality? A Case of Argumentative Essays in a College Composition Program

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Taguchi ◽  
William Crawford ◽  
Danielle Zawodny Wetzel
Keyword(s):  
College Composition ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Argumentative Essays

scholarly journals The Realization of Lexical Cohesion in EFL Students’ Explanatory Texts Across Two Levels of Proficiency

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-30
Author(s):  
Saudin
Keyword(s):  
Low Achievers ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Good Writing ◽  
Efl Students

Lexical cohesion is the most prominent resource of cohesion, which is a property usually associated with writing quality. Around forty to fifty percent (Hoey, 1991; Kafes, 2012) even two-thirds (Witte & Faigley, 1981) of cohesion in texts are lexical regardless of proficiency levels. This research investigated how lexical cohesion (involving repetition, synonymy and collocation) is realized in the explanatory texts written by the two groups of participants (high and low achievers) and whether or not the denser realization of lexical cohesion is positively related to the writing quality. e results of the analyses conducted largely qualitatively showed that repetition came first as the most-frequently exploited sub-class of lexical cohesion, followed by collocation and synonymy. Unlike collocation and synonymy, repetition contributed negatively to the writing quality though complex repetition, one sub-type of repetition, contributed positively as synonymy and collocation did. Surprisingly, taken together as lexical cohesion, the three sub-classes in their percentages of occurrences in the corpus did not have positive effects on writing quality. Therefore, denser lexical cohesion when involving repetition was not always an indicator of good writing. Thus, this study presents, in relationship with writing quality, the discussion of each cohesive sub-class as one entity be more reliable than that of (lexical) cohesion as a superordinate. The study also recommends making use of exercises available or self-made to build up students’ skills in using synonymy instead of repetition, and in creating well-formed collocation.

Resolving the Terminological Mishmash in Teaching Link Words in EFL Writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-337
Author(s):  
Mehrdad Yousefpoori-Naeim ◽  
Lawrence Jun Zhang ◽  
Sasan Baleghizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
Efl Writing ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Good Writing ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractOne of the characteristics of good writing is appropriate use of cohesive devices, which many learners often find difficult to do. Although there is a substantial body of research on cohesion in writing, little has been documented on how to teach it to EFL students. The present study was an attempt to address this under-researched issue by taking a terminological approach, as the diverse and vague terminology used to describe link words has been found to be more of a hindrance than a facilitator in the teaching/learning process. A total of 16 cohesion-related terms were surveyed to find out about the quality and quantity of their use in a self-built corpus of 14 grammar books of different levels. Furthermore, a test was run to measure students’ familiarity with these terms, and field-notes were taken while scoring the students’ papers in their presence. The findings, in addition to giving insights into the usage points regarding each of the 16 terms, led to drawing a terminological network, which, if used consistently, could help in teaching and learning to use cohesion effectively.

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF GRAMMATICAL COHESION IN THE TEXT QUALITY AMONG JORDANIAN EFL STUDENTS IN EXPOSITORY ESSAYS

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (42) ◽  
pp. 299-306
Author(s):  
Khaled Salem Ahmad Amayreh ◽  
Ahmad Taufik Hidayah Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Text Quality ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Written Compositions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Expository Essays

The present paper shares interest that many scholars and linguists have highlighted in investigating the relationship between writing quality and grammatical cohesion devices. The aim of this study is to find out the relationship between the use of grammatical cohesive devices on the overall quality of expository essays produced by EFL fourth-year undergraduate students majoring in the English language at the Department of English language and literature Hashemite University in Jordan. It seeks to determine the efficacy of academic writing by Jordanian EFL students. Thirty purposive samples of compositions were collected and analyzed by the researcher to measure the relationship between the score of the writing quality and the grammatical cohesion devices in students' writing based on (1) analytical scale Jacob et al., (1981), and (2) Halliday and Hasan (1976) taxonomy of grammatical cohesion. The results showed that grammatical cohesive devices did not constitute a statistically significant correlation with the score of writing quality. It also revealed that the EFL students' written compositions were not successful due to their incapability to utilize the different forms of grammatical cohesive devices and their lack of knowledge about effectively using these devices in their academic writing.

scholarly journals Cohesive devices in argumentative essays by Indonesian EFL learners

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-358
Author(s):  
Meyga Agustia Nindya ◽  
Utami Widiati
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
State University ◽  
Writing Teachers ◽  
Writing Ability ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Good Writing ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Giving Feedback

Cohesive devices are essential elements that have long been recognized as important features of good writing. However, making use of them appropriately is viewed as problematic for learners. This descriptive qualitative study aimed to investigate Indonesian EFL learners' ability to use cohesive devices in their writings. Twenty EFL learners of a state university in Malang, East Java, Indonesia were required to write and send one piece of argumentative essay consisting of five paragraphs to be analyzed. Twenty essays were analyzed by identifying the number of correct and errors of grammatical cohesion. The errors were then evaluated to know the possible causes that contributed to the learners' errors. The results showed that the total number of grammatical cohesion used by the learners was 2386, while 175 of them performed errors. It was also found that there was a heavy reliance on the use of particular cohesive items. The intralingual transfer mostly caused the errors made by learners. This implied a need for writing teachers to apply strategies for the development of EFL learners' writing ability, such as exposing students to exercises, using collaborative learning, giving feedback, and using the learning management system.

scholarly journals Cohesive Devices Used in Argumentative Essays of Undergraduate EFL Students in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Dewi Warna ◽  
Beni Wijaya ◽  
Eka Sartika ◽  
Winny Agustia Riznanda
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Argumentative Essays

ABSTRACTThis study analyzed qualitatively the cohesive devices used in argumentative essays of undergraduate EFL students in South Sumatera, Indonesia. Eighty essays were collected from eight universities in which ten essays were obtained from each. Halliday and Hasan (1976) concept of grammatical cohesion was used as the framework for the analysis of the essays. All the cohesive devices were found. Reference had the highest frequency which is 50.24% of the total cohesive devices followed by conjuction which is 37.34%, lexical cohesion which is 7.7% and ellipsis which is 3.57%. Substitution was the least used type of cohesive device which is only 1.15%. In terms of correctness of using the devices, most of the devices were all used properly. It was revealed that there was still few mistakes of using reference and substitution since they both were frequently used in the essays. Hence, it can be concluded that the students are more familiar with the use of reference and conjunction even though they are able to use the other devices as well.Keywords: cohesive devices, argumentative essay

The value of poetry writing

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsushi Iida
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Tertiary Level ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Japanese Poetry ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Poetry Writing ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Argumentative Essays

The aim of the current study is to evaluate poetry writing as a way of second language (L2) learning by exploring the interaction between academic prose and the effect of writing Japanese poetry — haiku. This article first describes some critiques of using poetry in educational settings and discusses the nature of poetry writing at the tertiary level in L2 contexts. The study was designed as an intervention in which 20 EFL students in Japan produced pre- and post-argumentative essays and L2 haikus. The data obtained was submitted to statistical analysis, which showed that there was a significant difference in the use of linguistic features between pre- and post-tests indicating that the task of writing haiku affected the EFL students’ written performance in the post-argumentative essay. In addition, the L2 haiku corpus produced revealed the English haiku as short, personal, direct and descriptive poetry.

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