nghiên cứu các phương tiện liên kết từ vựng trong một số bài đọc của giáo trình “tiếng anh quản trị kinh doanh” và gợi ý cho việc giảng dạy tiếng anh cho sinh viên năm thứ ba trường đại học công đoàn

_______________ PHẠM PHƯƠNG LAN A STUDY ON LEXICAL COHESIVE DEVICES FROM SOME READING TEXTS OF THE COURSE BOOK "ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS STUDIES" AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING E

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PHẠM PHƯƠNG LAN

A STUDY ON LEXICAL COHESIVE DEVICES FROM SOME READING TEXTS OF THE COURSE BOOK "ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS STUDIES" AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH FOR THIRD YEAR STUDENTS AT TRADE

UNION UNIVERSITY

(Nghiên cứu các phương tiện liên kết từ vựng trong một số bài đọc của giáo trình “Tiếng Anh Quản trị Kinh doanh” và gợi ý cho việc giảng dạy tiếng Anh cho sinh viên năm thứ ba trường Đại học Công đoàn)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi, 2012

UNION UNIVERSITY

(Nghiên cứu các phương tiện liên kết từ vựng trong một số bài đọc của giáo trình “Tiếng Anh Quản trị Kinh doanh” và gợi ý cho việc giảng dạy tiếng Anh cho sinh viên năm thứ ba trường Đại học Công đoàn)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

SUPERVISOR: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Xuân Thơm

Hanoi, 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement iii

Abstract iv

Table of contents v

List of abbreviations vii

List of tables and figures vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Scope of the study 3

3 Aims of the study 3

4 Research questions 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Organization of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

Chapter 1: Theoretical background 5

1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis 5

1.1.1 Discourse 5

1.1.2 Discourse and Text 5

1.1.3 Spoken and written discourse 6

1.1.4 Discourse Analysis 7

1.1.5 Discourse Context 8

1.1.5.1 Context 8

1.1.5.2 Context of situation 9

1.2 Cohesion and coherence 10

1.2.1 Cohesion 10

1.2.2 Coherence 10

1.2.3 Cohesion and coherence 11

1.3 Cohesive devices 11

1.3.1 Cohesive devices 11

1.3.2 Classification 12

1.3.2.1 Referential Cohesion 12

1.3.2.2 Substitution cohesion 13

1.3.2.3 Elliptical cohesion 13

1.3.2.4 Conjunctive cohesion 13

1.3.2.5 Lexical cohesion 14

1.3.2.5.1 Reiteration 14

1.3.2.5.2 Collocation 15

Chapter 2: An analysis of lexical cohesive devices in BE reading texts in the course book English for Business Studies 16

2.1 An overview of the study 16

2.2 Analysis of lexical cohesive devices in BE reading texts 19

2.2.1 Reiteration 19

2.2.1.1 Repetition 19

2.2.1.1.1 Simple repetition 19

2.2.1.1.2 Complex repetition 21

2.2.1.2 Synonyms and near synonyms 23

2.2.1.3 Antonymy 25

2.2.1.4 Superordinates 29

2.2.2 Collocation 31

2.2.3 Summary 33

PART C: CONCLUSION 34

1 Recapitulation 34

2 Pedagogical implications 36

3 Limitations of the study 38

4 Suggestions for further research 38

REFERENCES 40 Appendices I Appendix I II Appendix II III Appendix III IV Appendix IV V Appendix V VI Appendix VI VII Appendix VII VIII

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BE: Business English

GE: General English

EBS: English for Business Studies

ESP: English for Specific Purpose

TUU: Trade Union University

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 - EBS texts chosen for analysis

Table 2 - The frequency of appearance of lexical cohesive devices in sample texts

Table 3 - Frequency of appearance of repetition

Table 4 - Frequency of appearance of synonymy

Table 5 - Frequency of occurrence of antonyms

Table 6 - Frequency of occurrence of sub-types of antonymy

Table 7 - Frequency of occurrence of superordinate

Table 8 - Frequency of occurrence of collocations

Figure 1 - Lexical cohesive devices in EBS texts - Frequency of occurrence

Figure 2 - Sub-types of repetition - Frequency of appearance

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Over the past two decades, the teaching and learning English, especially English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have changed dramatically If in the 1990's, ESP was taught in some universities in Vietnam, now it becomes a compulsory subject in almost every universities and colleges that follow the curriculum established by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) The ESP course provides students with background knowledge and vocabulary of specialist fields, therefore it helps them greatly in future careers Being aware of the major role of ESP, teachers of English at Trade Union University (TUU) have always attempted to improve the teaching and learning of ESP at their college However, there remain some difficulties as follows:

At TUU, English is taught in totally five semesters of which three are for General English (GE) and two semesters are for ESP GE accounts for 135 credit periods and ESP is taught

in 90 credit periods In order to attend ESP course, students are required to complete GE

levels The basic English course with the main teaching and learning materials are New

Headway Elementary and New Headway Pre-intermediate However, in the next stage of

learning, the ESP course book requires learners of upper-intermediate and advanced level Therefore, after GE stage, students encounter numerous difficulties in learning in ESP course as they are supposedly at pre-intermediate level

English for Business Studies (EBS) is chosen as the main course book of ESP at TUU The

book was written by Ian MacKenzie and published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press The book comprises of 30 units of which 8 units are chosen for ESP course level 1 and another 8 units for ESP course level 2 at TUU In each unit, there are several sections covering all the four skills: listening, reading, writing, speaking Most of the units contain three parts:

1 An informative reading text giving an overview of a particular topic with various comprehension and vocabulary exercises and discussion activities

2 Either listening exercises or shorter authentic reading passage

3 An additional case study, role play, discussion activity or writing exercise

The listening part provides authentic interviews with business people and economists who are British and American native speakers and non-native speakers from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, India and Malaysia The listening exercises that follow are often note taking and question answering, very few tasks have multiple choice questions Therefore it is sometimes difficult for TUU's students to follow Consequently, exploiting the listening part is unfeasible for TUU's learners For speaking task, it is not practical for a class of 60 and over 60 students where the teacher's role of a conductor is vague That is, it is quite hard for teachers to cover all speaking activities Moreover, TUU's students are not competent and self-conscious enough to fulfill the given task themselves Therefore, learning speaking possibly turn out to private talking and disorder in class As for writing, the demands for the task are sometimes excessive for students Grammar is quite important

in text comprehension However, most grammatical structures and rules are taught in GE and students can recall them easily without the teacher's explanation

Yet, there are still complaints from our students about the difficulties they encounter while learning reading passages in BE On the one hand, it may derive from students' psychological reasons For most of them, this is the first time they learn ESP and an ESP reading text which is full of economic and business terms in business context may be a challenge Consequently, they are not willing to study attentively On the other hand, students find it is hard job to remember so many new terms and obtain a general comprehension of the text

The above reasons have induced me to conduct a research on reading part, as this part is

also a main part of every unit in EBS course book With some experience in teaching GE

and ESP for BE students, the researcher realize the crucial role of coherence and cohesion

in the text understanding and vocabulary learning of TUU's students As a result, the author decide to make an investigation into cohesive devices used in the texts of BE course book, especially lexical cohesive devices hoping that it may help students more in understanding the reading texts and learning vocabulary

2 Scope of the study

Within the framework of a minor M.A thesis, the study mainly focuses on lexical cohesive devices, the frequency of occurrence of these devices in some chosen texts in BE course book The study points out how often these lexical cohesive devices appear and how they affect the text comprehending and vocabulary learning After examining and analyzing the collected data, some pedagogical implications will be drawn for both teachers and students

of BE

3 Aims of the study

The study aims at:

 Figuring out how these lexical cohesive ties are used in BE sample texts of the

course book EBS

 Providing BE teachers and students with an insight into the use of lexical cohesive devices and thereby assisting their writing and reading comprehension

4 Research questions

In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the following questions are raised:

1 What lexical cohesive devices are used in BE texts?

2 What lexical cohesive devices are employed most frequently in BE texts?

3 What are the overall features of BE discourses in terms of lexical cohesion?

5 Methods of the study

The study uses description, analysis and statistics research methods to achieve the research objectives The data for the research analysis are collected from six sample texts chosen in

EBS course book namely: Sample text 1: Types of banks; Sample text 2: Companies; Sample text 3: Bonds; Sample text 4: Market leaders, challengers and followers; Sample text 5: Taxation; Sample text 6: The business cycle All the lexical cohesive items of each

type of lexical cohesion (reiteration and collocation) and its subtypes occur in the six texts

are identified and calculated The total number of each type is then converted into percentage to compare within a text or among the categories and according to the analytical purposes

6 Organization of the study

This thesis includes three main parts

The INTRODUCTION part introduces the rationale, the scope, the aims, the research questions, the research methodology and the design of the study

The DEVELOPMENT comprises of two chapters

- Chapter 1: provides a thorough theoretical background of three main

terminologies: discourse, discourse analysis, coherence and cohesion

- Chapter 2: presents the analysis of lexical cohesive devices in some

reading texts in BE course book for the third year students at Trade Union University

The CONCLUSION shows a recapitulation of the study, implications for teaching and learning BE, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This part introduces concepts of discourse, text, discourse analysis, discourse context, cohesion and coherence, cohesive devices which support this thesis

1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis

1.1.1 Discourse

Well-known linguists have shared similar viewpoint about the concept of discourse David Nunan (1993:5) agreed that discourse is "a stretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related in some way" Crystal (1992:25) had similar perspective of discourse when he defined discourse as "a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such

as a sermon, argument or narrative"

More recently, discourse is defined by Nguyễn Hòa (2004) as "a combination of sentences (or utterances) used to get our message across It has its own meaning and is more than the sum of the meaning of its constituents"

1.1.2 Discourse and Text

There seem to be two different trends in linguists towards the terms "discourse" and "text" One distinguishes the two terms whereas the other does not

Cook treated the terms "discourse" and "text" as two different categories when he stated:

"discourse is a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive Text

is a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context." (Cook, 1989: 156&158, cited in Nunan, 1993:6)

David Nunan used the term "text" to refer to "any written record of a communicative event" and "discourse" to refer to "the interpretation of the communicative event in context" (Nunan, 1993: 6-7)

Crystal distinguished text as "a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signed language identified for purpose of analysis It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster." (Crystal, 1992:72, cited in Vân, 2006:14), and discourse as "a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument or narrative" (Crystal, 1992:25, cited in Vân, 2006:14)

To some other scholars, text and discourse should refer to the same subject matter and may

be used interchangeably Halliday and Hasan implied "discourse" when defining "text":

"the word Text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length that does form a unified whole A text is a collection of related sentences, with a single sentence as the limiting case, a semantic unit This unit is related to a clause or a sentence by realization, i.e a text is realized by sentences The expression of the semantic unity of the text lies in the cohesion among the sentences of which it is composed." (Halliday & Hasan,1976:1)

Vân (2006) had seen the problem of distinguishing the two terms He argued that we really

do not need to distinguish them as "text or discourse is an instance of language in use; this means that no text occurs without a context , any attempt to distinguish text from discourse will result in complicating the problem of terminology" Based on the definition

of Halliday and Hasan (1989), he confirmed that "discourse (or text) is a unit of meaning and functional It is functional in the sense that it occurs in a context of situation In terms

of size, a discourse may be realized by a word, a phrase, a clause or a sentence, a paragraph, a cluster of paragraphs, a book, or even the whole library of books."

For the purpose of this study, the author would like to take the viewpoint of Hoàng Văn Vân (2006) about text and discourse as the base Therefore, the words text and discourse are treated interchangeably

1.1.3 Spoken and written discourse

Although spoken and written discourse share some similar features; for example, they are used "to get things done, to provide information and to entertain" (Nunan, 1993:8); it is clear that spoken and written discourse are different in other features David Nunan (1993)

made distinction between spoken and written discourse based on three categories: grammar, lexical density and situation

Written discourse, linguistically, may include internally complex clauses while in spoken discourse, clauses are linked in an "addictive fashion" In particular, while written discourse may contain complete sentences with subordination, metal-lingual clause markers, spoken language may contain incomplete sentences - often simple sequences of

phrases - with little subordination (the most frequent case is the coordinator "and")

"Lexical density is a characteristic difference between spoken and written discourse Written discourse displays a much higher ratio of lexical (content) words ( ) to total running words" (Vân, 2006: 24) Therefore, written discourse seems to have more information packed into it

According to Nunan, there is no common situation in written discourse, the situation therefore has to be inferred from the text For better understanding of the text, "the words themselves must carry all the shades of meaning" However, when readers can not signal that they do not understand, "the writer must make assumptions about the reader's state of knowledge If incorrect assumptions are made, then communication may be seriously impaired " (Nunan, 1993: 14)

This thesis analyzes the lexical cohesion in written discourse of Business English Therefore, only the features of written discourse will be taken into account In order to analyze a discourse, it is worth exploiting Discourse Analysis area

1.1.4 Discourse Analysis

Brown and Yule (1983) state that "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 linguistics to computational linguistics"

According to Nguyễn Hòa (2000) "discourse analysis is a study of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context of situation and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes" The author claims that the speakers or writers are always located at the main "stage" of communication The speakers or writers initiate topics, set up

presuppositions, define "information structures" and make "inference" while the hearers or readers interpret and draw inferences He comes to a conclusion that "this is essentially what makes communication a two-way process by means of language"

Discourse analysis is undoubtedly the study of language in use of both written and spoken form It includes examining both form and function of the language It analyses linguistic features that characterize the social and cultural factors that help in our perception and interpretation of different texts While a discourse analysis of spoken text might focus on turn-taking, overlapping, adjacency pairs or repair, written text of this kind studies the topic development and cohesion across sentences

Context is therefore the environment in which a discourse occurs Context refers to both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects Context can add more general information about the nature of the text, the period written, fiction or non-fiction, the age and nationality of the writer Apparently, in order to make a communicative event become successful, listeners

or readers have to know the context in which the discourse occurs This helps understanding the text/discourse more thoroughly The context of situation may be

captured by readers' guessing the underlied assumption or using their background

knowledge

In discourse analysis, context helps define reference, establish and accumulate presuppositions, i.e not repeat the old information, talk more and more new information Context helps hearer detect conversational implicature, because in different context, the implicature is interpreted differently

1.1.5.2 Context of situation

The term "context of situation" was first coined by a famous British anthropologist and gifted linguist Malinowski in 1923 With this term, he meant "the total environment including the verbal environment and the situation in which the text occurs" (Malinowski,

1923 quoted in Vân, 2006: 34) Context of situation, in Malinowski's sense, indicates the environment of the text His theory established a basis for later linguists to develop their own models of context

Later in their book, Halliday and Hasan (1976; 22), proposed that "field, mode and tenor collectively define the context of situation of a text" This general notion describes how the context of situation determines the kinds of meaning that are expressed According to

the two authors, field is the total event, in which the text is functioning, together with the

purposive activity of the speaker or writer, includes the subject-matter as one element;

mode is the function of the text in the event, including both the channel taken by language

(written or spoken) and its genre, or rhetorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive and

so on; tenor refers to the type of role interaction, the set of relevant social relations,

permanent and temporary, among the participants involved

Eggins (1994) shared the same viewpoint with Halliday and Hasan when he consumed that

"context of situation is usually discussed under three variables: what is talked about, what the relationship between the communicators is, what role the language plays" (Eggins,

1994, 30)

1.2 Cohesion and coherence

1.2.1 Cohesion

Cohesion plays a very crucial part in the comprehension of written discourses This can be explained as comprehension is considered a process that happens within the reader, or at least, depends on the cohesion and coherence of texts Cohesion exists within a text and is not the same as coherence which is something that the reader establishes during the process

of reading Cohesion creates semantic continuity and therefore it permits coherence and comprehensibility The more explicit the cohesive relations are, the easier the text is to understand

Tanskanen (1984) refers cohesion to "the grammatical and lexical elements on the surface

of a text which can form connections between parts of the text" (Tanskanen, 1984: 7)

Halliday & Hasan (1976) consider "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" According to

them, cohesion occurs when the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another The one presupposes the other When this happens, a

relation of cohesion is set up, and the two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed,

are thereby at least potentially integrated into a text

1.2.2 Coherence

Halliday & Hasan (1976) claimed "coherence is the underlying organizer which makes the words and sentences into a unified discourse that conforms to a consistent world picture Coherent text is meaningful, unified and gives the impression of "hanging together""

In grammar, the sentences that don't fit together in a sensible way, though there's nothing wrong with the individual sentences, are called ungrammatical In text and discourse

analysis, a text which combines such ungrammatical sentences is considered incoherent

One of the key issues in text and discourse analysis is to find exactly what it is that makes some text hang together while other texts are incoherent

Palmer (1983b) wrote: "coherence refers to the rhetorical devices, to ways of writing and speaking that bring about order and unity and emphasis" Coherence can obtain on the basis of relevance, the co-operative principle, the common shared background knowledge between participants in a speech event, and how a discourse is structured as well

1.2.3 Cohesion and coherence

A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in these two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) The two concepts

of discourses: cohesion and coherence are considered interrelated in such a way that cohesion is seen as one of the ways of indicating coherence; but it would be incorrect to identify it with coherence, and assume that there is one-to-one correspondence between

them (Nguyễn Hòa, 2000)

1.3 Cohesive devices

1.3.1 Cohesive devices

A text with grammatical sentences and/or has certain words and expressions which link the sentences together is considered coherent Such linking words and expressions, the use of repetition, are known as cohesive devices, they are like the glue which holds different parts

of a text together

Cohesive devices help us to distinguish new information from old information in a text A series of sentences without cohesive devices can give the impression of conveying completely new information in each sentence, unrelated to old information from the previous sentences However, we can often draw on our background knowledge or clues from the context so that we can organize the information without the help of cohesive devices Cohesive devices help us to make a text coherent, but are not necessary or sufficient to create coherence on their own It is acknowledged that a communication discourse must be coherent, but not necessarily cohesive Because a text with some cohesive devices only, without any grammatical sentences can make readers or hearers confused and therefore that text is incoherent for them On the contrary, a text is still

considered coherent when it includes grammatical sentences, though the writer or speaker does not use cohesive devices

Cohesive devices are only one factor in making a text coherent The important factors in making a text coherent are the intentions, expectations and back-ground knowledge of the text producer (the speaker or writer) and the text receiver (the hearer or reader)

1.3.2 Classification

Cohesion is one of the text properties that contributes to the organization of discourse The term refers to the connectedness of the surface elements in the text 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 Cohesion occurs when interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another Cohesion is part of a system of language The potential for cohesion lies in the systematic resources of reference, ellipsis, and so on that

is built into the language itself Cohesion is partly expressed through the grammar and partly through vocabulary We can refer them therefore to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

Halliday and Hasan (1976) identified five types of cohesion: reference cohesion, substitution cohesion, ellipsis cohesion, conjunctive cohesion, and lexical cohesion The first four types fall under the category of grammatical cohesion Lexical cohesion on the other hand refers to relations between any lexical item and some previously occurring lexical item in the text, quite independently of the grammatical category of the items in

question The five types of cohesion are explained below:

1.3.2.1 Referential Cohesion

Halliday (1994) states "a participant or circumstantial element introduced at one place in the text can be taken as a reference point for something that follows In the simplest case this means that the same thing comes again But it may also mean that it serves as a basis for comparison" (Halliday, 1994: 309)

Thompson gives a very explicit explanation of reference, he wrote: "reference is the set of grammatical resources which allow the speaker to indicate whether something is repeated

from somewhere else in the text or whether it is has not yet appeared in the text" (Thompson, 1996: 148)

There are two main types of reference, they are anaphoric reference and cataphoric reference While cataphoric reference points the reader or listener forward, i.e it draws us further into the text in order to identify the elements to which the reference items refer, anaphoric reference points the reader or listener backwards to a previously mentioned entity, process or state of affairs (David Nunan, 1993) With this type of reference, the subsequent items can only interpreted with reference to the initial phrase of the first sentence

1.3.2.2 Substitution cohesion

According to Halliday & Hasan (1976), substitution is "the replacement of one item by another" They explained that it is ""a relation between linguistic items, such as words or

phrases , a relation on the lexico-grammatical level" (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 89)

Substitution cohesion consists of sense identity relation instead of a reference identity relation It also has three subdivisions such as nominal substitution, verbal substitution and clausal substitution

1.3.2.3 Elliptical cohesion

Ellipsis cohesion refers to the case of absence of a word, a phrase or a clause whose meaning is understood In other words, ellipsis is simply defined as substitution by zero Like substitution cohesion which depends on the syntactic category of the presupposed

elements, elliptical cohesion consists of nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis and clausal ellipsis

1.3.2.4 Conjunctive cohesion

As Halliday and Hasan (1976: 226) point out “conjunctive elements are cohesive not in themselves but indirectly, by virtue of their specific meanings; they are not primarily devices for reaching out into the preceding or following text, but they express certain meanings which presuppose the presence of other components in the discourse”

E.g He took a cup of coffee after he woke up

The word "after" suggests a sequence, signaling that what is expressed in the first clause followed what is expressed in the second one

Conjunctive cohesion can be seen in four ways: addictive (similarly, likewise, in the same way, and, or…); adversative (although, though, despite, however, nevertheless…), causal (hence, then, so, because, consequently, therefore, for this reason….) and temporal (then, next, after that, just then, previously, at last, finally, at last …)

1.3.2.5 Lexical cohesion

The last type of cohesion according to Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) classification is lexical cohesion Despite reference, substitution, and ellipsis which are associated with syntactic elements, lexical cohesion has nothing to do with syntactic relations Therefore it is a open-ended and the most difficult cohesive type to define which is vocabulary-driven and based

on lexical relations Halliday and Hasan divided lexical into two main catergories: reiteration and collocation

1.3.2.5.1 Reiteration

Reiteration is a phenomenon when one lexical item refers back to another, to which it is related by having a common referent Reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion which comprises of the repetition of a lexical item to refer back to a lexical item and number of things in between as the use of synonym, near-synonym, or superordinate (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 278)

From the above notion we can infer that reiteration consists of repetition, synonym, antonym, superordinate The following examples will illustrate each type of reiteration

- Repetition (of a phrase or word)

In most financial centres, there are also branches of lots of foreign banks, largely

doing Eurocurrency business A Eurocurrency is any currency held outside its country of origin The first significant Eurocurrency market was for US dollars in

Europe, but the name is now used for foreign currencies held anywhere in the world (e.g yen in the US, euros in Japan)

(EBS - Stocks and shares, p.91)

- Synonymy (words which have similar meanings, e.g well-known, famous)

This act was repealed in 1999 The Japanese equivalent was abolished the previous year, and the banking industry in Britain was also deregulated in the 1990s

(EBS - Banking, p.85)

- Antonym (the relation of opposite meaning e.g high, low, day, night)

To reduce the money supply, they sell these bills to commercial banks, and withdraw the cash received from circulation; to increase the money supply the buy

them back, paying with newly created money which is put into circulation in this

- Super-ordinate (the semantic relation between a more general expression that includes some related specific relations e.g flower and rose)

Multinational companies often set up their head offices in countries such as

Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Cayman Islands, and the Bahamas, where taxes are

(EBS - The business cycle, p.145)

All the above subtypes of lexical cohesion will be further discussed in the next part of this thesis

CHAPTER II: AN ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL COHESIVE DEVICES IN BE

READING TEXTS IN THE COURSE BOOK EBS

2.1 An overview of the study

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), lexical cohesion is the central device for making texts hang together experientially, defining the aboutness of a text Typically, lexical cohesion makes the most substantive contribution to texture: According to Hasan (1984) and Hoey (1991), around fourty to fifty percent of a text’s cohesive ties are lexical Therefore, this type of cohesion is definitely important to study As mentioned in the last chapter, this thesis will adopt the taxonomies provided by Halliday and Hasan, which classified lexical cohesion into two main types: reiteration and collocation Reiteration is sub-classified into four subtypes: repetition, synonym, antonym, superordinate

In this chapter, the lexical cohesive devices used in six different texts will be analyzed The

six texts studied in this thesis are extracted from six units of the course book EBS which

are included in the ESP course level 2, the course designed for third year students at TUU This course book was chosen as the main material for teaching and learning ESP of almost all the faculties at TUU Most of the units in the course book contain three components:

1 An informative reading text giving an overview of a particular topic

2 Either listening exercises or shorter authentic reading passage

3 An additional case study, role play, discussion activity or writing exercise

The six sample texts are taken from the first part of each unit They aim at introducing key business and economic concepts, including a large amount of relevant economic terms They are chosen to be examined because of having high frequent occurrence of lexical cohesive ties The following table presents the origin of each sample text:

Text Unit

Sample text 1: Types of bank Unit 14: Banking

Sample text 2: Companies Unit 15: Stock and shares

Sample text 4: Market leaders, challengers

and followers

Unit 18: Market structure and competition

Sample text 5: Taxation (and how to avoid

it!)

Unit 23: Central banking, money and taxation

Sample text 6: The business cycle Unit 25: The business cycle

Table 1: BE texts chosen for analysis

The examination of all cohesive ties appeared in the six texts is implemented in the following steps: first, each type of cohesive devices is taken into consideration, in particular, the author search for every lexical item related to the examined device in all the texts, then calculate them and sum up The absolute count of each category is then converted to the percentage for comparison The counts and percentage of each type and sub-type of cohesive devices are grouped in categories and according to the analytical purpose of the study The reason why the author choose to collect the data in this way is that in order to arrive at any generalizations, large amounts of texts annotated for lexical ties are needed However, manual analysis is very labor-intensive (Hoey, 1991) Therefore the examination and calculation should be done very carefully, i.e no related item should

be missed Calculating lexical related items of one solely device each time may produce a more credible result when the researcher does not confuse and makes mistake during the investigation

The occurrence of lexical cohesive ties found in the six BE texts is presented in the following table:

Types of cohesive devices Number of related items

Table 2: The frequency of presence of lexical cohesive devices in sample texts

The overview of lexical cohesive devices in the six BE texts reveals that: there is a preference of using repetition, synonymy and collocation in written discourses of the textbook and a lower frequency of other types There are totally 705 lexical items identified in BE reading texts of which 340 are repetitions, account for 48.2% Collocation and synonymy have a similar count of 113 and 112, equivalent to 16.0% and 15.9% Next

is superordinate device with the occurrence of 90 times, accounts for 12.8% and the lowest frequency is antonymy device with 50 items counted equal to 7.1% The following figure shows the difference in the contribution of lexical cohesive ties in the sample texts

Figure 1: Lexical cohesive devices in BE texts - Frequency of occurrence

2.2 Analysis of lexical cohesive devices in BE reading texts

2.2.1 Reiteration

Reiteration is termed by Halliday and Hasan (1976) and explained as "the repetition of a lexical item, or the occurrence of a synonym of some kind, in the context of reference; that

is, where the two occurrences have the same referent Typically, therefore, a reiterated

lexical item is accompanied by a referent item, usually 'the' or a demonstrative" (Halliday

& Hasan, 1976: 319) The role of a referent is claimed to be absolutely important in creating the cohesive force in discourses Obviously, a reiterated item followed by a referent item is therefore cohesive by reference as in the following example:

There is a boy climbing that tree

The boy's going to fall if he doesn't take care (repetition) The lad's going to fall if he doesn't take care (synonym) The child's going to fall if he doesn't take care (superordinate)

2.2.1.1 Repetition

Repetition refers to the same lexical item with the same meaning occurring more than once

in the same discourse Repetition is categorized by Hoey (1991) into simple repetition and complex repetition

2.2.1.1.1 Simple repetition

Simple repetition is when a lexical item that has occurred previously is now repeated exactly or without great changes in grammatical paradigm For example, "is lent" is the simple repetition of "lends" Here are some more examples:

Examples in text 3:

The British and American central banks also sell and buy short-term (three month)

Treasury Bills as a way of regulating the money supply To reduce the money

supply, they sell these bills to commercial banks, and withdraw the cash received

from circulation; to increase the money supply the buy them back, paying with

newly created money which is put into circulation in this way

In the above example, the verbs sell and buy in the second example are repeated exactly with their presupposed items, the noun phrase money supply is repeated twice without any

change in grammatical function, they are therefore considered simple repetition

One way of making a discourse coherent is repeating important words which are used more than once in the same discourse In all the sample texts investigated in this thesis, most of

the topic words occur repeatedly For example, in text 3 "Bonds", the topic word bond is repeated 10 times, the text 2 deals with the topic "Stocks and Shares" the word company is used repeatedly 15 times whereas the word tax is repeated up to 19 times in the text

"Taxation (and how to avoid it!)" The followings are some typical examples taken from

sample BE texts:

Examples in text 6:

To reduce income tax liability some employers give highly-paid employees lots of

perks or benefits instead of taxable money, such as company cars, free health

insurance, and subsidized lunches Legal ways of avoiding tax, such as these, are known as loopholes in tax laws Life insurance policies, pension plans and other investments by which individuals can postpone the payment of tax, are known as

tax shelters Donations to charities that can be subtracted from the income on

which tax is calculated are described as tax-deductible

Text 6 is about taxation and ways to avoid it, the topic word tax is found in almost every

sentence This helps create a high cohesiveness of the text Text 4 deals with the topic

market structure, the key word market is used repeatedly:

Examples in text 4:

One way to do this is to try to find ways to increase the size of the entire market

Contrary to a common belief, wholly dominating a market, or having a monopoly,

is seldom an advantage: competitors expand markets and find new uses and users for products which enriches everyone in the field, but the market leader more than its competitors A market can also be expanded by stimulating more usage

Example in text 2:

A successful, growing company can apply to a stock exchange to become a public

limited company (GB) or a listed company (US) Newer and smaller companies

usually join 'over-the-counter' markets, such as the Alternative Investment Market

in London or Nasdaq in New York Very successful businesses can apply to be quoted or listed (i.e to have their shares traded) on major stock exchanges

Publicly quoted companies have to fulfill a large number of requirements,

including sending their shareholders an independently-audited report every year, containing the year's trading results and a statement of their financial position

Since text 2 discusses the issuing of stocks and shares, and companies are attached to the

activities of issuing stocks and shares, the repetition of the word company in the paragraph

and the text shows the importance of this word in explaining the main idea of the text

2.2.1.1.2 Complex repetition

Complex repetition, as Hoey (1991) defined, is when two lexical items share a lexical morpheme but are not entirely identical or when they are identical but they have different grammatical functions Therefore, it can be inferred that all the lexical items repeated in different parts of speech in a discourse can be seen as the case of complex repetition For example:

tax (v) - tax (n) - taxable (adj)

liquid (adj) - liquidation (n)