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

Abstract

This 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

References and Conjunctions as Cohesive Devices in Chinese Undergraduate EFL Students’ Argumentative Essays

“…These findings clearly indicate that the students had a good knowledge of reference and conjunction devices and were able to use them effectively in their argumentative writing, as found in Dastjerdi and Samian (2011), Liu and Braine (2005) and Zhang (2010). This might be because the participants were instructed about cohesive devices and trained to write argumentative essays effectively, as done in Warna et al (2019). Another possible reason might be that the participants were generally intermediate to advanced ESL/EFL students.…”

“…It is the use of explicit cohesive devices that signal relations among sentences and parts of a text (Rahman, 2013). It is essential because it gives texture to sentences to show how semantic relations are composed of lexical and syntactic features (Kang et al, 2010;Warna et al, 2019). Hence, cohesion is of great significance in producing good English writing (Halliday & Hasan, 1976;Liu & Braine, 2005) and has been much researched (e.g., Alzankawi, 2017;Chanyoo, 2018;Dastjerdi & Samian, 2011;Hamed, 2014;Ismail & Linda, 2018;Liu & Braine, 2005;Saputra & Hakim, 2020).…”

“…In spite of numerous studies on cohesion, the current literature reveals mixed findings about the use of different types of cohesive devices (e.g., Dastjerdi & Samian, 2011;Warna et al, 2019). For example, Warna et al's (2019) analyses of 80 argumentative essays revealed that Indonesian university students 2017; Hamed, 2014;Ismail & Linda, 2018;Lai, 2008;Lee, 2020;Liu & Braine, 2005;Mohamed, 2016;Park, 2013;Saputra & Hakim, 2020;Wang, 2015;Warna et al, 2019;Yang & Sun, 2012;Yeom, 2016;Zhang, 2010).…”

“…For example, Warna et al's (2019) analyses of 80 argumentative essays revealed that Indonesian university students 2017; Hamed, 2014;Ismail & Linda, 2018;Lai, 2008;Lee, 2020;Liu & Braine, 2005;Mohamed, 2016;Park, 2013;Saputra & Hakim, 2020;Wang, 2015;Warna et al, 2019;Yang & Sun, 2012;Yeom, 2016;Zhang, 2010). While focusing on different aspects of cohesion, these studies reveal the following major findings: a) students with diverse backgrounds use different types of cohesive devices with different frequencies (e.g., Alzankawi, 2017;Hamed, 2014;Ismail & Linda, 2018;Mohamed, 2016;Rahman, 2013;Saputra & Hakim, 2020;Wang, 2015;Warna et al, 2019;Yeom, 2016), b) the frequency of cohesive devices is (significantly) related to the overall writing quality (e.g., Chanyoo, 2018;Crossley et al, 2016;Dastjerdi & Samian, 2011;Liu & Braine, 2005;Zhang, 2010), and c) students at higher proficiency levels have a better use of cohesive devices in their writing (e.g., Park, 2013;Wang, 2015). For example, Warna et al (2019) analyzed 80 five-paragraph argumentative essays written by 80 fifth-semester students of English language education from eight Indonesian universities, who completed the essays in 60 minutes.…”

Cohesive Devices in English Contents Written by Blog Writers and English Department Students

“…Many studies with the current topic focused on the countries where English is considered as a foreign language with the emphasis to investigate how the L2 learners or speakers deal with the cohesive devices when they had to compose English texts. Some of the research focused on the use of all types of cohesive devices: grammatical, lexical, and connectives (Castro, 2004;Chanyoo, 2018;Nindya & Widiati, 2020;Rahman, 2013;Warna et al, 2019), while some focused specifically on the lexical cohesion (Jaya & Marto, 2019;Kafes, 2012;Mirzapour & Ahmadi, 2011;Wang & Zhang, 2019) and grammatical cohesion (Alarcon & Morales, 2011;Othman, 2019;Trisnaningrum et al, 2019). Rahman's (2013) study on the cohesive devices used by Omani L1 Arabic student-teachers shows that the repetition, as a subtype of lexical cohesion, appeared to be the most frequently used by the 1st-year and 3rd-year L1 Arabic student-teachers.…”