An analysis on cohesive devices encountered in argumentative compositions of the fifth semester students of the English Department of Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University

Dewi, Rusli (2003) An analysis on cohesive devices encountered in argumentative compositions of the fifth semester students of the English Department of Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University. Masters thesis, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya.

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Abstract

Writing is not just simply speech down on paper. Learning to write is not the same as learning to speak. While speaking can be informal and repetitive, writing is more formal and compact. In speaking, someone may repeat his ideas, in writing, however, the writers must express their ideas logically with fewer digressions and explanations. In other words, the continuity of thought between one idea to another in writing is a must. This continuity of thought can be achieved when there is a cohesion between one sentence to the other sentences in each paragraph. In spite of the important roles of cohesive devices, previous studies revealed that many university students made mistakes in cohesive devices. Therefore, in this thesis, the frequency of cohesive devices used and wrongly used by the fifth semester students of the English Department of Widya Mandala Catholic University was analyzed. However, unlike her previous study, in this research the writer did not only present and describe the number of cohesive devices used and wrongly used by the students, but also tried to assume the causes and suggest the possible teaching techniques to increase the students' competence in using cohesive devices. This research was qualitative in nature. In this case, the writer analyzed deeply the Argumentative compositions of the fifth semester students of the English Department of Widya Mandala Catholic University and described the result. To get an objective result, the writer took the students' Mid-term and Final Tests as data. Furthermore, the writer distributed the questionnaires to find out the causes of the students' errors in cohesive devices. Having analyzed the data, the writer found out that Personal Pronoun was the most frequently used both in the students' Mid-term and Final Tests, whereas, Possessive Pronoun and Dismissive Adversative Conjunction were the least frequently used in the Mid-term Test. Similarly, Possessive Pronoun and Verbal Substitution were the least used in the Final Test. Furthermore, the most frequent errors in the Mid-term Test were Personal Pronoun, Demonstrative Reference showing Neutral (article 'the'), Simple Additive Conjunction, and Causal Conjunction showing Reason. In the Final Test, the most frequent errors were Personal Pronoun, Demonstrative Reference showing Neutral (article 'the'), and Comparative Reference showing Particular Comparison. Having classified and interpreted the errors, the writer assumed eleven causes of the students' errors. They are as follows: 1. Interference of Indonesian language 2. Overgeneralization 3. Performance errors 4. Teacher Induced Errors Based on the distributed questionnaires, the writer also assumed that the students' errors were caused not only by the four conditions but also by the following conditions: 1. The confusion of the parts of speech. 2. The un-internalized rules 3. The effort to recode the speech into writing 4. The students' over-dependence on the readers to find out what they refer to 5. Lack of reading 6. Lack of practice in writing 7. The students' inability to recall what they have written when they move to another part of sentence. Finally, from the errors and the causes, the writer can suggest at least four teaching techniques to improve the students' competence in using cohesive devices, namely: by using pictures, reading texts, sentence combining exercises, and paragraph completion exercises.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Department:	["eprint_fieldopt_department_Graduate School" not defined]
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Cohesion, cohesive devices, argumentative compositions
Subjects:	English Education
Divisions:	Graduate School > Master Program in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Depositing User:	Sri Kusuma Dewi
Date Deposited:	29 Aug 2016 08:30
Last Modified:	29 Aug 2016 08:30
URI:	http://repository.ukwms.ac.id/id/eprint/6126

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