Cohesive Devices Research Articles

Study of Discourse Analysis Based on Systemic Functional Linguistics: A Case Study of "The Middle Eastern Bazaar"

Systemic functional linguistics holds that language has three metafunctions: ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction, and textual metafunction. This paper studies discourse “The Middle Eastern Bazaar” and analyzes it from ideational metafunction and textual metafunction. Ideational function refers to the use of language to express the objective external world in language users’ minds and their subjective judgments of the objective external world, reflecting the experiential and logical functions of language. Ideational metafunction analysis consists of the analysis of six types of processes as well as the analysis of voice. Textual function of language refers to the actual use of language as a discourse that expresses relatively complete ideas, rather than grammatical units such as words or sentences. Textual metafunction analysis is carried out from the aspects of macro discourse structure, theme-rheme structure and discourse cohesion. Discourse “The Middle Eastern Bazaar” describes a bazaar in the Middle East with very typical local characteristics. The analysis finds that more material process and verbal process are applied than mental, behavioral, relational and existing processes. More non-middle voice is applied than middle voice in the discourse. The theme-rheme structure and different cohesive devices make the thematic information flow naturally and smoothly.

An Analysis of Grammatical Cohesive Devices in the Text "After 20 Years" from the Perspective of Discourse Analysis

An Analysis of Grammatical Cohesive Devices in the Text "After 20 Years" from the Perspective of Discourse Analysis

A Study of Cohesive Devices in Students’ Academic Writing

Writing is a challenging skill for learners learning English as a foreign language. When writing English, students face many problems triggered by a lack of knowledge of the English language, interference with their mother tongue, and difficulties related to vocabulary and grammar usage. One particular demanding aspect of writing is attaining coherence and text harmony. Literature indicates that many second language learners tend to underuse, misuse, or overuse cohesive devices, which is crucial in maintaining coherence and cohesion in academic writing. This research focused on evaluating the use of cohesive devices in the academic writing of undergraduates majoring in English at Islamia College Peshawar. Data were gathered through student-written essays on IELTS test topics, with 30 randomly selected samples from each of the 4th, 6th, and 8th semesters, totaling 90 samples. Employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, the analysis revealed a prevalent issue: the inaccurate utilization of various cohesive devices. Students demonstrated an understanding of structuring discussion texts coherently, yet their challenges stemmed from the misapplication of cohesive devices, leading to incomprehensible texts. This study explored lexical and grammatical cohesion, leading to the recommendation that future research should embrace aspects like sentence structure, tense usage, and alternative cohesive models.

Analysis of the Use of Discourse Cohesion Means of Speech Texts of the Regional Government of Jambi Province

Purpose of the study: This research aims to describe the means of discourse cohesion and the use of discourse cohesion means in the speech text of the Jambi Province regional government at the plenary session on January 6 2016. The expected benefit of this research theoretically is that it can be used to develop theories about discourse, especially regarding the use of cohesion means in discourse speech text.
 Methodology: The method used in this research is a qualitative method with descriptive research type. This research data is in the form of a means of cohesion contained in discourse. Data was obtained by reading the entire discourse of the speech text and marking the found means of cohesion and recording them.
 Main Findings: The results of research in the speech text of the regional government of Jambi Province at the plenary session on January 6 2016 found that there were 9 types of cohesive devices, consisting of pronouns, substitutions, ellipsis, conjunctions, repetitions, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms and collocations. It can be concluded that the most common means of cohesion are pronouns and conjunctions. So, from the results of the analysis that has been carried out, the text of the Jambi Province regional government's speech at the plenary session on January 6 2016 is included in the very cohesive category.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: From the results of this research, it can be seen that there has been progress, namely that 9 means of cohesion were found and no non-cohesive means were found. Meanwhile, previous research only found 8 means of cohesion and found several uses of non-cohesive means of cohesion.

Content Analysis of Lexical Cohesive Devices in the Lectures of the Minister of Health, Treatment and Medical Education of the Raisi Government in The Field of Health Care, Treatment and Health

In the current research, the content of the lectures of the Minister of Health, Treatment and Medical Education of the Raisi government in the field of health care, treatment and health were analyzed from the perspective of the use of lexical cohesive devices and in the framework of role oriented of Haliday and Hassan (1976). The research was conducted in a descriptive and analytical way, and the content was three lectures in the field of health care, treatment and health, which were randomly selected. Lexical cohesive devices were extracted in three lectures and their frequency was measured. The percent of occurrence of each device was also obtained. After examining the data, it was found that the first lecture with 261 cases, the third lecture with 254 cases and the second lecture with 246 cases are in the first to third ranks, respectively, in the use of cohesion devices. In the first speech, collocation was the most used cohesive device and hyponymy was the least used device. In the second speech, repetition and hyponymy were respectively the most and the least cohesive devices used in this lecture and in the third lecture, collocation was the most and hyponymy was the least device used. In order to perform a more detailed statistical analysis and find significance in the distribution of cohesive devices in each of the lectures, the chi-square test was used. Based on the results obtained at level (p<0, 0/05) there is a significant difference between the distribution of cohesive devices used in each of the lectures.

Evaluating the Use of Lexical Cohesion in Arabic Textbook Published by Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs

This study evaluates the use of lexical cohesion in Arabic textbooks published by the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs. This qualitative research applies systemic functional linguistics analysis to the Class XII Madrasah Aliyah Arabic textbook. Research data was taken from five reading materials using proficient free-involved listening techniques and analyzed using the framework of lexical cohesion theory. The research results show the use of lexical cohesion devices consisting of repetition (71.4%), synonymy (9.8%), antonymy (3.2%), hyponymy (8.1%), meronymy (6.5%), and collocation (1.0%). From the distribution and quality aspect, lexical cohesion could be more effective and efficient. Quantitatively, the large number of gaps in the lexical cohesion devices shows the ineffectiveness of using cohesion devices. Qualitatively, the uneven distribution of each cohesion device uncovers the ineffectiveness of all reading materials. This study recommends developing reading material in textbooks by using lexical cohesion evenly. Through this development, textbooks will become effective learning instruments to improve students' vocabulary, reading, and writing competency.

Focus Group Discussion on Students’ Perception of Gamification in Learning Cohesion in Arabic

Learning languages had been taught as a passive process. But in this era of Information and Communication Technology, a lot of educators use the technology provided on the Internet to attract students to focus on learning. Nowadays, gamification is widely used by educators while teaching online including Arabic language. Thus, this study aims to identify the students’ perception on gamification in learning Arabic cohesive devices. This study employed qualitative approach which the researchers used focus group discussion as a mode of data collection. The sampling method used is convenience sampling which all of them are students at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), 2nd year students, semester 2, 2018/2019 taking Arabic subject. In this study, researchers managed to recruit 14 participants for 3 focus group discussion whereby 5 participants respectively in the first group and 4 participants in another group. From the result of the research, the process of learning Arabic cohesive devices in the Arabic language takes place with all enjoyment which increases the students’ interest for learning.

The Analysis of Grammatical Cohesive Devices in the Abstract of Academic Discourse

Coherent writing skills have a strong correlation with the quality of English writing. Abstract, as a relatively independent and complete discourse form that condenses the content of academic discourse, can predict and dominate the content and structure of the main text. This paper collects a total of 40 academic paper abstracts in the discipline of applied linguistics, 20 from Chinese students and 20 from international scholars, to compare the different distribution of cohesive devices between Chinese student writers and international Journal writers. Based on the study, we find that there is no significant difference in the frequency, type, and control of cohesive devices used by Chinese students and international scholars. But Chinese students overuse some types of cohesive devices, especially in the use of the conjunctive device “and”. The use of “I” has never appeared in the corpus of Chinese students and the usage of “we” has been used by Chinese student writers and international Journal writers. This paper also shows that Chinese English majors actively keep up with international journals and have a sense of international writing in the process of learning writing.

THE COHESION AND COHERENCE IN BARACK OBAMA’S SPEECH TEXT “FINAL PRESIDENTIAL PRESS CONFERENCE OF YEAR”

This research aimed at analyzing the cohesion and coherence in Barack Obama’s speech text “Final presidential press conference of year”. This research designed by the qualitative method with descriptive approach. Then, researcher used the Miles, Huberman, & Saldana theory to analyze the cohesion and coherence in the speech text. The result of this research showed all of cohesion and coherence devices were found. The data of this research were words and phrases. Based on summary of the result, that Barack Obama’s speech text “Final Presidential Press Conference of Year” contained grammatical cohesion devices, they are reference (34), subtitution (1), ellipsis (12), and conjuntion (60). And then, it contained the lexical cohesion devices. They are; reiteration (47) and collocation (11). Moreover, it contained the coherence devices. They are; repeat key nouns (9), consistent pronoun (5), transition signals (53), and the ideas in the speech text are arranged structurally. Based on the research finding, in the spech text, the cohesion devices dominanted in grammatical cohesion, especially in using conjuction. And the coherence devices dominanted in using transition signals. It is suggested that English learners’ should pay attention about the usage of cohesion and coherence in order to create a good text as well as a speech. For the teachers, hopefully this research could be used to enrich their teaching material. And for the next researcher, can get information and knowledge to create a text grammatically and semantically.

Cohesion in Ali Douagi’s sleepless nights and Shirley Jackson’s the lottery: A comparative study

Since the publication of Halliday and Hasan’s book Cohesion in English (1976), a few studies have been done on cohesion in short stories (Sari, 2016; Abed, 2016; Khaingo, 2016). However, to the best of our knowledge, not one has examined cohesion in Ali Douagi’s Sleepless Nights (1969) and Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery (1948). This paper tries to fill this gap by examining and comparing the use of grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion in these two short stories. Using a qualitative and descriptive approach, this study identifies the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices utilized in the two short stories. The results show that both short stories utilize grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion to build a text that “hangs together” as a consistent whole. However, a few differences between the two short stories can be observed: whereas Sleepless Nights uses the four types of grammatical cohesion (ellipsis, conjunction, reference and substitution), The Lottery is found to utilize ellipsis, conjunction and reference only. Also, a slight difference related to lexical cohesion can be observed: in The Lottery, text parts are found to be lexically tied through repetition, near-synonymy, hyponymy and antonymy. Sleepless Nights, however, utilizes hyponymy, repetition, synonymy, and antonymy. The results confirm the claim that cohesion is an integral element for any type of discourse, including short stories.

Examining the Role of Digital Tools in Pre-service English Language Teachers Self-efficacy in Writing

Writing is regarded as one of the most challenging skills for language learners due to its multifaceted nature. Similarly, writing instruction involves a composite skill set varying from teaching structural knowledge to linking ideas logically through using appropriate lexicon and cohesive devices. Like many other EFL learners, most students with intensive English instruction at Turkish universities often report difficulties in their in-class and extracurricular writing tasks, and they do not feel a sense of achievement and self-efficacy in writing in English as a foreign language (L2). Through this study, the researchers provided 35 English preparatory students with 6-week writing instruction integrating digital tools to examine the effectiveness of this intervention in promoting the students' self-efficacy levels and sense of achievement in L2 writing. The study adopted a mixed-methods research model in which the Self-Efficacy Writing Scale (SEWS) created by Bruning et al. (2013) is used as the quantitative data tool, and the interview and minute paper techniques as the qualitative data tools. The study's findings revealed that digital-tool-supported writing instruction had promising impacts on fostering students’ self-efficacy in L2 writing, leading to gains in their ideation, use of writing conventions, and self-regulation abilities. The qualitative findings also suggested that digital tools empowered them as writers in L2 and led to improvements in their perceived sense of achievement in writing tasks.

An Analysis of the Abstracts of EFL Undergraduate Students: Coherence and Cohesion

<div class="WordSection1"><p><span lang="EN-US">Coherence and cohesion play crucial roles in writing an abstract of an undergraduate thesis. By ensuring the coherence and cohesion of the abstract, EFL undergraduate students can enhance its readability, can facilitate the understanding of the research content, and can enable readers to grasp the main points efficiently. However, EFL undergraduate students often need help achieving coherence and cohesion due to their limitations in understanding and practicing academic writing. The research aims to analyze how the sentences in the abstract are related to one another through logical connections and to identify the cohesive devices like conjunction, reference, substitution, or ellipsis to make the abstract coherent. Three abstracts were chosen randomly from 2020 to 2022. Then, the researchers analyzed the data qualitatively in words or sentences using document analysis. The results show that two out of three abstracts are coherent. It is highly suggested for EFL undergraduates whose abstracts must be more readable to improve cohesive devices and use different conjunction and adverbial sentences. Therefore, the suggestion is that EFL undergraduate students use other transitions to link each sentence to make coherent text.</span></p></div>

Translation of Substitution and Ellipsis by Professional Translators and Translators in Training: A Contrastive Study

Creating a coherent and logically connected text requires the effective use of cohesive devices. Accurate translation of cohesive devices is essential to preserve the intended meaning of the original text. The present study investigates errors made by professional translators and novice translators when translating substitution and ellipsis from English into Arabic. Specifically, the study aims to answer the research question: What are the errors made by professional translators and translators in training when translating substitution and ellipsis? To gather data, the researcher conducted a survey and included a sample of both professional translators and translators in training. The results show that both groups had difficulty accurately translating substitution and ellipsis. The most prevalent errors included preserving the English sentence structure, omitting the cohesive device entirely, and modifying the meaning of the original text. Notably, both groups found identifying and translating ellipses particularly challenging, which led to errors in the final translation. Experienced translators produced higher quality translations than novice translators, indicating the significant impact of experience on the translation process. Based on the findings, the study recommends providing targeted training on cohesive devices through practical exercises to improve accuracy and offer more opportunities for practice in a supportive environment. Addressing these challenges can enhance the quality of translations and preserve the meaning of the original text.

Textual Analysis of Acceptance and Declaration Speeches of Selected 2023 Presidential Candidates in Nigeria

Language remains a great asset to its users; its indispensability in politics is quite remarkable. This study examined how the English language has been utilized by 2023 presidential candidates in Nigeria. The researcher examined the acceptance and declaration speeches of selected 2023 presidential candidates-Ahmed Tinubu of All Progressive Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP). The study was anchored on the theoretical framework of cohesion. However, the approach adopted was a comparative study. The researcher compared how the three candidates used the English language in the presentation of their acceptance and declaration speeches to find out the cohesive devices that were employed to assure the people that their multifarious problems would be solved. The researcher identified the grammatical, lexical and clausal relations in consonance with their functions/roles in the political speeches examined. The present research was deemed necessary as the researcher discovered that nobody (as of the time of this study) has done a textual analysis of the acceptance speeches of these presidential candidates. It was found that the three candidates used cohesive devices as their campaign tools. The researcher also found out that clausal relations employed in the texts were internal procedures and interpretations which helped the speakers in achieving both registeral and generic coherence.

An Analysis of Cohesive Devices on Phoenix Posts on The Death of Queen Elisabeth II

This paper explores some cohesive devices namely reference, repetition, and collocation on Phoenix messages by internet users worldwide in reaction to the death of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. 400 e-messages on Phoenix platform were collected from 175 informants. Each participant provided at most three e-messages. The study examines the types of cohesive devices and the extent to which they are used in the various conversations of the texters. Insights were drawn from Halliday and Hassan (1976) who laid down the foundation of cohesion theory in English. They identified two different types of cohesive devices namely grammatical and lexical cohesion. The grammatical type is made up of reference, conjunction, substitution, and ellipsis; while lexical one comprises reiteration and collocation. Facts from the analysis of the data revealed that reference was the dominant cohesive devices. More precisely, the demonstrative pronouns (28.57%) are the most used referential items. it is seconded by possessive pronouns (23.42%) and the least employed devices is personal pronouns (20.57%). The results also indicated the use of repetition and collocation in messages of the participants. The most repeated word is Queen while the least reduplicated one is slave/slavery. Items of collocation are used at varying frequencies.

Design and implementation of low-power, high-speed, reliable and secured Hardware Accelerator using 28 nm technology for biomedical devices

This paper implements a Hardware Accelerator (HA) for Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSNs) using 28 nm technology on Zynq system-on-a-chip (SOC) using Vivado and VITIS high-level synthesis tool. The Vitis integrated development environment (IDE) is a software-only development environment that Integrates with other Xilinx tools. The Zynq® SoC combines a state-of-the-art processor system (PS) and programmable logic (PL) into a single cohesive device. WBSNs contain different processing techniques like predictor, compressor, encryption encoder, and Error Control Coding (ECC) before transmission. These techniques are implemented and validated using the Xilinx® Software Development Kit (SDK) tool along with the PYNQ Z2 board having Zynq SOC respectively. Similarly, the processing techniques are implemented on PS block as HA. The results of the work show the data collection and processing through the dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor of the board. The purpose of the work is to calculate the time required to process the bio-signals through the controller solely and using HA. The proposed work, mainly WBSN using HA shows an improvement of 81% in the speed compared with existing methods. Further, results of the synthesis and implementation strategy show improvement in power and area of HA with WBSN.

An Analysis on Cohesive Devices of Students’ Recount Paragraphs Writing

Cohesive devices are linguistic elements or techniques used to establish connections and create coherence within a text. They serve to link ideas, sentences, and paragraphs, making the overall discourse more cohesive and facilitating the smooth flow of information. Cohesive devices contribute to the logical organization and understanding of a written or spoken text. By employing cohesive devices effectively, writers can enhance the coherence and cohesion of their texts, allowing readers to follow and understand the information more easily. This study aims to examine how cohesive devices are utilized in recount paragraphs written by students as well as to identify the challenges and underlying reasons for their difficulties in using such devices. The research involved 20 tenth-grade students from MAN 2 Jember and adopted a qualitative analysis research design. The data collection process encompassed documentation, observations, and student interviews. The analysis focused on two aspects of cohesion: lexical cohesion (reiteration and collocation) and grammatical cohesion (reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction). The findings reveal the following: (a) Students employed five types of cohesive devices in their recount paragraph writing, with reference (31.29%) and conjunction (28.75%) being the most frequent, followed by substitution (12.72%), ellipsis (1.78%), as well as reiteration (13.48%) and collocation (11.95%); (b) Students exhibited varying levels of familiarity and competence with different cohesive devices. The study highlights the importance of comprehensive instruction and support to enhance students' proficiency in using cohesive devices. To address the identified challenges, pedagogical interventions are recommended.

Lexical Cohesive Devices and English Writing Quality

This mixed-methods study investigated the use of lexical cohesive devices (LCD) for 56 Arab English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in the UAE. The quantitative descriptive approach was used to find out the frequency of LCD in learners’ essays, and the quantitative correlational approach was implemented to examine the association between LCD and the writing quality. However, the qualitative descriptive approach utilized semi-structured interviews of 4 EFL teachers and 15 EFL learners to identify the challenges that they encountered regarding using LCD in essay writing. The findings demonstrated that repetition and collocations were the most frequently used LCD, while meronyms and hyponyms were the least common in participants’ essays. There was also a moderate positive correlation between cohesive density and the writing quality. The difficulties reported by the participants in dealing with LCD included themes pertaining to awareness and instruction, de-contextualization of cohesive devices (CDs) and feedback and correction.

References In The Lyrics Of Nicole Zefanya’s Songs

In the current times, the use of cohesive devices is not only found in formal texts, but also in informal texts such as song lyrics. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the types and to analyze the functions of references from the lyrics of three songs by Nicole Zefanya; “Urs”, “Around”, and “Lose”. This study was conducted using descriptive quantitative method. Documentation method and note-taking technique were used to collect the data. In analyzing the data, this study used the theory from Halliday and Hassan (1976) about grammatical cohesion, to be specific, about reference. The analysis of data was presented using formal and informal method. The results of this study showed that all kinds of reference found in the lyrics of each song of Nicole Zefanya, namely personal reference, demonstrative reference, and comparative reference. Based on the analysis, the data in the lyrics are dominated by personal reference compared to demonstrative reference and comparative reference. In detail, personal reference with 169 occurrences, demonstrative reference with 42 occurrences, and comparative reference with 11 occurrences. Thus, each reference has different functions; as the head of reference, a reference to the previous object, as a modifier, a reference to the following object, a general comparison which refers to things that similar or not similar. Based on the results of this study, reference plays a vital role in establishing coherence, ensuring clarity, and contributing to the overall meaning of the song by connecting the language elements within the lyrics

Investigating the Use of Cohesive Devices by Kurdish EFL Learners' Writing

This paper aims at investigating the types of cohesive devices, frequency of these types, how cohesive devices contribute to the quality of the texts used by Kurdish EFL learners, and finally finding out their problems in employing appropriate cohesive ties in their writing tasks. This study employs a mixed – method research design for analyzing twenty essays written by third – year students at the Department of English, College of Basic Education, University of Duhok. This study uses final examination sheets as data. The data are analyzed by using the concept of cohesive devices proposed by Halliday & Hasan (1976), which covers reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. The findings indicate that the learners mostly employ three types of cohesive devices, i.e., reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion. Based on the findings, it is recommended that EFL university teachers should guide their students to utilize appropriate cohesive devices in their texts and encourage them to read a lot.