BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY TONG THI PHUONG THAO A STUDY OF COHESIVE REFERENCE ERRORS IN ESSAYS WRITTEN BY ENGLISH-MAJOR JUNIORS AT THU DAU MOT UNIVER
INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
1.1.1 The importance of writing skills
Writing is a difficult skill in language learning, especially for students who learn English as a foreign language Therefore, being able to write English essays is one of the primary targets for English-major students Indeed, in order to properly arrange and express ideas, not only linguistic understanding of the English language (phonology, vocabulary, and grammar) but also knowledge of rhetorical conventions must be acquired Due to the disparities between the language systems of the target language and the student’s native tongue, students typically encounter a variety of issues that are manifested in the form of common mistakes or errors in their English essays “Good writing skills allow learners to communicate their message with clarity and ease to a larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations” (Rajih, 2016, p 478) In this sense, people can inform, conduct business, persuade, infuriate, and express their thoughts through writing However, writing or learning to write in a foreign language is not as straightforward as writing in one’s native tongue.
According to Ulijn and Strother (1995), writing is regarded as “one of the active or productive skills of language usage” (p 153) It is needed for taking notes, describing objects or devices and writing essays, answering written questions, creating compositions, writing experimental reports, etc As a result, writing has long been considered an essential component of the curricula for students majoring in English and for use in academic settings Because English is the key to overcoming the barrier of language and bringing individuals into the global community, teaching English in schools should also focus on developing students’ writing skills in the English language.
Writing skills are essential for effective communication They play an important role in everyone’s work They are special skills to express ideas and communicative intentions through written languages Some students assume that writing skills are one reason for their success Moreover, they realize that they have to write many types of text in reality.
Nevertheless, those skills are not innate abilities They are taken shape and improved through education and practice in reality In addition, writers have to organize their ideas so that they are harmonious to reach the main target of writing, which is conveying their opinions to the readers For these reasons, a cohesive text is essential because it decides how much readers understand the writer’s message Even essays without serious grammatical errors or misspellings can give readers the impression of inconsistency and illogicality, which is mainly caused by errors at the discourse level.
1.1.2 The importance of cohesion in writing
According to Ghasemi (2013), cohesion is regarded as “an essential textual component” (p 1615) both in constructing ordered texts and making the material understandable to the reader It would appear that cohesion is responsible for ensuring that our words, ideas, and paragraphs fit together In
3 place of a series of statements that are not related to one another, it connects a string of sentences to produce a text.
Cohesion is also a crucial feature of academic writing because it directly affects our writing style According to Min (2014), a cohesive essay is not limited to grammatically accurate sentences; instead, it refers to the linkage of ideas at both the sentence and paragraph levels The content of sentences in the text has to be cohesive It means that they have to be organized logically in proper order Without cohesive devices, the reader experiences the sensation of reading a long list of disconnected thoughts They frequently struggle to recall what they have read They also have difficulty grasping the relationships between concepts, which may indicate that they do not get the significant argument of essays Therefore, writers have to avoid writing sentences that are incorrect in grammar and do not relate to the topic It is quite challenging to communicate successfully when the text does not have a coherent flow.
Numerous scholars have investigated the relationship between the use of cohesion devices and writing quality A text is meaningful when its pieces make reference to one another and establish a connection Reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction are some examples of grammatical and lexical cohesiveness that can be used to establish the relation Therefore, cohesiveness can also be achieved by the use of lexicon and grammar There is a widespread belief that essay quality is highly correlated with its cohesion and coherence It is reflected in the writing literature (e.g., Collins, 1998; DeVillez, 2003) as well as in writing instruction textbooks (Golightly & Sanders, 1990) Because the objective of a text is to communicate ideas, a good text should be easily interpreted by the reader Consequently, the cohesion of the text is vital since it clarifies its meaning and allows readers to comprehend what the author intends to convey through the text.
Statement of the problem
In reality, students’ writing skills face some obstacles Many linguists are interested in this issue and discuss it in numerous academic forums Today’s youth frequently fail to clarify their thoughts in writing Due to a lack of writing skills in their native tongue, Vietnamese students struggle with writing in the target language, especially English Students’ inability to write in English is the greatest obstacle to their worldwide integration and employment opportunities in foreign companies.
Although learners study writing skills through many courses, they still face a lot of difficulties in the writing process They cannot organize their ideas for writing, or they find it difficult to outline their writing In addition, they also make many grammatical and lexical mistakes because they have to write in the target language, not their mother tongue Besides, due to lack of knowledge of the target language, learners sometimes make their writings difficult to comprehend By using wrong, or omitting cohesive reference devices, their writings are not consistent As a result, they are difficult for readers to understand or to interpret what the writers want to express
The English-major students at Thu Dau Mot University also face those difficulties Sometimes, they do not recognize the important role of cohesive reference in writing Hence, they unconsciously make cohesive reference errors.From that point, we need a study in order to explore which cohesive reference errors students often make Then, according to the findings and many related theories, the study surmises some reasons and puts forward some suggestions in teaching and learning writing skills The results of this study are practical because it is studied on the participants who are students of Thu Dau Mot University Therefore, the findings of this study will contribute directly to writing the curriculum of English major at Thu Dau Mot University
Aims of the study
From the difficulties which students have faced in writing skills in general and cohesive reference in particular as the author mentioned above, it is necessary to conduct a study in order to investigate which cohesive reference errors committed by the English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University in their essays In addition, the study also explores the frequency of making those errors From the findings, the study also surmises some reasons why the students often make those errors as well as suggests some solutions for limiting those errors The findings of this study will help students, teachers and textbook writers have an overlook at the cohesive reference errors committed by students.
Research questions
To accomplish the purpose of this study, the following research questions have been generated:
1 What kinds of cohesive reference errors do the English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University often commit in their essays?
2 What are the dominant cohesive reference errors which English-major juniors often commit in their essays?
Significance of the study
It is the first study conducted on cohesive reference errors at Thu Dau Mot University Errors were identified using a framework that is a combination Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesion theory and the updated framework of Jenei (2014) In addition, other cohesive reference errors not present in either framework were discovered while identifying errors These errors were included in the final framework.
Firstly, by identifying the cohesive reference errors often made by English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University, teachers have an overview of the problems their students face in this aspect Acknowledging those errors,
6 teachers and those who design the English-major curriculum can revise the content of writing courses and the teaching methodology to help students avoid committing cohesive reference errors.
Besides, by surmising the reasons causing those errors, the study can recommend suggestions to improve the English teaching and learning process,especially in writing skills, to avoid cohesive reference errors The results of the study will be transferred to the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Thu Dau Mot University in order to contribute as reference material to design the writing courses.
Scope of the study
The scope of this research is to investigate the cohesive reference errors committed by English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University, thereby proposing some solutions to limit the errors The participants in this study were English-major juniors in The Faculty of Foreign Languages in the academic year 2020-2021 The subject of this study is 245 final papers of the Essay Writing in English course By that, the author assesses cohesive reference errors committed by the English-major juniors in the university.
Organization of the study
Besides this introductory chapter, the study includes four other main chapters, each dealing with a separate issue.
Chapter 2, Literature Review, provides the definition of key terms in this study This chapter also reviews some previous studies on error analysis and identifies the gap in those studies.
Chapter 3, Research Methodology, explains the methodology employed in the research This chapter clarifies the research participants, subjects, instruments, and describes how data are collected and analyzed.
Chapter 4, Analysis and Discussion, represents characteristics of each kind of cohesive reference errors which the English-major juniors at Thu Dau
Mot University made in writing essays From the findings, the author compares the frequency of types of cohesive reference errors in order to see which kinds of errors the students commit the most and the least, thence surmising some reasons which caused those errors.
Chapter 5, Conclusion and Recommendations, in this chapter, the author presents the summary of results, some suggestions for teaching and learning process in order to avoid and eliminate these errors Besides, the author also clarifies the limitations of this research and gives recommendations for further studies in the future
To sum up, this chapter presented the study’s background, rationale,problem, and significance The chapter will be followed by relevant theoretical underpinnings and related studies into the field.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Definitions of text and essay
Halliday and Hasan (1976) state that “text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole” (p 1) They also claim that text is a “semantic unit” (p 2) which is characterized by cohesion It is not a grammatical unit such as a sentence or a clause, and there is no limit to its size A text is best regarded as a semantic unit, a unit not of form but meaning.
Besides those definitions of text, there are some studies on the differences between a text and a non-text A text is an extended structure of syntactic units such as words, groups, and clauses and textual units that are marked by the coherence among the elements and completion (Yalỗınkaya & Rzayev, 2017).
On the other hand, a non-text consists of random sequences of linguistic units such as sentences, paragraphs, or sections in any temporal or spatial extension (Werlich, 1976) It is a set of mutually relevant communicative functions, structured in a way as to achieve an overall rhetorical purpose (Hatim and Mason, 1990).
Whereas text is a general term which represents “a passage of discourse” (Wang & Guo, 2014), an essay is a more specific term to represent a piece of writing that gives the author’s own argument It has been defined in a variety of ways (Holman & William, 2003) Huxley (1958) noted that the essay is a literary device for conveying writer’s opinions about everything An essay consists of a group of paragraphs focused on a particular subject
The essay is used to evaluate and test the writing skills of a writer as well as his or her abilities to respond personally or critically to an issue Through an essay, the writer presents his or her own arguments in a more sophisticated manner In academic study, learners usually write essays as a midterm or final test of a course Teachers evaluate the essays to check how much knowledge students acquire in the course.
Definitions of cohesion and cohesive reference
Due to the importance of writing in the academic field as well as in life, students need to be aware of the features which constitute a text Besides vocabulary, grammar, ideas, etc Cohesion is one of the factors which affects the quality of writings.
In Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) opinions, the concept of cohesion is described as “a semantic one” (p 4); it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text and that define it as text In their consideration, cohesion is the grammatical and lexical linking within a text or sentence that holds a text together and gives it meaning In short, the links that stick different sentences and make the text meaningful can be considered as cohesion in the text
Many studies were conducted by linguists on the cohesion aspect Hinkel (2003) conceptualized cohesion as “the connectivity of ideas in discourse and sentences to one another in text, thus creating the flow of information in a unified way” (p 279) Cohesion refers to the range of possibilities that exist for linking something with what has gone before In other words, the cohesion focuses on the relation among sentences rather than within sentences Similarly, Kwan and Yunus (2014) assume that cohesion can be said to be the “connectivity and flow within the text that are established through the use of devices that cause the elements within the text to be interrelated and inter-dependent” (p 131)
In fact, cohesion represents the presence of explicit cues in the text that allows readers to find semantic relations within it as part of the linguistic system enhancing the semantic potentials of text Ghasemi (2013) realizes that a text is meaningful only when elements referring to each other in the text and those elements set up a relation Cohesion distinguishes texts from non-texts and enables readers to establish relevance between what was said already, what is being said now, and what will be said next, through the appropriate use of the necessary lexical and grammatical cohesive devices (Castro, 2004).
Beside the above opinions about cohesion, there are criticisms which are against the cohesive theories The cohesive theory proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976) was challenged by Carrell (1982) Carrell (1982) believes that
“processing a text is an interactive process between the text and the prior background knowledge of the listener or reader” (p 482) It means that both the structure and content of the text and the readers’ knowledge about the text should be considered carefully Carrell (1982) argued that there is no meaningful relationship between the number of cohesive devices and the coherence of writing However, the author does not agree with this idea due to the result of Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) study They remark that cohesive devices appear to be critical in determining the clarity, appropriateness, and comprehensibility in writing Cohesion helps create text by providing the texture of text through its variety of cohesion linking mechanisms and semantic devices (Abadiano, 1995).Halliday and Hasan (1976) also believe that cohesion explains how meaning was constructed based on the semantic relations that were motivated between and among the lexical and grammatical items in a text In addition, Salkie (2001) also reckons that cohesion is an important textual aspect to achieve qualified writing.This aspect of cohesion is built by some features, namely grammatical and lexical cohesion Grammatical cohesion refers to the various grammatical devices that can be used to make relations among sentences more explicit (Azzouz, 2009)
From those definitions, it can be concluded that the links that stick different sentences and make the text meaningful can be thought of as cohesion in the text A text is meaningful only when its elements refer to each other and set up a relation The relation can be set up through reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction as grammatical and lexical cohesion Therefore, cohesion can be measured and verified through rules of grammar and semantics.
Besides the concept of cohesion, coherence is also one of the features of an essay but they do not imply each other Cohesion and coherence are linguistic qualities that are desirable in a text and as such considered important for all students trying to master a language They are related notions central to text linguistics McDonough (2002, as cited in Malgwi, 2016) explains the concepts as two distinct ways of discussing the features of a text The first concept
“cohesion” pertains to the relations of elements which are present in the text, while the second concept “coherence” refers to the relations which are related to facts outside language From the definition above, it can be said that cohesion defines “those mechanisms that hold a text together, while coherence defines those underlying semantic relations that allow a text to be understood and used” (Witte & Faigley, 1981, p 202).
Basically, coherence means the connection of ideas at the idea level, and cohesion means the connection of ideas at the sentence level In other words, coherence refers to the rhetorical aspects of the writing, which include developing, supporting an argument, synthesizing, organizing and clarifying ideas It also refers to the relations held between the underlying surface text. Moreover, the term “coherence” refers to the knowledge which can be activated in the mind whereas relations refer to the connection between the surface texts (Azzouz, 2009) Meanwhile, cohesion focuses on the grammatical aspects of writing, “refers to the surface relations between the sentences that create a text i.e to create connected sentences within a sequence” (Azzouz, 2009, p 18).
Cohesion and coherence do not imply each other Brown and Yule (1983) believe that coherence depends primarily on the interpretation of linguistic messages As a result, the listener or the reader will try to interpret a sequence of sentences as being coherent, even when there is no explicit cohesive element to signal a relationship It means that cohesion does not lead to coherence, but coherence is not enough to make a text coherent while there must be some additional linguistic property (like cohesion) that makes a text coherent A text must have surface cohesion as well as overall coherence, and sentences in a coherent text must conform to the overall picture based on the experience or imagination of the receiver (Enkvist, 1978) Therefore, it is possible that a text can be cohesive but not coherent and vice versa; and it is also possible that a text is both cohesive and coherent
Halliday and Hasan (1976) give the most comprehensive description of cohesive devices There are five major types of cohesive ties: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical ties The first four types are grouped as grammatical cohesion and the last one is lexical cohesion.
Halliday and Hasan (1976), define “reference” as “the relationship between an element of the text and something else by referring to which it is interpreted in the given instance” (p 308) Reference accelerates the flow of understanding what is presented in a text (McCarthy, 1991) Besides, Schiffrin et al (2001) also believe that reference refers to a particular or circumstantial element whose identity is recoverable In 2004, Halliday and Matthiessen (as cited in Hidayati, 2014) define that reference means the act of using language to refer to something in a text in order to get the full meaning Jenei (2014) assumes the items which refer to general entities or to something outside the text as non- cohesive items In sum, the readers interpret a referent in a particular text by looking at the referred item in the textual environment or out of the text.
Reference can be in exophoric and endophoric categories Exophoric reference is one form of context-dependence since without the context we cannot interpret what is said Endophoric is a general name for reference within the text. Endophoric is divided into anaphoric (to the preceding text) and cataphoric (to the following text) (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) Therefore, if the relation presupposes something that has gone before, it is called anaphoric Meanwhile, if it is presupposed by something in the following part, it is called cataphoric (Yanti, 2012) In other words, referring words which make links by referring back to something previously mentioned in the text are called anaphoric reference It refers back to the item presented before in the text Meanwhile, referring words which point forward to something are called cataphoric reference It refers forward where the referent will appear in the upcoming text (Deraney, 2015).
Most of the reference in the text points back to words in the text itself (Droga & Humphrey, 2003) Deraney (2015) also reckons that anaphoric reference was by far the most frequently used cohesive devices by the participants Pronouns refer back to noun groups in the text and the definite article “the” is used to refer to things that are assumed to be part of our general knowledge of the topic This kind of reference is common in written language and is often used to avoid repetition However, the reference that is inconsistent can make a text difficult to follow its flow.
Definitions of error and error analysis
The term error is defined as a mistake that people make when doing something (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2008) Although there are many studies on the distinction between “errors” and “mistakes” by many linguists, it is impossible to indicate any sharp differentiation James (1998, pp.
78-79) defines mistakes as “problematic criterion” to apply in practice, while errors reflect “incompetence or a defect in one’s knowledge.” In other words, mistakes are performance-based and can be self-corrected They are caused by performance factors or carelessness in applying the rule.
On the other hand, errors are usually made due to a lack of knowledge (Tran, 2005) An error is an inaccurate or improper process because it deviates from the rules, model, or specific code They result from incompetence or an inability to master the rules of a language Mistakes are caused by temporary failures in memory, confusion, and carelessness in using the target language, whereas a lack of the target language causes errors
In fact, it is difficult to determine if students commit mistakes or errors If we are uncertain whether students have made a mistake or an error, we have to identify if they are able to correct themselves or not If they can correct it, it is probably a mistake; if not, it is an error However, due to the limited time, this study does not conduct in-depth interviews with those students to distinguish between errors and mistakes Therefore, all detected cohesive reference errors are treated as errors.
Stephen Pit Corder is the key author of error analysis in his journal article
“The significance of the learner’s errors,” which was published in 1967 He stated that language learners have their syllabus, which determines the learners’ learning quality and sequence in their language studying (Corder, 1981, as cited in Bao, 2015) In other words, rather than reflecting on what the teacher instructs them to learn, errors show what the students have already learned He believes that learners’ errors are not bad behavior to be abolished because it is the reflection of the nature of students’ learning process Therefore, it can be seen as a way to check learners’ learning process (Corder, 1967, as cited in Bao, 2015).
He argues that linguistic errors are essential components of the learning process
17 for students because they reveal the differences between the grammar of the learners’ source language and target language Making errors or errors is something that both teachers and students will experience so that they can be viewed as an essential and beneficial part of the language-learning process. Corder (1967) concludes that we can learn from our errors, and it is better than just learning from the sample without practicing and correcting the errors
Error analysis has a significant impact on the teaching of languages. Johanson (1975) highlighted that error analysis is the most effective method for describing and comprehending language learners’ errors It is also a technique for enhancing learners’ learning capacity in order to prioritize the resolution of their difficulties based on the frequency of their errors (Richards & Sampson, 1974, as cited in Nonkukhetkhong, 2013) Error analysis also provides information on the level of language proficiency that the learners have reached, the expected difficulties in language learning, and how people learn a language (Sercombe, 2000) Error analysis studies allow educators to learn some of the reasons why students make errors in their work In point of fact, it is not enough for teachers to correct the errors made by their students Teachers should explain to students why they commit errors and how they can avoid them Teaching learners how to evaluate their acquisition of the target language is better
There are many studies in this field to take advantage of error analysis. Johanson (1975) studied the uses of error analysis and contrastive analysis. Meanwhile, Ancker (2000), Giri (2010), and Nonkukhetkhong (2013) attempted to analyze errors in order to explore whether teachers’ expectations toward error correction differed from students’ expectations and found out the learning strategies and mechanisms which learners employed in learning their target language From the observed errors, these studies give teachers information to assist them in three ways: first, in correcting their students’ errors; second, in improving their teaching style; and third, in focusing on areas that require reinforcement (Alhaisoni, 2012)
Studies of error analysis
In analyzing errors, many researchers have explored the weakness of students in their learning process Abisamra (2003), Sawalmeh (2013), Nokukhetkhong (2013), and Yani et al (2014) detected grammar, syntax, lexica, semantics, and other mechanics errors committed by students They assumed that students commit those errors because they apply their mother tongue’s linguistic system to their target language (English in these cases) While these studies analyzed learners’ writing, Beltran (2014) focused on the errors students make in their utterances by conducting personal interviews According to the advantages of error analysis, linguists surmised some reasons and suggested some methods of avoiding errors (Azzouz, 2009; Yang, 2010; and Penny, 2011).
Vietnamese linguists also had some studies on error analysis Nguyen’s (2011) thesis identified the errors committed by students at Phu Cat 3 high school in Binh Dinh Province The thesis focuses on the paragraph - one of the levels of text which high school students learn in English class The study explored morphological, lexical, syntactic, and mechanical errors It also showed that the students face difficulty in building a paragraph, such as identifying a topic sentence, developing supporting ideas, and especially making a concluding sentence Besides, Dinh (2008) and Pham (2010) also surmised why students commit errors According to their studies, the influence of the mother tongue is one of the main reasons The second reason for making errors is the lack of frequent writing practice The third reason is the students’ limited knowledge of grammar and writing techniques, and the final reason is the way that teachers correct errors and provide feedback.
Besides those studies on errors in students’ writing in general, there are many researchers who have been interested in analyzing cohesion errors
(Hidayati, 2014; Kwan & Yunus, 2014; Bao, 2015) These studies detected some cohesive errors, such as overuse, underuse, and misuse of cohesive devices. Some linguists focused on each kind of cohesive error For example, Azzouz (2009) analyzed particularly grammatical cohesion errors in student writing. Meanwhile, Vujevic (2006) concentrated on ellipsis and substitution, believing that those cohesive devices’ purpose is to avoid the burdening repetitions within the text Darweesh and Kadhim (2016), on the other hand, highlighted concerns with conjunction use as cohesive devices among Iraqi learners In their research, conjunctions are utilized to indicate logical relationships within a text and to help the reader connect distinct units and paragraphs In addition, through error analysis, Do and Vo (2014) believed that errors are evidence of the concerned learner in the process of internalizing the target language in use Through these specifically focused papers, we have an overall view of the cohesion errors committed by language learners.
2.4.3 Studies of cohesive reference errors
It has been shown by research into several languages references can be highly problematic for students who come from non-speaking English countries. For example, in Finland, some studies focused on how reference errors exist due to the difference in language systems (Mauranen, 1990; Ventola & Mauranen,1991; Connor, 1996; Flowerdew, 2001) Similarly, reference was also problematic for Chinese writers who learned English as a foreign language,particularly the use of articles for maintaining a referential identity (Reid, 1992; Liu & Braine, 2005) One of the problems Korean students face is that they use pronouns to refer to an extended text set in the preceding discourse, whereas the pronouns used by native English speakers frequently refer to nominal items (Kim, 2012) In addition, the learners showed a lack of proficiency in placing referential expressions in proper positions.
On the other hand, Kang (2009), through the analysis of written narratives, showed that Korean learners relied heavily on using nominal pronouns more than others to establish textual cohesion Additionally, it was discovered that Thai students use references as a cohesive device less often than English native-speaker students (Indrasuta, 1988) In other studies of cohesive reference, writers frequently underutilize cohesive lexical devices such as synonyms, paraphrases, and collocations (Crossley & McNamara, 2009) Hinkel (2011) noted that writers frequently overuse or improperly use demonstratives and referential pronouns
Reference is one of the essential types of cohesion because when writers commit cohesive reference errors, their writings fail to meet the cohesion standard, and it needs to be clarified for readers Reference elements, which come in the form of pronouns, demonstratives, comparatives, and other text references, enable the text to link through multiple ways of referencing within a text, within culturally shared knowledge, and from the outside recognized context (Haratyan, 2011) Thence, the author chooses the cohesive reference as the subject and conducts the current study in order to see which cohesive reference errors students often commit.
Theoretical framework
To analyze errors, a framework, which is a supporting structure for us to use to categorize and analyze, takes an important role A framework is a set of principles, ideas, or beliefs used to plan or decide something (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2008) In other words, a framework includes a set of concepts that are used to explain and describe a phenomenon It is built on theories The theoretical framework is the theoretical basis that researchers rely on to conduct studies This part is an overview of some related frameworks in this study Therefore, the author set the framework for this current study
The framework for the majority of cohesion studies is Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) Cohesion Taxonomy because it provides the most exhaustive and systematic analysis of cohesion relations in English A summary of Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) Cohesion Taxonomy, including all its sub-categories, can be seen in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 Halliday and Hasan’s Cohesion Taxonomy (1976)
Adversative Causal Temporal Lexical Cohesion Reiteration
Halliday and Hasan (1976) presented five distinct types of cohesive devices as a guide for analyzing and evaluating the cohesion of writing In both the lexical and grammatical systems, cohesion types can be identified The first type of grammatical cohesion device is the reference, which indicates information from another source, such as personals, demonstratives, and
22 comparatives (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) The second type is the substitution, which replaces one component with another In other words, a substitution is the replacement of a linguistic element within a text as opposed to its repetition It performs the same structural function as the component it replaces The third one is the ellipsis, which is the omission of a component It is said to be a form of substitution in which the item is replaced by nothing The next one is the conjunction, which indicates specific meaning that presupposes present items in the discourse, such as additive, adversative, causal, and temporal According to Abadiano (1995), conjunction is a type of semantic relation that enables parts of the text to be systematically connected to one another in meaning Finally, lexical cohesion is achieved through the choice of vocabulary It involves the identification of a reference, which can occur through the exact repetition of a lexical item It could also be a synonym, a superordinate, or a general term. When vocabulary items share the same lexical environment in order to occur in collocation together, a semantic relationship is established between them
Besides the above taxonomy, Witte and Faigley (1981) use another system to analyze cohesive errors Their framework includes four types of the tie They are immediate, mediated, remote, and mediated-remote Immediate cohesive ties semantically link adjacent T-units Meanwhile, mediated links connect items in adjacent T-units These connections allow writers to introduce a notion in one T-unit and then change or explain the idea in subsequent T-units. When one or more intervening T-units separate two elements of a tie, the result is remote Finally, ties that are both mediate and remote are called mediate-remote. This kind of framework is not familiar with people because it is difficult to determine the distance of elements.
From Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) taxonomy, Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) updated the framework in the book “Halliday’s Introduction to Functional
Grammar.” Table 2.2 presents categories of reference expression in Halliday and Matthiessen (2014)
Table 2.2 Type of reference expression
Co-reference Personal Personal pronoun as
Thing/Head; possessive determiner as Deictic/Premodifier or Head
Demonstrative Demonstrative pronoun as Thing/Head; demonstrative determiner as Deictic/Premodifier or Head
Demonstrative adverbs as Head (here, there)
Deictic (same, similar, other, etc.);
Comparative adverb (identically, similarly, otherwise, etc.) as
Submodifier in nominal, adverbial group or as Premodifier, Head in adverbial group
(more, fewer, etc.) as Submodifier of Numerative; comparative adverb (more, less, etc.) as Submodifier of adjective serving as Epithet (or simply comparative form of that adjective)
Comparative adverb (more, less, etc.) as Submodifier in nominal, adverbial group or as Premodifier in adverbial group (or simply comparative form of adverb)
Although many researchers have used Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) Taxonomy as their primary framework to identify and categorize cohesive items
24 in general and cohesive reference items in particular, the taxonomy also has some gaps Jenei (2014) identifies a weakness in Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) original taxonomy, i.e., the cohesive chains of reference consistently demonstrate linearity, which is insufficient to convey the complexity of referential links It is also acknowledged in Hasan’s (1984) analysis of cohesive devices, where she describes other patterns, such as chain disjunctions and conjunctions Thence, Jenei conducted an empirical study to develop an analytical tool for analyzing references as a cohesive device in 2014 One of the most relevant advantages of the proposed analysis is that it can account for patterns of reference that have posed severe problems and sources of inconsistencies in the analysis for researchers intending to apply Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) taxonomy For example, the patterns of cohesive relationships of more than two ties (chains) can be described by three main patterns: linear, splitting, and merging (Jenei, 2014). Table 2.3 shows the referential cohesion analysis which Jenei used as the framework in his dissertation
Table 2.3 The framework in Jenei’s dissertation
3 rd person pronouns Nominative He, she, it, they
Accusative Him, her, it, them Possessive His, hers, its, theirs
Possessive determiners His, her, its, their +
Adverbials of place and time Here, there, then Central determiners Definite article The + NP
Demonstrative determiners This, that + NP
These, those + NP Comparative reference
Pre- and post-determiners (functioning with central determiners) Quantifiers Inclusive
All, both, each, every + NP
Many, more, most, some, little, less, few, several + NP
Semi-determiners Same, other, former, latter, last, next + NP Certain, such + NP
Adjectives and adverbs of comparison
2.5.3 Framework of the current study
The author combined two frameworks of Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) and Jenei (2014) In addition, the author also added the sub-category
“demonstrative pronoun” into the category “demonstrative reference/central determiner” because the framework by Jenei (2014) did not include it, but it is a sub-category of Halliday and Matthiessen’s taxonomy
In the English syntax book, To Minh Thanh (2008) stated that there is a structure that is “between the phrasal level and the lexical level.” She denoted this structure as N’ and called it The N-bar She also claimed that N’ structure is
“higher than noun and lower than noun phrase.” Nordquitst (2020) and Noel (2021) call The N-bar by a different name, the nominal Nordquitst (2020) considers that the nominal is a grammatical category that is made up of a noun or groups of nouns and has the function of a noun Jenei (2014) argues that NP (noun phrase) is followed by cohesive reference devices (see Table 2.3.) The Cambridge Dictionary, on the other hand, defines a noun phrase as a phrase composed of dependent words that run before and after the head noun to modify it Therefore, in the framework for this study, the writer uses the concept of “the nominal” (abbreviated as NOM) In sum, the list of cohesive reference items in Table 2.4 will be used as the cohesive reference framework of this current study
Table 2.4 The framework of cohesive reference in the current study
Nominative They, he, she, it
Accusative Them, him, her, it
Possessive Theirs, his, hers, its Possessive determiners My, our, your, their, his, her, its + NOM Demonstrative references
Adverbials of place and time Here, there, then Central determiners
Demonstrative determiners This, that + NOM
These, those + NOM Demonstrative pronouns This, that
Pre- and post- determiners (functioning with central determiners)
All, both, each, every + NOM
Many, more, most, some, little, less, few, several + NOM Either, neither + NOM
Semi-determiners Same, other, former, latter, last, next + NOM
Adjectives and adverbs of comparison Different(ly)
According to this framework, cohesive reference is divided into three categories (personal references, demonstrative references, and comparative references) These categories are also split into sub-categories In this study, the author combined the frameworks of Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) and Jenei (2014) The personal reference is divided into three types: nominative,accusative, and possessive To be more particular, nominative pronouns are pronouns that usually play the role of the subject of a sentence - and they do the action in that sentence An accusative pronoun is the object of the sentence,meaning that it is affected by the subject (the nominative pronoun) Finally, a possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something
This chapter has given an overview of the literature related to the thesis’s topic as well as the definitions and the discussions of cohesion in general and cohesive reference errors in particular The author also clarifies the important role of cohesive reference items and defines the term “reference” in this thesis.The chapter also included a review of previous studies on the topic The research methodology of this study will be discussed in the following chapter, Chapter 3.
METHODOLOGY
Research setting
The study was conducted at Thu Dau Mot University, a public university with multiple departments and fields Thu Dau Mot University was officially established in June 2009, following the upgrade of Binh Duong College of Pedagogy The university was formed through many years of founding and development as a research-oriented institution of multi-major and multi-field education Currently, over seventeen thousand students are enrolled in eight faculties
The Faculty of Foreign Languages at Thu Dau Mot University is responsible for teaching English, Chinese, and Korean as majors for students of foreign language areas The faculty’s main principle is teaching linguistic theories and language skills and introducing learners to foreign cultures and societies The expected learning outcomes of English-major curriculum are that students get knowledge of English linguistics in particular and social science knowledge in general.
Research participants and subjects
The participants of this study were English-major juniors of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Thu Dau Mot University They were juniors in the academic year 2020-2021 All the participants were homogeneous in terms of their learning condition and educational background They were likely at the same level of English competence because they passed the entrance examination
30 to the university English is one of the compulsory subjects in this examination. After beginning their studies at the university, all students share the same learning conditions and cultural backgrounds.
The curriculum of writing courses for the English major at Thu Dau Mot University is designed logically and adequately In the first semester, students learned the Introduction to English Language course This course was a brief introduction to the basic skills that a student needs in university, such as planning, teamwork, presentation, etc It also gave students four basic skills when learning foreign languages such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills Writing skills were enhanced through the practice of writing compound sentences The next semester, students practiced writing skills through the Reading and Writing Strategies course This course delved into the development of contextual integrated reading and writing skills and strategies Writing skills in this course were developed from practicing writing typical paragraph types such as descriptive paragraphs, summaries, and personal response paragraphs. After mastering writing paragraphs, students began to practice with many types of essays, such as descriptive essays, opinion essays, argument essays, etc. Students continued to review crucial grammatical principles knowing while also strengthening their paragraph and essay writing skills.
During the following two semesters, students’ writing skills continued to upgrade with the Morphology and Syntax course and the Academic Reading and
Writing course The Morphology and Syntax course contributed to students’ understanding of syntax Through the identification and analysis of different elements of sentences, students mastered the grammar knowledge they had learned In addition, the Academic Reading and Writing course equipped students with the necessary skills for the academic writing process Students continued to practice writing essays In addition, grammar points continued to be provided to students.
In the fifth semester, students learned more about some kinds of essays through the Essay Writing in English course In the course, learners developed vocabulary to write essays Learners continued to practice writing sentences as well as paragraphs with accurate grammar points Furthermore, they were given the elements or steps to write an essay In addition, students practiced advanced writing skills to write different types of essays in English After finishing this course, the students were expected to have good writing skills and could avoid grammatical errors as well as cohesion errors in writing Therefore, students who had been finishing all courses were believed to have the full ability to write quality essays It is not acceptable that they still make errors at this stage. Therefore, the study helps students learn from the identified errors and improve their writing skills as much as possible.
The subjects of the study were the totality of 245 final papers of the Essay
Writing in English course In the academic year 2020-2021, there is a total of
245 English-major juniors The author used all 245 papers collected to optimize the research findings In this final test, the students were not allowed to consult any dictionaries or other materials The test was within 90 minutes and consisted of two parts Part One asked students to write a paragraph of about 150 words, and Part Two demanded that students write a five-paragraph essay Each part had two specific topics for students to choose from The test content was as follows:
Part One - Choose ONE of the following topics and write a paragraph in about 150 words.
Topic 1: How has the Internet influenced kids?
Topic 2: What are the differences between learning online and learning in the classroom?
Part Two - Choose ONE of the following topics and write a five- paragraph essay.
Topic 1: Compare living in the big city with living in the countryside. Supply at least THREE main ideas and support your ideas with examples.
Topic 2: A lot of people are using Facebook these days Explain the effects of using Facebook Support your ideas with examples.
In Part One, 150 students selected Topic 1, and 93 chose Topic 2. Meanwhile, in Part Two, 80 students chose Topic 1, and 164 students chose Topic 2 In a total of 245 test papers, two students left Part 1 blank, and one student left Part 2 blank.
In the final test of this course, students wrote essays without noticing the purpose of this study Therefore, it led them to write freely and not focus too much on cohesive references As a result, the cohesive reference errors appeared to reflect exactly the student’s problems Through analyzing the final papers, the author expects this study to identify the cohesive reference errors that students still committed even after finishing all related writing courses.
Research design
The research used document analysis as the main method to explore results Document analysis is widely used in social sciences and humanities and plays an important role in creating databases for a research topic (Bowen, 2009).
In this study, the author used the final papers of the Essay Writing in English course as the subjects to identify cohesive reference errors The research, which is also a descriptive study, is intended to give a description of the kinds of cohesive reference errors that English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University committed A mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods served as the foundation for the design of the study’s methodology The qualitative method is used to describe and analyze data in order to identify cohesive reference errors in student-written essays Besides, the quantitative approach helps determine the frequency of cohesive reference errors The errors were measured based on several criteria, including the frequency with which they occurred in different
33 forms of cohesive reference devices as well as the percentages of the various error categories.
According to Corder’s (1967) steps of error analysis, this study is conducted in five steps They are the collection of samples of students’ writings,the identification of students’ errors, the classification of students’ errors, the explanation of students’ errors, and the evaluation of students’ errors.
Data collection procedure
In the collection stage, firstly, the author contacted the executive board of the Faculty of Foreign Languages to present the objective of this study and asked for permission to use the final examination papers of the Essay Writing in English course as the research subjects The author also committed not to use those final papers for other purposes In addition, the research results will be provided to the faculty as reference materials for updating the curriculum As a result, the author received a total of 245 final papers from the faculty to conduct this study.
The author made copies and returned original versions of the final papers to the faculty Then, the author numbered all 245 copies to retrieve the data easily It also helps students’ names be hidden They are all anonymous participants in order for anyone to determine their identity.
Data analysis procedure
After gathering the samples, each paper was read carefully Any papers containing cohesive reference devices that used deviating forms or structures were singled out and underlined so the author could identify them in the next stage.
In the next step, the identification stage, those errors were grouped and classified into categories based on the framework presented in Chapter 2 In this stage, there is a change in categories The author edited the current framework of this study from results found in analyzing samples Particularly, the sub-category
“reflexive pronouns” is added to the category “personal references” because the author discovered its existence after identifying and categorizing cohesive reference errors in some sample writings Similarly, thanks to the analysis results, the author changed the sub-category “3rd person pronouns” into the sub- category “personal pronouns” because there are not only third-person pronoun errors, but students also commit personal pronoun errors These changes created the updated current framework which was used for this study Those cohesive reference errors were labeled with the coding system in Table 3.1
Table 3.1 Coding cohesive reference errors
Kind of reference errors Code
Nominative errors PPN Accusative errors PPA Possessive errors PPP Possessive determiner errors PP Reflexive pronoun errors PR
Adverbials of place and time errors DA
Demonstrative determiner errors DCDD Demonstrative pronoun errors DCDP
Pre- and Post- determine r errors
Kind of reference errors Code
Adjectives and adverbs of comparison errors CA
Then, in the explanation stage, the author described and analyzed those errors to clarify them In this stage, the author explained and established common ground as well as characteristics of the errors This step helps us clearly understand the cohesive reference errors which were committed by juniors in writing essays Then, the author suggested ways of correcting errors.
After classifying cohesive reference errors into categories and explaining them, the author used the software Microsoft Excel version 2016 to calculate the percentage of each kind of error This evaluation stage helps us draw a conclusion about cohesive reference errors made by English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University in the academic year 2020-2021 Through analyzing those errors, the author also surmised some reasons which caused the errors and suggested solutions to avoid committing the cohesive reference errors.
This chapter represented an in-depth description of the overall design of the current study The data collection, as well as the data analysis procedure,have also been shown clearly The analyzed data of common cohesive reference errors was shown in Chapter 4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Cohesive reference errors
From a total of 245 final examination papers in the Essay Writing in English course, there were 586 cohesive reference errors Those cohesive reference errors are classified into three broad types They are personal reference errors, demonstrative reference errors, and comparative reference errors, as shown in Table 4.1 below.
The table shows that demonstrative errors are the dominant category, with
237 instances accounting for 40.44% of the collected errors In the second position is the category of personal reference errors, which accounts for 39.08%
37 of the total errors Finally, the number of comparative errors is the smallest number of errors There are 120 errors of this type (accounting for 20.48% of the total errors)
Each type of cohesive reference error is analyzed in order to have an in- depth look at each sub-category In addition, the author also presents examples of the types of errors to clarify the problems In the description, the author lists a few examples of the errors in each category The cohesive reference errors are printed in bold in each example, and their antecedents are underlined.
Personal reference errors
A total of 229 personal reference errors were identified, with a detailed classification into three sub-categories, namely: personal pronoun errors, possessive determiner errors, and reflexive pronoun errors The number and percentage of each sub-category are shown in Table 4.2.
Kind of personal reference errors
Personal pronoun errors are the prominent type of personal reference errors in the data gathered They account for 70.3% of the total errors (with 161 identified errors) The following sub-category is the possessive determiner errors, accounting for 25.33% (with 58 errors counted), and the reflexive pronoun errors account for 4.37% (with ten errors identified).
Personal pronouns have the same role in both English and Vietnamese: to stand in for or indicate the persons involved in the communication process or
38 about whom we are speaking Personal pronouns in both English and Vietnamese are divided into first person, second person, and third person Nevertheless, personal pronouns in English are dependent on the grammatical role for the most part In contrast, personal pronouns in Vietnamese have the ability to convey the social position of the speaker or the relationship between the speaker and other individuals in the discourse (Nguyen, 2011) Due to the difference in many aspects, Vietnamese students who are the participants of this study commit cohesive personal reference errors Those errors are discussed in each detailed sub-category below.
There are three sub-categories of personal pronoun errors They are nominative pronoun errors, accusative pronoun errors, and possessive pronoun errors The percentage of each sub-category in the personal pronoun reference errors is systematically described in Table 4.3.
Table 4.3 Personal pronoun reference errors
Kind of personal pronoun reference errors
The accusative pronoun errors make up the most significant proportion of personal pronoun reference errors, with 102 errors (accounting for 63.35% of the total errors) The nominative pronoun errors take the second place with 59 identified errors, accounting for 36.65%, and there is no possessive pronoun error which was identified in the third person reference errors.
In the corpus which the author analyzed, students committed two kinds of nominative pronoun errors They used nominative pronouns, which are in disagreement with the antecedents They also used vague nominative pronouns,
39 which make readers confused Firstly, any pronouns used in a sentence must match the subject or object which they are replacing Pronoun disagreement errors occur when the pronoun used to refer to a noun is inconsistent with the noun in number, place, or gender For example:
(1) Although Facebook has many benefits, they also have some disadvantages (Extracted from Sample 16)
(2) When the students learning online, he can save time and money. (Extracted from Sample 35)
The examples above illustrate the misuse of nominative pronouns in the students’ essays Here, the errors occur because the students use the plural nominative pronoun “they” to refer to the antecedents “Facebook”, which are in the singular form In contrast, the students use the singular pronoun “he” to refer to “the students” in Sample 35 is one of the misused errors To revise those sentences, the students must use accurate nominative pronouns Then the correct composition of sentences extracted from examples should be:
(1’) Although Facebook has many benefits, it also has some disadvantages. (Sample 16)
(2’) When the students learning online, they can save time and money. (Sample 35)
The next category of personal pronoun errors is the accusative pronoun error The author also finds some errors in the use of the accusative pronoun in the corpus For example:
(3) The Internet is a good tool to support teachers in teaching It allows him to quickly find information to aid in lesson plans (Extracted from Sample 59)
(4) One of the difficulties of teaching online is ensuring that students are not distracted by outside influences Teachers need to find ways to overcome them (Extracted from Sample 17)
In example 3, the use of the accusative pronoun “him”, which is used to refer to the noun “teachers”, is an error The accusative pronoun “him” is an error because it is used to refer to the antecedent noun “teachers”, which is in plural form instead of a singular antecedent (based on the grammar rules) Thus, it is evident that “him” and “teachers” here do not match Therefore, the pronoun
“him” should be replaced by the plural pronoun “them” to make them cohesive. Similarly, the accusative pronoun “them” in example 4 is an error because it is used to refer to the antecedent noun phrase “one of the difficulties of teaching online”, which is in singular form instead of a plural antecedent We have to use the pronoun “it” to replace “them” to correct the sentence To be more precise, those sentences should be rewritten as follows:
(3’) The Internet is a good tool to support teachers in teaching It allows them to quickly find information to aid in lesson plans (Sample 59)
(4’) One of the difficulties of teaching online is ensuring that students are not distracted by outside influences Teachers need to find ways to overcome it (Sample 17)
In addition to disagreement errors, students made pronoun shift errors It is a type of grammatical error that occurs when students use a specific kind of pronoun in a sentence or paragraph and then abruptly switch to another kind of pronoun in the same sentence or paragraph These errors cause readers to be confused when reading texts The following examples taken from students’ essays demonstrate the pronoun shift errors:
(5) Firstly, when we learn online, we have a lot of time because we can study in any where or in any situation It is so flexible for them to choose the suitable time (Extracted from Sample 125)
(6) In the modern life, we can learning online or learning in the classroom However, learning online or learning in the classroom will bring you advantages and disadvantages (Extracted from Sample 223)
Since the writers use the pronominal “we” in the preceding clause, they should continue using the accusative pronoun “us” in the following clause to maintain this reference consistency However, the writers change pronouns abruptly, causing cohesion to be undermined To make it cohesive, the pronoun
“you” should have been replaced by the pronoun “us” Then the proper composition of the sentences in examples 5 and 6 should be:
Demonstrative reference errors
According to the framework presented in Chapter 2, the author classifies demonstrative reference errors into two main sub-categories, which are
“adverbial of place and time errors” and “central determiner errors” The author did not identify any errors which belong to the first category “adverbial of place and time errors” as shown in Table 4.4 Meanwhile, the amount of errors involving the use of central determiners reveals that, with 237 observed instances, this sort of error is the most problematic.
Kind of demonstrative reference errors
Adverbials of place and time errors
The central determiner errors have definite article errors, demonstrative determiner errors, and demonstrative pronoun errors, with 185, 36, and 16 errors, respectively Table 4.5 shows the proportion of each subcategory in the central determiner errors.
Kind of central determiner errors
This type of error is a typical kind of error because it is found in most essays of students Students tend to use the definite article “the” carelessly and do not check if it identifies nouns that were already mentioned in the context or not They often commit errors when using “the” in the first sentence of their essays while readers have not identified any antecedents which are mentioned in the essay The following examples taken from the students’ essays demonstrate this kind of error.
(21) Nowadays, the student spend so much time watching TV or playing games and many other things (Extracted from Sample 16)
(22) Nowadays, whether it is appropriate to live in a village or a city is up to each the person’s preferences (Extracted from Sample 26)
(23) Some people think that the villagers have more comfortable life with less stress (Extracted from Sample 52)
The definite article “the” is usually used to refer to something which has already been mentioned However, there are many cases in which the writers overuse “the” when the nouns are not definite In example 21, “student” appears for the first time in the text, and because it is not connected to any of the words that came before it, it is inappropriate to use “the” in this context Students who made these errors did not have a strong command of the English language’s article system In this case, the student should change the singular noun “student” into the plural form “students” or use the indefinite article “a” if there is only one student whom he/she wants to mention In example 22, the writer put the definite article “the” in the wrong position, “the” is not placed between “each” and the noun like this “Each” is a way of seeing the members of a group as individuals. Because the position of “each” is right beside the noun phrases, we do not use the definite article “the” to define the noun Similarly, we also do not use “the” in example 23 because the noun “villagers” is in the plural form, and we do not need to define a specific kind of foreigner in this case Then, the right composition of the above examples extracted from samples 16, 26, and 52 should be:
(21’) Nowadays, students spend so much time watching TV or playing games and many other things (Sample 16) or
Nowadays, a student spends so much time watching TV or playing games and many other things (Sample 16)
(22’) Nowadays, whether it is appropriate to live in a village or a city is up to each ứ person’s preferences (Sample 26)
(23’) Some people think that ứ villagers have more comfortable life with less stress (Sample 52)
On the other hand, some students sometimes do not add the definite article
“the” before nouns which were defined by some elements The examples of the omission of “the” are as follows:
(24) In addition, some children have spent a lot of time playing game online, so that ^ result of their study is so bad (Extracted from Sample 57)
(25) When learning online, students don’t need to scare face-to-face to interact with ^ teacher and other students, whom they have to connect to in learning in the classroom (Extracted from Sample 109)
(26) I totally agree with ^ saying “The Internet gave us access to everything; but it also gave everything access to us.” Indeed, everything has its good and bad sides (Extracted from Sample 134)
In examples 24 and 25, the noun and noun phrases “result” and “teacher and other students” are modified by definite elements (belong to “their study”, and “they have to connect to in learning in the classroom”) That is the reason why we have to use the definite article “the” to define those nouns Similarly, in example 26, because the writer presents the complete sentence right after the noun “saying” to define the content of it, we have to use “the” before the
“saying” To sum up, the cohesive composition of the above paragraph extracted from Sample 57, Sample 109, and Sample 134 should be:
(24’) In addition, some children have spent a lot of time playing game online, so that the result of their study is so bad (Sample 57)
(25’) When learning online, students don’t need to scare face-to-face to interact with the teacher and other students whom they have to connect to in learning in the classroom (Sample 109)
(26’) I totally agree with the saying “The Internet gave us access to everything; but it also gave everything access to us.” Indeed, everything has its good and bad sides (Sample 134)
Besides the omission of the definite article “the” in definite noun phrases, students also forget to use “the” as the cataphoric reference item when “the” modifies superlative noun phrases The following are examples of this type of error in students’ essays:
(27) In my opinion, using Facebook is a best way that we can learn, relax and share information (Extracted from Sample 97)
(28) When isolated because of the epidemic, people still have to maintain their daily jobs Online learning becomes a best choice for students to continue their education and graduate on time (Extracted from Sample 159)
(29) Online learning is ^ best solution for education system during the pandemic (Extracted from Sample 170)
In examples 27 and 28, students committed errors because they used the indefinite article “a” to refer to the superlative nouns Meanwhile, the student also omitted the definite article “the” in example 29 In the superlative structure, the definite article “the” goes with adjectives or adverbs that stand in front of nouns or noun phrases Therefore, the correct form must be “the best” Then the correct composition of examples extracted from samples 97, 159, and 170 should be:
(27’) In my opinion, using Facebook is the best way that we can learn, relax and share information (Sample 97)
(28’) When isolated because of the epidemic, people still have to maintain their daily jobs Online learning becomes the best choice for students to continue their education and graduate on time (Sample 159)
(29’) Online learning is the best solution for education system during the pandemic (Sample 170)
Besides those kinds of definite article errors, instead of using the definite article, students used other improper cohesive reference items, as shown in the examples below:
(30) I know this saying: “Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems (Extract from Sample 139)
(31) Living in big cities will help people have more job opportunities Since then, people can choose this appropriate jobs for themselves (Extract from Sample 158)
(32) Seeing an importance of online learning, our school has widely adopted this useful learning method (Extract from Sample 167)
In example 30, because the writer quotes the complete sentence right behind the noun “saying”, we should use “the” instead of “this” to be more appropriate On the other hand, in example 31, that the student uses “this” is improper in this case Because the student mentioned “living in big cities” and
“more job opportunities” in the previous sentence, we should use the definite article “the” instead of “this” Another kind of error is that the writer misuses the definite article, as we can see via example 32 In this case, because there is the noun phrase “online learning” which modifies the noun “importance”, we have to use “the” instead of the indefinite article “a” To make it precise, the form of sentences which are extracted from Sample 139, 158, and 167 can be corrected as follows:
(30’) I know the saying: “Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems (Sample 139)
(31’) Living in big cities will help people have more job opportunities Since then, people can choose the appropriate jobs for themselves (Sample 158)
(32’) Seeing the importance of online learning, our school has widely adopted this useful learning method (Sample 167)
The definite article “the” does not contain any information in itself, the meaning of “the” is that “the noun which it modifies has a specific referent, and that the information required for identifying the referent is available in the environment including structure, text, situation, and culture” (Halliday & Hasan,
The comparative reference errors
Comparative sentences frequently occur in persuasive essays to express the writers’ opinions The English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University commit comparative reference errors less than personal reference errors and demonstrative reference errors The number of comparative reference errors is shown in Table 4.6.
Pre- and Post-determiner errors
Adjectives and adverbs of comparison errors Total
The smallest number of errors is the comparative reference errors, with
120 cases equal to 20.48% of the total cohesive reference errors identified in students’ writings (as presented in Table 4.1) Comparative reference errors are divided into two categories They are “pre- and post-determiner errors” and
“adjectives and adverbs of comparison errors” The number of errors in each group is 117 and three errors, respectively
4.4.1 Pre- and Post-determiner errors
As mentioned in Chapter 2, these errors can be split into two distinct subcategories They are “quantifier errors” and “semi-determiner errors” Most of the errors belong to the first group, “quantifier errors”, which includes 114 identified errors Meanwhile, there are three errors in the semi-determiner error. Table 4.7 shows the number and percentage of each subcategory.
Table 4.7 Pre- and Post-determiner errors
Kind of reference errors Quantifier errors Semi-determiner errors Total
There are three different types of errors in the quantifier error type As seen in the table below, these are inclusive errors, errors in expressing quantity,and errors in arbitrary members.
Inclusive errors Expressing quantity errors
Inclusive quantifiers include “all”, “both”, “each”, “every”, etc In the
“inclusive errors” category, five errors were identified The following examples taken from the students’ essays demonstrate those errors.
(43) Besides, we can contact with our teachers anytime if we have other questions related to the lessons (Extracted from Sample 217)
(44) Firstly, when living in the countryside, children have other interesting games such as kite flying, fishing (Extracted from Sample 218)
(45) Secondly, when the children stay at home and spend time on the Internet, they do not communicate to every people (Extracted from Sample 231)
In example 43, that the writer uses “other” in this case is improper in the semantic aspect “Other” is used to refer to the thing which is different from the thing or person already mentioned, but in example 43, there is no specific question that has been mentioned before Meanwhile, “any” is used to refer to
“one of a number of things or people, when it does not matter which one” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary: International Student’s edition, 2013).Similarly, in example 44, no specific game has been mentioned before, so it is wrong when using “other” We should use “some” or “ứ” to revise the sentence because the writer believes that children can play some games, such as kite
62 flying and fishing Meanwhile, in example 45, the student mistakenly used the inclusive quantifier “every” In this context, the accurate inclusive quantifier should be “other” because the noun “people” in a plural noun.
Then the right composition of the two examples should be:
(43’) Besides, we can contact with our teachers anytime if we have any questions related to the lessons (Sample 217)
(44’) Firstly, when living in the countryside, children have some/ ứ interesting games such as kite flying, fishing (Sample 218)
(45’) Secondly, when the children stay at home and spend time on the
Internet, they do not communicate to other people (Sample 231) b Expressing quantity errors
Jenei (2014) believes that the expressing quantity tells us how many or how much of something there is It includes “many”, “much”, “more”, “most”,
“some”, “little”, “less”, “few”, and “several” There are 109 errors which are identified in this sub-category Errors that are found in the “expressing quantity errors” group can be categorized into three sub-categories They are comparative structure errors, disagreement between the comparative reference devices and their nouns, and misusing comparative determiners.
Firstly, the author identifies the comparative structure errors Students mainly commit the misuse of “more” in the comparative structure The examples below, which are taken from the student’s essays, present the errors.
(46) Online learning also sometimes brings disadvantages to teachers and students Because it takes time to deal with common technical problems, the learning time is often added more long than the regular time. (Extracted from Sample 226)
(47) Through three semesters of online learning, students gain many new skills that help them grow more better and professionally (Extracted from Sample 228)
(48) Living in a big city where many foreigners come to work, students have the opportunity to practice their English speaking skills more well. (Extracted from Sample 235)
In example 46, after adding “er” behind the one-syllable adjective “long”, that the writer still used “more” is an error in the structure of comparison in English We use “more” when it goes with a long adjective Besides, in example
47, instead of “more better and professionally”, we have to use “better and more professionally” to correct the sentence because the comparative of the adjective
“good” is “better” without adding “more” in the comparative structure We also have to add “more” before the adjective “professionally” because this adjective is a long adjective with five syllables Similarly, the comparative of the adverb
“well” is also “better” We have to replace the phrase “more well” in example 48 with “better” The following corrections can be made to these examples to make them more understandable:
(46’) Online learning also sometimes brings disadvantages to teachers and students Because it takes time to deal with common technical problems, the learning time is often added longer than the regular time (Sample 226)
(47’) Through three semesters of online learning, students gain many new skills that help them grow better and more professionally (Sample 228)
(48’) Living in a big city where many foreigners come to work, students have the opportunity to practice their English speaking skills better (Sample 235)
Because of the significant differences between the Vietnamese and English linguistic systems in terms of the lexical items and grammatical structure used to indicate comparison, the source language badly affected students’ ability to employ comparison in the target language In English, “big” becomes “bigger than”, “beautiful” becomes “more beautiful than”, and “good” becomes “better than”, but these criteria do not apply in Vietnamese When constructing
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
Conclusion
Cohesion refers to the use of vocabulary and grammatical structures to create connections between the ideas in a text It gives our writing flow and sequence as well as clarifies our work for the reader Cohesive devices influence comprehension by allowing the integration of information between sentences in a text Without cohesion devices, the reader feels as if they are reading a list of disconnected ideas They frequently have difficulty recalling what they have read However, using cohesive devices in general and cohesive reference devices in particular proficiently is not a simple task.
This study was conducted to identify the difficulties in using cohesive reference devices of English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University There are three main categories and fourteen subcategories of cohesive reference errors.Among the most frequent errors that students commit, definite article errors,expressing quantity errors, and accusative pronoun errors are the most prevalent.Students frequently commit the error of using incorrect pronouns to refer to the antecedents In addition, students commonly shift abruptly from one type of pronoun to another within the same sentence or paragraph It makes it difficult for readers to comprehend the ideas in the essay Some subcategories, such as possessive errors, adverbials of place and time errors, and arbitrary member errors, include no identified errors It is impossible to conclude that the student has mastered the use of these cohesive reference devices; instead, one can conclude that the frequency of these kinds of errors is low.
Through qualitative and quantitative research methods, the research results indicate that students have considerable difficulties using cohesive reference devices Based on the research results as well as the conclusions of previous studies, there are many causes of errors in cohesive reference The following factors may contribute to these causes The differences between the two language systems are primarily responsible for students' frequent errors. Students have a tendency to apply the rules of their native language to the target language and vice versa The problem refers to the negative transmission of items into the target language Moreover, a lack of awareness of the target language is also a factor in students' frequent errors In addition, when composing essays, students have to consider a variety of factors, such as ideas, vocabulary, etc., in order to produce a quality essay Grammar, in general, and cohesive reference devices, in particular, are essential factors, but students typically pay little attention to them Because of the factors discussed above, students frequently struggle to use cohesive reference devices properly, which can even result in errors being committed.
Based on the research results, recommendations are made to provide lecturers, students, and curriculum writers with an overview of cohesive reference errors that students often commit Since then, the curriculum and textbooks' content and teaching and learning methodologies have more foundations for designing more enhanced content to reduce student errors.
Suggestions
In this section, the author offers some suggestions based on the results of the study These suggestions might be helpful for English teachers while teaching cohesive reference devices and dealing with students’ errors in this area.Students learning English as a foreign language, and in particular Vietnamese students may find these suggestions helpful when learning about and using cohesive reference devices in their writing and speaking
Firstly, teachers should explain to learners the nature of their errors The explanation helps students understand where their errors come from, and consequently, they may know how to tackle the problems on their own. Sometimes learners still commit errors because making errors is a natural phenomenon of language learning However, understanding their own errors can help them retain knowledge and restrict errors Teachers can apply the advantage of error analysis to their teaching process by asking students to exchange their essays and correct each other For the basic level students, teachers mark the errors in some ways, such as underlining, highlighting, and coding Then, the students have to make the correction For the upper-level students, they are able to self-identify errors, so teachers should let them do all stages Based on the objective and level of each writing course as well as each writing lesson, teachers construct and emphasize a particular strategy to get the positive outcomes of errors analysis in students’ learning
Secondly, teachers should raise students’ awareness of English and Vietnamese usage distinctions Students are able to make fewer errors in these situations if they comprehend the nature of the differences in depth.
Thirdly, instead of giving students many grammar exercises which often include single sentences, teachers should put those sentences in proper contexts. Proper contexts help students focus on how grammar works in real situations. For example, because the definite article of English does not exist in our mother tongue, students are unfamiliar with using it when producing the target language. Therefore, teachers can ask students to describe some things in their classroom using English articles
Finally, teaching writing does not mean that only writing skills will be engaged; rather, other language skills can be integrated to improve students’
73 understanding For example, some speaking, listening, and reading games can also be used in writing classes to place students in real-world settings where teachers can emphasize the correct usage of specific cohesive reference devices Teachers should have a positive outlook on students’ errors It means that teachers have to acknowledge the fact that their students’ written works contain errors, and it should be their obligation to assist their students in reducing the number of errors they make, particularly by assisting them in the development of strategies for self-correction Diverse exercises and activities should be implemented so that students are motivated and have opportunities to notice the cohesive reference items they have learned in various contexts
Firstly, students should minimize translating word-for-word as well as use Google translation tools when doing their writing Because there are several differences between the two language systems, they cannot apply the rules of this language to the other one and vice versa To take advantage of the internet, students should check the vocabulary and grammar structures that they use to make sure the native speakers also use them in the same ways.
Second, they should routinely exercise their writing abilities by doing the homework that is given to them by their teachers in order to develop their writing skills It can assist students in reducing the number of errors they commit on timed writing exams that prohibit the use of supplementary materials.
Thirdly, besides learning writing skills by practicing writing all the time,students should integrate their writing skills with other skills By examining essay models in reading tasks, students’ awareness of the way people use cohesive reference devices in real situations can be raised Once students have gained an understanding of the use and application of these cohesive devices in the writing of essays, they will be willing to employ more reference devices in their compositions Students need to play an active role in studying because
74 teachers cannot work with them for a long time Students have to be active in their learning process.
Limitations of the study and recommendation for further research
5.3 Limitations of the study and recommendation for further research
The author has made efforts to do a thorough analysis of cohesive reference errors which appeared in English-major juniors’ essays at Thu Dau Mot University, but due to the limited time and other reasons, there are some limitations of this study.
Firstly, because the current study’s findings are primarily dependent on the statistical results of the collected data, the amount of the data may influence the results to some extent The collected data of the study is still not large enough to get a conclusive summary of cohesive reference features of English essays and to collect contrastive analysis linguistics between English and Vietnamese. Further research is required to be conducted based on a larger size of data.
Secondly, the study was conducted by combining Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesion theory and the updated framework of Jenei (2014) in which five cohesive devices (reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion) are concerned However, because of time and workforce limitations,the study only focuses on analyzing cohesive reference errors Therefore, further
75 studies can be conducted to explore other cohesive devices such as substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion
Thirdly, as mentioned in Chapter 2, the study has not distinguished between errors and mistakes due to the limited time Therefore, further studies should spend more time interviewing learners who commit errors in order to identify whether they are aware of those errors or not In addition, the teachers of the juniors should be interviewed simultaneously to figure out the challenges they face when teaching writing in general and cohesive reference devices in particular Since then, they will conduct more practical studies.
Despite the limitations that were discussed, the significance of this study in inspiring further research on cohesive reference errors remains high
Errors affect the quality of essays directly, especially the cohesive reference error These errors make readers be confused because they cannot make a link to relate to antecedents to keep up with the flow of essays and get writers’ ideas The study was conducted to identify the frequent cohesive reference errors in the essays of English-major juniors at Thu Dau Mot University From the findings, this study surmises some reasons for committing errors and suggests recommendations for lecturers and students in the teaching and learning process to reduce the errors The study contributes to the identification and prevention of cohesive reference errors in order to improve the quality of English essays
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