Abstract
The challenges encountered by non-native English-speaking students in writing cohesive essays have been canvassed in scholarly research. However, cohesion problems in essays written by international English for Academic Purposes (EAP) learners in the New Zealand context do not appear to be addressed adequately. This may pose a challenge for educators when trying to unpack the issues these learners encounter in written discourse and how best to address such issues. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate grammatical cohesion in EAP learners' argumentative essays. The main instrument for this study was a sample of 37 argumentative essays written by international EAP learners at a tertiary institution in New Zealand. The study utilized AntConc software for analyzing instances of reference and conjunctions in the data. Frequencies of ellipsis and substitution were analyzed manually. The findings show that learners employed a variety of grammatical cohesive devices in their writing. The learners prominently used references and conjunctions. However, limited use of substitution and ellipsis was obvious in the essays, which seems to suggest that learners need further training on grammatical cohesive devices and how to employ them in written discourse.
Highlights
Higher education has witnessed the internalization of campuses in the last two decades due to the unprecedented numbers of international students joining tertiary institutions in English-speaking countries (Robinson, 2018)
This paper attempts to contribute to this thread of research by identifying the types of grammatical cohesive devices used by international English for Academic Purposes (EAP) learners at a tertiary institution in New Zealand when writing argumentative essays
This article has explored the concept of cohesion in English and how it can be achieved in writing
Summary
Higher education has witnessed the internalization of campuses in the last two decades due to the unprecedented numbers of international students joining tertiary institutions in English-speaking countries (Robinson, 2018). This influx of students has not been without concerns about students' proficiency levels in English since students will be required to take part in tasks that entail writing texts using accurate and cohesive language. This paper attempts to contribute to this thread of research by identifying the types of grammatical cohesive devices used by international EAP learners at a tertiary institution in New Zealand when writing argumentative essays. This paper aims to investigate the problematic areas that may contribute to the lack of cohesion in EAP learners' written discourse
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