Cohesive devices in english information technology reading texts and implications in teaching and learning english for specific purposes at the people’s police university of technology and logistics

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS
COHESIVE DEVICES IN ENGLISH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
READING TEXTS AND IMPLICATIONS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING
ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES AT THE PEOPLE’S POLICE
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS

(PHƯƠNG TIỆN LIÊN KẾT TRONG CÁC BÀI ĐỌC VỀ CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG
TIN VÀ ỨNG DỤNG TRONG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN
NGÀNH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KỸ THUẬT- HẬU CẦN CAND)

TRAN THI VAN ANH

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2017

i


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

COHESIVE DEVICES IN ENGLISH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY READING
TEXTS AND IMPLICATIONS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH FOR

SPECIFIC PURPOSES AT THE PEOPLE’S POLICE UNIVERSITY OF
TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS

(PHƯƠNG TIỆN LIÊN KẾT TRONG CÁC BÀI ĐỌC VỀ CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN
VÀ ỨNG DỤNG TRONG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH TẠI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KỸ THUẬT- HẬU CẦN CAND)

TRAN THI VAN ANH

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ho Ngoc Trung

Hanoi, 2017
ii


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled
“Cohesive devices in English Information Technology reading texts and implication
in teaching and learning English for specific purposes at the People’s Police
University of Technology and Logistics” submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master in English Language. Except where the
reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due
acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2017

Tran Thi Van Anh

Approved by

SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)
Date:……………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to
my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ho Ngoc Trung, who has offered me precious
support, guidance, suggestions and encouragement throughout the research.
My special thanks go to the lecturers of the Post-graduate at Ha Noi Open
University - for their inspiring lectures.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to all the teachers, colleagues and
students at People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics for their willing
participation in answering questionnaires and sharing ideas on relevant issues.
Last but not least, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my family
who gave me supports during the study.

TranThi Van Anh

ii


ABSTRACT
This study deals with cohesive devices in English Information Technology
reading texts. The major concern is the distribution of cohesive devices in English

Information Technology reading texts from the textbook entitled “Infotech- English
for computer users- the fourth edition” by Santiago RemachaEsteras. In addition to
that, this study also reveal some common mistakes made by People’s Police
University of Technology and Logistics students in using cohesive devices. The aim
of doing this is to find out the ways to help the teachers and students to use English
cohesive devices effectively in teaching and learning.
A test was distributed to one hundred and fifty students at People’s Police
University who acted as significant means to gather data and information for the
research. The most common students’ mistakes were found and followed with error
analysis according to survey test.
The result of the test indicate the followings:
-

Rather deep analysis has been done on actual mistakes by students in using
cohesive devices.

-

Probable causes for making mistakes were given, with a view to helping the
students be able to avoid such mistakes.

Basing on research findings, suggestions are given with the hope that the study
may possibly to some extent improve current situation in teaching and learning
English cohesive devices at People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics.

iii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ESP:

English for Specific Purposes

IT:

Information Technology

PPUTL:

People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics

iv


LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1. Type of cohesion……………………………………………………..

16

Table 2.2. Grammatical and lexical cohesion …………………………………

16

Table 2.3. The description of reiteration ………………………………………

23

Table 3.1. Grammatical cohesive devices in English IT reading texts…………..

28

Table 3.2. Reference in English IT reading texts ……………………………….

31

Table 3.3. Ellipsis in English IT reading texts …………………………………

33

Table 3.4. Conjunction in English IT reading texts …………………………….

34

Table 3.5. Lexical cohesive devices in English IT reading texts ………………

37

Table 3.6. Collocation in English IT reading texts ……………………………..

41

Table 4.1.The result of multiple-choice task…………………………………….

47

Table 4.2. The result of reading comprehension for gap-filling task…………….

49

Table

50

4.3.

The

result

of

correcting

………………………………..

v

mistakes

task


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality………………………………………………….…...i
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………. . ……ii
Abstract ……………………………………………………………… ..…….iii
List of abbreviations ……………………………………………………. .…. iv
List of tables …………………………………………………………… . . …v
Table of contents ………………………………………………………..……vi
Chapter 1:INTRODUCTION...................................................................................... 1

1.1.Rationale of thestudy ................................................................................... 2
1. 2.Aims and objectives of thestudy .................................................................. 3
1.3.Researchquestions ....................................................................................... 3
1.4.Methods of the study ................................................................................... 3

1.5. Scope of the study………………………………………………………4
1.6.Significance of the study ………………………………………………………4
1.7.Design ofthestudy ........................................................................................ 5
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................... 6
2.1. Previous studies .......................................................................................... 6
2.2. Overview of discourse ………………………………………………………..8
2.2.1.The conceptofdiscourse ............................................................................. 8
2.2.1.1.Discourse anddiscourseanalysis ...................................................... 8
2.2.1.2.Discourseand text ............................................................................ 9
2.2.1.3.Spoken andwrittendiscourse ......................................................... 10
2.2.1.4.Discoursecontext ........................................................................... 11
2.2.2. Cohesion ............................................................................................... 14
2.2.2.1.Definition ........................................................................................ 14
2.2.2.2.Cohesion and coherence................................................................ 14
2.2.3. Cohesive devices.................................................................................... 15
2.2.3.1. Definition ............................................................................................ 15
2.2.3.2. Classification ....................................................................................... 16
2.2.3.2.1. GrammaticalCohesion ...................................................................... 17
2.2.3.2.2. LexicalCohesion ............................................................................... 23
vi


2.3.Overvies of ESP ........................................................................................ 24
2.3.1. What is ESP?......................................................................................24
2.3.2. Classification of ESP……………………………………….……….25

2.3.3. Characteristics of ESP………………………………………..……..26
2.4. Overview of the textbook “Infotech”………………………..………………26
2.5. Summary………………………………………………………….…………27
Chapter 3: COHESIVE DEVICES IN ENGLISH IT READING TEXTS .... 28
3.1. Grammaticalcohesivedevices ..................................................................... 28
3.1.1. Reference ............................................................................................. 28
3.1.2. Substitution .......................................................................................... 32
3.1.3. Ellipsis ................................................................................................. 32
3.1.4. Conjunction ......................................................................................... 34
3.2. Lexicalcohesivedevices ............................................................................. 35
3.2.1. Reiteration ........................................................................................... 36
3.2.1.1Repetition ....................................................................................... 36
3.2.1.2. Generalnouns................................................................................ 37
3.2.1.3. Synonyms ..................................................................................... 38
3.2.1.4. Superordinate ............................................................................... 39
3.2.2. Collocation .......................................................................................... 40
3.3. Summary…………………………………………………………………… 44
Chapter4:COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY STUDENTS IN USING
COHESIVE DEVICES …………………………………………………………46
4.1. Test result analysis ……………………………………………………….…46
4.1.1. Aims of the test…………………………………………………….....46
4.1.2. Participants ………………………………………………………...…46
4.1.3. Methods of the study …………………………………………………46
4.1.4. Test description ………………………………………………………47
4.1.5. Data result analysis……………………………………………………47
4.2. Implications for teaching and learning cohesive devices in ESP……………51
4.3. Summary ……………………………………………………………………53
Chapter 5:CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 54
5.1. Recapitulation ............................................................................................ 54
vii

5.2.Limitations of thestudy ............................................................................... 55
5.3.Suggestions forfurtherstudies ...................................................................... 55

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 57
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………60

viii


Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
Language is an essential form of communication. It allows people to convey
and communicate something among the speaker and the addressee; so that the
information delivered well and there is no misunderstanding among them.
Discourse used in linguistics to refer to any passages, spoken or written, of
whatever length, that does form a unified whole. Due to discourse is a
comprehension language, the syntaxes and description research are not limited only
for sentence but must be continued to the higher postulate unit like dialogue,
paragraph, chapter, etc.
According to Nguyen Hoa (200:11), the arrival of discourse analysis on the
linguistic scene helps to explain many problems that structural approach fails to
account for. Among these are the use of the definite article, reference, substitution
and ellipsis. In other words, that’s cohesion of a discourse. Basically, cohesion
refers to the formal relationship that causes texts to cohere or stick together. It is
indicated by grammatical, logical and lexical relationships found among or between
the sentences of a text. Undoubtedly, content in documents cannot be
communicated logically and coherently without the elements adhering to the
elements in the text.

However, during my process of teaching IT English for students at The
People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics (PPUTL), the author come
to realize that the students lack the adequate linguistic knowledge in English to read
and understand reading texts in IT textbook. Students also tends to make
grammatical, contextual and textual errors leading to misinterpretation of ideas
conveyed in the texts. They often make errors at sentence and discourse levels may
be attributed to their insufficient language base, one of which is the cohesive
devices in the text. Students even do not pay attention to the cohesive devices used
in the context of the text. They just ask teacher the meaning of some technical terms
1


or they try to understand the content by looking up all new words in dictionary. As a
result, students find it hard to understand the text or express their answers in the
comprehension check questions even when they know most of the words.
In order to build a deep understanding of the cohesion in ESP reading texts to
English learners as well as increase the interest in the ESP learning, the study on
“Cohesive devices in English Information Technology reading texts and
implications in teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes at The
People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics” is carried out.
1.2 Aims and objectives of the study
The study aims at finding out the solutions to improve students’ capability in using
English cohesive devices in English for Information and Technology at The
People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics (PPUTL).
From this aim, the study attempts:
-

To analyze cohesive devices in English IT reading texts in terms of type and
number of occurrence.

-

To find out the common mistakes made by students via the survey test and
suggest some solutions to improve students’ capabilities in using cohesive
devices effectively.

1.3. Research questions
In order to achieve the objectives, the study is meant to find out the following
research questions:
1. What are common cohesive devices used in English IT reading texts?
2. What are the students’ common mistakes in using cohesive devices in
English IT reading texts?
1.4.

Methods of the study
To achieve the aims mentioned above, the study with descriptive, quantitative
and qualitative method is used and the following tasks are involved in the study.
After collecting IT reading texts from books “InfoTech- English for computer

2


users”- the fourth edition, the data are selected, analyzed and grouped into
categories so that the subject can be described clearly. Examples, figures and
tables are also provided to illustrate the description. For the case study at
PPUTL, the writer uses personal observations and designs test in order to
investigate the students’ common mistakes in using cohesive devices in English
IT texts. As a result, the reliability of the research is highly appreciated.
The following tasks are involved in the study:
1. Collecting IT reading texts from textbook entitled “InfoTech- English for

computer users- the Fourth edition” at People’s Police University of
Technology and Logistics.
2. Studying the materials to assure the reliability and the validity.
3. Analyzing the data and discussing the findings.
4. Designing a test and conducting a survey on the target students in combination
with personal observations to explore students’ common mistakes in translating
cohesive devices in IT readingtexts.
5. Suggesting solutions to improve students’ capabilities to usecohesive devices
correctly.
1.5. Scope of the study
The study is narrowed down to the cohesive devices used in English IT reading
texts from the textbook “InfoTech- English for computer users- the Fourth edition”.
In detail, this study mainly focuses on seven reading texts which are selected from
the book for teaching ESP at PPUTL.
1.6.

Significance of the study

Theoretical significance: This study contributes to verifying the correctness and
significance related to linguistic theories in discourse analysis by working on a
certain kind of discourse (English IT reading texts).

3


Practical significance: This thesis helps to gain an insight into the use of lexical
cohesive devices in the English IT reading texts.
1.7.

Design of the study

The study begins with Certificate of originality, Acknowledgment, Abstract,

and Table of contents. The main body of the study consists of 5 chapters:
Chapter 1 is the Introduction. This chapter consists of rationale, aims and
objectives, research questions, methods of the study, scope of the study,
significance and design of the study.
Chapter 2 is the Literature Review that consists of theoretical notions necessary for
the study including review of previous studies and overview of theoretical
background: cohesive devices and English IT reading texts.
Chapter 3 focuses on the Findings and Discussions; that is cohesive devices in
English IT reading texts.
Chapter 4 is the Applications. It reveals some common mistakes made by students
when dealing with cohesive devices. Moreover, It offers the teachers and students
some solutions to the teaching and learning of cohesive devices and developing
PPUTL students’ translation skills.
The last chapter, chapter 5, is the Recapitulation, Concluding remarks, Limitation
of the research and some recommendations for a further research.
Apart from the three main parts, the references and the appendices of the study are
also included at the end of the research.

4


Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.Previous studies
This section presents the related studies after the thorough and in-depth search
carried out by the researchers. This will also present briefly reviews of what has
been found, and then identifies a gap. The study discusses the related researches
with key findings, then finds out weaknesses in the method and/ or limitations in the
findings and finally, discusses how the next researchers tried to address these

problems.
Although many studies on cohesion (or cohesive devices) have been carried out
in the field of teaching English all over the world, the greatest number of
researchers emphasized the relationship of the use of cohesive devices to the
quality of writing of a text or coherence. The study of Johnson (1992) sought to
find out the relationship of cohesion to overall writing quality of a text. To achieve
this, she correlated the amount and type of cohesive devices used in three groups
of students’ essays to the overall quality rating of these essays given by the
respective writing teachers of each group. The results revealed that there is no
significant difference between the amount and number of cohesive ties used to the
overall quality of essays among three groups. Palmer’s (1999) study is concerned
with coherence and cohesion in the English classroom. The purpose of his study
was to analyze the way non-native English language students create coherent texts.
Results have suggested that lexical reiteration is often used by ESL students in
order to create coherenttexts.
As in Johnson’s study, Meisuo (2000) also investigated qualitatively the
relationship of cohesive ties in the expository essays of Chinese students with their
quality of writing. The study revealed that lexical category had the highest
percentage of ties, followed by conjunctions and references. Meisuo included
quantitative finding which revealed cohesive features such as errors, ambiguity,
5


overuse and misuse of cohesive devices. Furthermore, Meisuo’s study also found
that there was no significant relationship between the number of cohesive ties used
and the quality of writing, or there was a significant difference between the highlyrated and poorly-rated essays in the frequency of use of cohesive ties. The
qualitative analysis showed that Chinese students tended to overuse additive and
temporal devices and to misuse adversatives. Some similar researches were
conducted by Liu and Braine (2005), Crossley and Mcnamara (2010).
However, there are some researches focusing on students’ problems and errors

with using cohesion devices. For instance, the study of Abdel Hamid Ahmed
(2010) focused on the organisational problems that Egyptian students of English
encountered when they wrote an English essay. In particular, the study aimed at
investigating student’s cohesion and coherence problems in EFL essay writing. In
Vietnam, Tran Thi Hai Binh (2005) also conducted a study in her MA thesis in
order to analyze the students’ errors on the use of cohesive devices in writing.
Related to studies on information technology texts, there are some theses from
Vietnam National University, College of Foreign Languages. For instance, Mai
Thanh Hanh (2014) investigates the lexical cohesive devices in the reading texts of
textbook – Infotech. The thesis offers theoretical knowledge of lexical cohesive
devices in English. The thesis then focuses on analyzing the lexical cohesive
devices employed in some reading texts. The findings of this thesis revealed that
both types of lexical cohesive devices which are reiteration and collocations appear
quite frequently.

All kinds of reiteration, namely repetition, synonyms, near-

synonyms, superordinates, and general words, can be found in letters of enquiry.
Collocations are also common in reading texts.
All those studies revealed the characteristics of cohesive devices in some
certain types of texts such as: English enquiry letter, economic texts, writing and
narrative texts. They also suggest some solutions to improve students’ skill in using
cohesive devices. However, in my thesis, the author concentrate on technical texts-

6


that is IT text which there is a few research on this field. Especially, the author
strictly emphasize on the practical significance of this study. It will help the author,
in particular and the reader, in general have deeper insight of cohesive devices in

one kind of texts- IT reading texts.
2.2. Overview of discourse
2.2.1. The concept of discourse
2.2.1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis
There are many different notions of discourse among linguists as to the use
of the term discourse in that some is used in reference to texts, while others claim it
denotes speech which is illustrated by these following definitions:
“Discourse can be defined as a stretch of language consisting of several sentences,
which are perceived as being related in some way. Sentences can be related, not
only in terms of the idea they share, but also in terms of the jobs they perform
within the discourse- that is in terms of their functions.” (Nunan D, 1993)
Halliday and Hasan (1976) define that “Discourse is language that is
functional – language that is doing some job in some context as opposed to isolated
words to sentences. Discourse is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical
unit, like a clause or a sentence. Discourse is a semantic unit, a unit not of form but
of meaning. A discourse does not consist of sentences, it is realized by, or encoded
in sentences”.
In Crystal’s opinion, discourse is considered “a continuous stretch of language
larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon,
argument, joke, or narrative”.
In general, discourse is defined differently but had something in common.
Discourse is understood as language in use, which can reflect people’s point of view
and value systems.
Brown and Yule (1983: viii) rightly remark: the term “discourse analysis” has
come to be used with a wide range of meanings which cover a wide range of
activities at the intersection of many disciplines from sociolinguistics, philosophical
7


linguistics to computational linguistics.

Scholars operating in the field of discourse analysis tend to focus on
different aspects of discourse. Basically, there are three distinct strands of
discourse analysis. It includes involvement in text grammar dealing with cohesion
and coherence. The other direction has to do with conversation analysis. The last
one is the area of pragmatics.
As the view of Michael McCarthy (1993: 5), discourse analysis is
concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in
which it is used. It grew out of work in different disciplines in the 1960s and
early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and
sociology. Discourse analysts study language in use: written texts and spoken
data of all kinds, from conversation to highly institutionalized forms oftalk.
2.2.1.2. Discourse and text
It is aware text exists in both written and spoken language. In the former,
“text” requires its interpretation as a type of linguistic unit larger than the sentence
as a result of linguistics’ dissatisfaction with the traditional understanding of
linguistic levels.
According to Nguyen Hoa (2000: 13), there are two approaches to text. The first
sees text as “the verbal record of a communicative act” (Brown and Yule, 1983:
6) or as “the linguistic product of a communicative process” (Widdowson, 1984:
100). The second approach tends to see text as a semantic or communicative
category. For example, Halliday and Hassan (1976) view text as a “semantic unit”
characterised by cohesion or a framework that is logical and general. “A text is a
unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a sentence;
and it is not defined by its size. A text is sometimes envisaged to be some kind of
super sentence, a grammatical unit that is larger than a sentence but is related to
a sentence in the same way that a sentence is related to a clause, a clause to a
group and so on”. De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981: 3) define text as a
8

“communicative occurrence which possesses seven constitutive conditions of
textual

communication:

cohesion,

coherence,

intentionality,

acceptability,

informativity, situationality and intertextuality”. However, Widdowson probably is
one of the first who makes clear and explicit the distinction between text and
discourse. According to him, text typically has cohesion whereas discourse has
coherence. And “discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction.
Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed,
intentions made clear, its linguistic product is Text” (Widdowson, 1984:100).
From this point of view, a text is simply a representation or a verbal
record of the whole communicative process (that is discourse) in which many
situational factors are involved. In the light of distinction, discourse analysis can
be contrasted with textanalysis.
2.2.1.3. Spoken and written discourse
Talking and writing represent different modes of expressing linguistics
meanings. As stated by Halliday (1985) “Speaking does not show clearly sentence
and paragraph boundaries or signal the move into direct quotation while writing
leaves out the prosodic and paralinguistic contribution”. While written discourse
comprises complete sentences with subordination, rich lexis and frequent
modifications via adjectives and adverbs, spoken contains incomplete sentences.

Although spoken and written discourses share the communicative functions, they
serve various functions. The former is concerned with interact ional use and the
latter with the transactional use (Brown and Yule, 1983: 13)
By comparison, writing language is under no temporal, spatial pressure. The
writer has time to choose lexical items, check words and structures to make
necessary correction which is primarily concerned with the transactional use.
Spoken language, as stated by Brown and Yule (1983), is the kind of language
which is produced under some temporal, spatial pressure with the speaker’s
monitoring of what it is that he has just said, determining his current phrase and
9


simultaneously planning his next utterance and which is primarily concerned with
the interactional use.
There are three prominent features that can apply to distinguish written and spoken
discourse.
1. Density: the density is the information volume presented. Evidently, written
language is dense while spoken language is sparse.
2. Complexity of grammar: in spoken language grammar is not so important,
but information. For written language, it is important to maintain enough
information, appropriate grammatical structures as well as rational
organization of sentences.
3. Grammatical metaphor: Written language presents rather few different verbs,
whereas spoken language uses more verbs.
These above characteristics are inherent in spoken and written language in
whatever types of discourse. Written texts can be read out and heard such as letters,
stories, novels, contracts, reports, speeches. Moreover, spoken discourse such as
lectures, lessons, interviews, conversations and so on can also be reserved in the
form of writing.
2.2.1.4. Discourse context

Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within which the
discourse is embedded. Context plays a very important role in the interpretation of
discourse. There is a dialectical relationship between discourse and context. The
context creates the discourse as much as the discourse creates the context.
According to Nunan (1993: 8), there are two types of context: linguistic context
and non-linguistic context. Linguistic context is the language that surrounds or
accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis. Non-linguistic context is the
context in which the discourse takes place. Linguistic context is in fact referred to as
co-text. It surrounds or accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis. Nonlinguistic context was taken up by Firth (1957) who placed great emphasis on the
"social context". He saw context of situation as crucial determinants of utterance
10


meaning. However, Firth did not give a theoretical account of the effect of context
on utterance meaning.
As far as the features of context are concerned, the term SITUATION,
meaning the “context of situation” in which a text is embedded, refers to all
those extra-linguistic factors which have some bearing on the text itself. Firth,
the famous British linguist believes that a context of situation should embrace
the following categories:
 The relevant features of participants: persons,personalities
(i)

The verbal action of theparticipants

(ii)

The non-verbal action of theparticipants

 The relevantobjects

 The effect of the verbal action. (Firth, quoted in Brown and Yule,
1984:37)
Later, Halliday developed these concepts into what he terms: Field,
Tenor and Mode of discourse. Field of discourse refers to the subject matter of
the discourse, which is what the speaker talks about. Tenor of discourse is
concerned with the interpersonal relations between the participants. Mode of
discourse is about the channels or the ways by which discourse is conducted.
Then Hymes considers context as a limiter of the range of possible
interpretations, and on the other hand, a supporter of the intended interpretation.
Hymes goes on to elaborate on the features of context which he thinks are
relevant to the reading of discourse. Hymes identifies the following features of
context:
(i)

Addressor andaddressee

(ii)

Audience

(iii)

Topic
11


(iv)

Setting

(v)

Channel

(vi)

Code

(vii)

Message-form

(viii) Event
(ix)

Key

(x)

Purpose

For Hymes, the participants will consist of addressor, the speaker or writer
who produces the utterance, and the addressee, the hearer or reader who receives
and decodes the utterance. He also identifies “audience”- the overhearers - or in
other words, the unintended addressees. Topic is certain to constrain the range of
language used. And if you have information about the setting, both in terms of
place and time, the things like posture, gesture and facial expression, your
expectations will be further limited.
Channel refers to how the contact between the participants is maintainedby speech, writing, signing, or signal. Code is what kind of language or dialect or
style of language is being used – standard language, or the one spoken in a region.

Message-form tells us about the forms intended – a chat, debate, sermon, fairytale,
a love letter, a lecture, a radio talk, a play etc. And event is about the nature of the
communicative event within which a genre may be embedded. For example, if a
meeting is the event, then there may be the opening speech, the welcoming speech
or the papers read aloud by those attending it. Key is another concept which
involves evaluation – you may ask yourself if it was a good speech, a good or bad
lecture or an interesting love letter, etc. Finally, purpose is what outcome the
participants want tohappen.

12


2.2.2. Cohesion
2.2.2.1. Definition
The concept of cohesion is closely connected with text. It is defined as the
grammatical and lexical relationship between different elements of a text.
According to Yule (1996), a text is usually considered to have a certain structure
which depends on factors quite different from those required in the structure of a
single sentence. Some among those factors are described in terms of cohesion, or
the ties and connections which exist within a text.
Halliday and Hasan (1976:4) also define cohesion in a similar way: “The
concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist
within the text, and that define it as a text.” They also point out that cohesion often
occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on
that of another.
To summarize, cohesion refers to the linguistic elements that make a
discourse semantically coherent; or as Hoa (2000: 23) indicated “cohesion refers to
the formal relationship that causes texts to cohere or stick together”.
2.2.2.2. Cohesion and Coherence
The concept of cohesion refers to relations of meaning that exist within the

text, and that defines it as a text. Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some
element in the discourse dependent on that of another.
Cohesion is the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations which link
various parts of a text. These relations or ties organize and, to some extent, create a
text, for instance, by requiring the reader to interpret words and expressions by
reference to other words and expressions in the surrounding sentences and
paragraphs. Cohesion is a surface relation and it connects together the actual words
and expressions that we can see or hear.

13


Halliday and Hasan (1986) identify five main cohesive devices in English:
reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion.
Coherence, on the other hand, is defined as the relationships of various ideas
in a text that are linked together to create a meaningful discourse. According to
Nunan (1993) coherence is “the feeling that sequences of sentences or utterances
seems to hang together and make sense. In short, coherence means the relationships
that link the meanings of utterances in a discourse or of the sentences in a text.
These links may be based on the speakers’ shared knowledge.
Though cohesion and coherence, in essence, is different from each other,
they are closely linked together. They represent the very essential elements that
make a text or discourse coherent and that make coherent text or discourse different
from random sentences or utterances. Cohesion is mainly used to embody
coherence by a system of cohesive devices. Accordingly, cohesion and coherence
help consolidate the text as a complete and unified linguistics unit beyond the
largest syntactic unit of sentence.
2.2.3. Cohesive devices
2.2.3.1. Definition
The term “cohesive” has been defined in various ways. Some researchers apply the

term cohesive to the surface structure of the text. “Cohesive” has sometimes been
applied to smaller units of language in the text. Other researchers have defined
cohesive as continuity in words and sentence structure.
Cohesive devices consist of grammatical cohesive devices and lexical cohesive
devices. We called grammatical because at least one of the elements in the tie is a
grammatical word. We make a distinction between content or lexical words and
grammatical words. Lexical words have a meaning in the dictionary - words like
table, chair, go and come; grammatical words are words which have a function
rather than a meaning: a word like she, for example, has the grammatical function
of indicating a female.
14


2.2.3.2. Classification
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 303), the classification of
cohesion is based on the linguistic form; these are the categories of cohesion
that can be recognized in the lexicogrammatical system. Therefore, the type of
cohesion depends either on semantic relation in the linguistic system or on
lexico-

grammatical

relations.

It

can

be

made

clearer

in

the

followingdescription:
Table 2.1: Type of Cohesion
Nature of cohesive relation

Type of cohesion

Relatedness of form

Substitution and ellipsis; lexical collocation

Relatedness of reference

Reference; lexical reiteration

Semantic connection

Conjunction

(Source: Haliday and Hasan, 1976:304)
Reference, substitution and ellipsis are clearly grammatical; lexical cohesion, as the
name implies, lexical. Conjunction is on the borderline of the grammatical and the
lexical; the set of conjunctive element can probably be interpreted grammatically in

terms of systems, and some conjunctive expressions involve lexical selection.
However, it is better to put it in the group of grammatical cohesion as it is mainly
grammatical with a lexical component inside. Consequently, we can refer to
grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion as follows:
Table 2.2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion
Grammatical cohesion
Reference

Lexical cohesion
Conjunction

Reiteration

 Exophoric

 Additive

 Same word/repetition

 Endophoric

 Adversative

 Synonym/near

15