Writing is considered as a difficult process even in the first language (L1). It is even more complicated to write in a foreign language (FL). Writing in a (FL) often presents the greatest challenge to the students at all stages of their learning, particularly essay writing, students write essays without serious grammatical errors or misspellings; however, their essays are still disconnected and incoherent. This illogicality is mainly caused by the errors at the discourse level. EFL third-level English students at Faculty of Education/Radfan, often face many problems when they write essays in English. Thus, this study aims at investigating the students' discourse competence in essay writing.
This study also aims at exploring the causes that make the students commit discourse errors and to what extent the students' incompetency affects their writing negatively. To find out the reasons that might lead to the problems under investigation, two instruments were employed to collect data; the first instrument was the teachers' questionnaire, which was responded to by five teachers who teach writing and composition in the Department of English at Faculty of Education/Radfan. The second one was the students' writing task; through which twenty-five students were required to write an argumentative essay.
The analyses and interpretations of the result obtained by the two instruments can be summed up as follows: The teachers supplied the researcher with valuable information that made the students commit discourse errors when writing essays. Besides, they emphasized on the importance of drawing the students' attention to the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices to help them write proficiently. Moreover, they suggested some methods and strategies to be taken during teaching writing to overcome the students' problems. The results obtained through the analyses of the students' writing task showed that the students' errors might be attributed to the inappropriate use of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices, such as the overuse of some devices and the absence of the others; however, the overuse was not appropriate. It was also noticed that the students managed to use some cohesive devices of each type, but they showed their ignorance of the others as in the case of substitution and ellipsis which were barely used, however that use was wrong. On the basis of the findings, the researcher proposed some solutions and suggestions that might help to overcome the problem.
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
1.2 Statement of the Problem
1.3 Aims of the Study
1.4 Research Questions
1.5 Significance of the Study
1.6 Research Methodology
1.6.1 Methods of the Study
1.6.1.1 Population of the Study
1.6.1.2 Sample of the Study
1.6.2 Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
1.7 Limitation of the Study
1.8 Structure of the Study
2.0 Introduction
2.1 Studies in Discourse Competence
2.2 Definitions of Discourse
2.2.1 Discourse Competence
2.3 What is Discourse Analysis
2.4 Text Linguistics and Discourse
2.5 Cohesion and Linguistic Structure
2.5.1 Texture and Structure
2.6 The General Meaning of Cohesion
2.7 Discourse Analysis and Grammar
2.8 Cohesion
2.9 Grammatical Cohesion and Textuality
2.10 Types of Grammatical cohesion
2.10.1 Reference
2.10.1.1 Types of Reference
2.10.1.1.1 Personal Reference
2.10.1.1.2 Demonstrative Reference
2.10.1.1.3 Comparative Reference
2.10.2 Substitution
2.10.2.1 Nominal Substitution
2.10.2.2 Verbal Substitution
2.10.2.3 Clausal Substitution
2.10.3 Ellipsis
2.10.3.1 Nominal Ellipsis
2.10.3.2 Verbal Ellipsis
2.10.3.3 Clausal Ellipsis
2.10.4 Conjunction
2.10.4.1 Additive Conjunctions
2.10.4.2 Adversative Conjunctions
2.10.4.3 Causal Conjunctions
2.10.4.4 Temporal Conjunction
2.11 Types of Lexical Cohesion
2.11.1 Reiteration
2.11.1.1 Repetition
2.11.1.2 General Noun
2.11.1.3 Superordinate
2.11.1.4 Synonym
2.11.2 Collocation
2.12 Summary
2.0 Introduction
3.1 Data Collection Instruments
3.1.1 The Teachers' Questionnaire
3.1.1.1 The Aim of the Questionnaire
3.1.1.2 The Design
3.1.1.3 The Administration
3.1.2 The Students' Writing Task
3.1.2.1 The Aim of the Writing Task
3.1.2.2 The Administration
3.2 Piloting the Instruments
3.3 The Subjects
3.4 Validity and Reliability of the Data Collection Instruments
3.4.1 Data Validity
3.4.2 Data Reliability
3.5 Summary
4.0 Introduction
4.1 The Teachers' Questionnaire Analysis
4.1.1 An Overall Discussion of the Questionnaire
4.2 The Students' Writing Task
4.2.0 Introduction
4.2.1 Analysis of the Result
4.2.2 Students' Use of Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive Devices
4.2.2.1 Students' Use of Grammatical Cohesive Devices
4.2.2.1.1 Students' Use of Reference
4.2.2.1.1.1 Students' Use of Personal Reference
4.2.2.1.1.2 Students' Use of Demonstrative Reference
4.2.2.1.1.3 Students' Use of Comparative Reference
4.2.2.1.2 Students' Use of Conjunction
4.2.2.1.2.1 Students' Use of Additive Conjunctions
4.2.2.1.2.2 Students' Use of Adversative Conjunctions
4.2.2.1.2.3 Students' Use of Causal Conjunctions
4.2.2.1.2.4 Students' Use of Temporal Conjunctions
4.2.2.1.3 Students' Use of Substitution
4.2.2.1.3.1 Students' Use of Nominal Substitution
4.2.2.1.3.2 Students' Use of Verbal Substitution
4.2.2.1.4 Students' Use of Ellipsis
4.2.2.1.4.1 Students' Use of Nominal Ellipsis
4.2.2.1.4.2 Students' Use of Verbal Ellipsis
4.2.2.1.4.3 Students' Use of Clausal Ellipsis
4.2.2.2 Students' Use of Lexical Cohesive Devices
4.2.2.2.1 Students' Use of Reiteration
4.2.2.2.1.1 Students' Use of Repetition
4.2.2.2.1.2 Students' Use of General Noun
4.2.2.2.1.3 Students' Use of Superordinate
4.2.2.2.1.4 Students' Use of Synonym
4.2.2.2.2 Students' Use of Collocation
4.2.3 General Comments
4.2.4 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive Devices
4.2.4.1 Appropriate versus Inappropriate Use of Grammatical Cohesive Devices
4.2.4.1.1 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of References
4.2.4.1.1.1 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Personal Reference
4.2.4.1.1.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Demonstrative Reference
4.2.4.1.1.3 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Comparative Reference
4.2.4.1.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Conjunction
4.2.4.1.2.1 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Additive Conjunction
4.2.4.1.2.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Adversative Conjunction
4.2.4.1.2.3 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Causal Conjunction
4.2.4.1.2.4 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Temporal Conjunctions
4.2.4.1.3 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Substitution
4.2.4.1.3.1 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Nominal Substitution
4.2.4.1.3.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Verbal Substitution
4.2.4.1.4 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use Ellipsis
4.2.4.1.4.1 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Nominal Ellipsis
4.2.4.1.4.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Verbal Ellipsis
4.2.4.1.4.3 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Clausal Ellipsis
4.2.4.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Lexical Cohesive Devices
4.2.4.2.1 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Reiteration
4.2.4.2.1.1 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Repetition
4.2.4.2.1.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of General Noun
4.2.4.2.1.3 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Superordinate
4.2.4.2.1.4 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Synonym
4.2.4.2.2 Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Use of Collocation
4.2.5 General Comments on Students' Errors of Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive Devices
4.2.5.1 Students' Inappropriate Use of Grammatical Cohesive Devices
4.2.5.1.1 Reference
4.2.5.1.2 Conjunction
4.2.5.1.3 Substitution
4.2.5.1.4 Ellipsis
4.2.5.2 Students' Inappropriate Use of Lexical Cohesive Devices
4.2.5.2.1 Reiteration
4.2.5.2.1.1 Repetition
4.2.5.2.1.2 General Noun
4.2.5.2.1.3 Superordinate
4.2.5.2.1.4 Synonym
4.2.5.2.2 Collocation
4.2.6 Summary
5.0 Introduction
5.1 A Summary of the Study
5.2 Conclusions and Implications
5.3 Recommendations
5.4 Suggestions for Further Research
5.6 Summary
Research Objectives and Themes
This study aims to investigate the discourse competence of third-level EFL students at the Faculty of Education/Radfan, University of Aden, specifically focusing on their ability to use cohesive devices in essay writing. The research seeks to identify the types and causes of discourse errors made by students, explore the negative impact of such incompetency on their writing quality, and provide recommendations to enhance teaching strategies for essay writing.
- Analysis of students' discourse competence in English essay writing.
- Identification of common grammatical and lexical cohesion errors.
- Examination of the influence of first language (L1) interference on foreign language (FL) writing.
- Evaluation of current teaching methods and their effectiveness in fostering cohesive writing skills.
- Development of pedagogical strategies to overcome discourse-level errors.
Auszug aus dem Buch
1.0 Introduction
In recent years, there have been numerous studies in discourse competence, but they are mainly concerned with using discourse in the classrooms by (EFL) teachers and how to develop and use it in its oral form with their students neglecting its written form. So this study looks at discourse competence in essay writing with reference to EFL students in their writing and tries to investigate the difficulties that students face when they write.
Among different skills of second language (L2), writing is considered to be the most difficult skill to master. This difficulty, according to Richards and Renandya (2002), "lies not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these ideas into readable discourse" (p. 303). So writing is considered a difficult process even in the first language (L1). It is even more complicated to write in a foreign language. Many studies indicate for the foreign language (EFL) students there tends to be interference from the first language in the process of writing in English (Cedar, 2004). Writing in a foreign language often presents the greatest challenge to the students at all stages of their learning particularly in essay writing, students write essays without serious grammatical errors or misspellings; however, their essays are still disconnected and incoherent, this illogicality is mainly caused by the errors at the discourse level.
Summary of Chapters
CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION: This chapter introduces the topic of discourse competence in essay writing for EFL students and outlines the problem, aims, and methodology of the research.
Chapter Two: Literature Review: This section reviews existing literature on discourse competence, text linguistics, and the theory of cohesion as proposed by Halliday and Hasan.
Chapter Three: Methodology of the Study: This chapter details the research design, including the use of a teachers' questionnaire and student writing tasks as instruments for data collection.
Chapter Four: Data Analysis and Interpretation: This chapter provides a comprehensive quantitative analysis of the collected data, examining both the teachers' perceptions and the students' actual use of cohesive devices.
Chapter Five: Conclusion: This final chapter summarizes the research findings, draws conclusions, and offers pedagogical recommendations for teachers and curriculum planners.
Keywords
Discourse Competence, EFL students, Essay Writing, Grammatical Cohesion, Lexical Cohesion, Cohesive Devices, Error Analysis, Textual Analysis, Language Interference, Applied Linguistics, Teaching Strategies, Writing Proficiency, Argumentative Essay, Coherence, Textuality.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this research?
The research focuses on investigating the discourse competence of third-level EFL students in the Department of English at the University of Aden, specifically their use of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices in essay writing.
What are the central thematic areas?
The core themes include the definition and role of discourse competence, the theory of cohesion (grammatical and lexical), the identification of students' discourse errors, and pedagogical approaches to teaching writing.
What is the core research objective?
The primary aim is to analyze the causes of discourse-level errors in students' essays and determine how these errors negatively affect the coherence and overall proficiency of their writing.
Which scientific methods were employed?
The study utilizes a quantitative research method, employing two primary instruments: a teachers' questionnaire to gather pedagogical insights and a student writing task (argumentative essay) to collect empirical data for analysis.
What topics are covered in the main body of the work?
The work covers theoretical frameworks of discourse and cohesion, methodology of data collection (questionnaire and writing task), detailed analysis of the students' use of cohesive devices, and a concluding discussion on the implications of the findings.
Which keywords characterize the work?
Key terms include discourse competence, cohesive devices, grammatical and lexical cohesion, EFL, error analysis, and essay writing.
How does mother tongue (L1) influence students' writing in this study?
The study notes that many students face challenges due to L1 interference, particularly in their tendency to repeat lexical items or use conjunctions (like "and") in ways that are common in Arabic but redundant or incorrect in English.
What specific suggestion is made for improving the teaching of cohesive devices?
The author recommends that teachers avoid teaching cohesive devices in isolation; instead, they should present them within complete, meaningful contexts to help students understand how they function to create texture and coherence in extended texts.
- Citation du texte
- Fadhel Mohsen Mohammed Mohammed (Auteur), 2017, Investigating the Discourse Competence in Essay Writing with Reference to the Third Level EFL Students, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/458654
