ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE ESP TEXTBOOK ON ACCOUNTING AT UNIVERSITY OF LABOR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS Cao Thị Huyền Nga Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: M.A Nguyen Quynh Trang Năm bảo vệ: 2011 Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Phương tiện liên kết; Giáo trình Content PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Since Vietnam opened its door to the world, more and more foreigners have been coming to Vietnam to do business. As a result, a lot of foreign subsidiaries and businesses are operating in Vietnam, most of which need people who have a good working knowledge of English. They need people whose English is good enough to work efficiently. Consequently, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has become more popular because of its usefulness in jobs and undoubtedly become an indispensable branch in English language teaching in Vietnam. ESP courses, therefore, have been designed to meet the demand. University of Labor and Social Affairs swiftly added ESP to English teaching and learning program. ESP courses at ULSA include ESP for Insurance, Social Work, Human Management and Resources, and especially Accounting which occupies the largest number of students. After several years teaching ESP for students of Accounting, I have come to realize that most of ULSA students lack the adequate linguistic knowledge in English to read and understand a slightly complex written text, especially texts related to Accounting. So, students tend to make errors at sentences which lead to misinterpret the correct content of the texts. Moreover, students are poor in recognizing sentence, word relation and transferring ideas. They find it difficult to find suitable words to express their ideas, or even their vocabulary is fairly good, they still don’t know how to connect words to form a complete meaningful sentence. They are, consequently, not well- organized in their own reading and writing. It’s mostly due to students’ insufficient language base. They do not pay full attention to the cohesive devices used in the context of the text. To understand thoroughly the use of cohesive devices as linguistic means in the text is very essential for non-major students of English, especially for students of ULSA. The demand for analyzing cohesive devices used in ESP textbook becomes extremely urgent. Thus I have decided to study cohesive devices used in the English textbook on Accounting. I do hope that this study partially helps both teachers and students at ULSA improve the effectiveness of teaching and leaning ESP 2. Aims of the study Firstly, the study mainly aims at describing and analyzing cohesive devices in the ESP textbook on Accounting in terms of grammar and lexis. Secondly, it attempts to find out teachers’ attitudes towards teaching cohesion. Thirdly, giving out implications to teaching and learning reading skill in ESP is the last aim of the study. The following research questions are raised to reach the aims of the study: 1. What are the frequencies of occurrence of cohesive devices in the ESP textbook on Accounting? 2. What are teachers’ attitudes towards teaching cohesion? 3. Scope of the study The source of the study takes the current course book at ULSA: “English for Labor and Social Affairs”, Labor and Social Affair Press, Hanoi 2009. Due to limited time and within the framework of a minor MA thesis, the study just mainly focuses on grammatical and lexical cohesion in the ESP textbook for third- year and fourth- year Accounting students at ULSA in which texts from unit 17 to unit 25 are taken and used as written discourse. Moreover, the study will not try to propose all the possible solutions to cohesion teaching and learning but only suggest some implications that are directly drawn from the textbook analysis, interview and questionnaire analysis. 4. Significance of the study In term of theoretical significance the study tries to contribute to verifying the correctness and significance of linguistic theory through discovering the discourse of Accounting. In term of practical significance, the study gives out some practical applications such as combining linguistic theory and practice in analyzing written English discourse of Accounting. 5. Methods of the study Firstly, the methods of description, analysis and statistics in linguistics are used in this study. The study will base on reviewing materials used in the ESP course for Accounting at ULSA in order to collect and classify cohesive devices so as to point out the frequency of occurrence of cohesive devices used in the reading texts. Secondly, both qualitative and quantitative approaches are used to find out teachers’ attitude towards teaching cohesion and student’s perception of understanding cohesive devices to do reading exercises. Data from the interview and questionnaire will be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to achieve the objectives of the study. Thirdly, the findings from data analysis are inductively presented, that is, to move from less general to more general statements. 6. Design of the study The thesis consists of three parts: Part A: Introduction This part introduces the rationale, aims, scope, significance and methods of the study Part B: Development Chapter 1 deals with theoretical background of the research with three main section: discourse with spoken and written discourse, cohesion with coherence, cohesive devices in terms of grammar and lexis. Chapter 2 gives out the methodology used in the study. Chapter 3 supplies the findings and discussion of analyzing cohesive devices used in written discourse of textbook on Accounting: grammar cohesion and lexical cohesion to find each subtype of cohesion’s frequency of use; investigating teacher’s attitudes towards teaching cohesion and student’s perception of understanding cohesive devices to do reading exercises Part C: Conclusions This part consists of a summary of the findings, conclusion remarks, implications and suggestions for further study References 1. Brown, G and G.Yule. (1983), Discourse Analysis. Cambridge University Press 2. Carter, D.1(983). Some Propositions about ESP . The ESP Journal 2:131-137. 3. Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986). Survey Questions. Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire. Sage University Paper series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, Series No. 07-063. Sage publications, Inc., Beverly Hills. 4. Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Oxford University Press 5. Crystal, D. (1992). Introduction to Linguistics. London: Pengiun 6. Dornyei, Z. (2003), Questionnaire in Second Language Research Constraction, Administration and processing, Lawvrence. 7. Dudley-Evans, T.D and St John, J.M. (1998). Developments in English for Specific Purposes: A multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge University Press. 8. Dudley-Evans, T.D and St John, J.M. (1991). English for Specific Purposes: International in Scope, Specific in Purpose. TESOL Quarterly 25:2, 297-314 9. Eggins, S. (1994). An introduction to Systematic Functional Linguistics. London: Printer 10. Halliday, M.A.K (2002). Linguistics Studies of Text and Discourse Continuum. London and New York 11. Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan, R (19776). Cohesion in English. London: Longman Group Limited 12. Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan, R. (1985). Spoken and Written Language. Oxford University Press 13. Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan, R (1989). Language, Context and Text: Aspect of Language in a Social- Semiotic Perspective. Victoria: Deadkin University Press. London: Longman Group Limited 14. Hatim, B and Mason, I (1990). Discourse and the Translator. Longman 15. Hoa, N. (2000). An introduction to Discourse Analysis. Ha Noi: VNU Press 16. Hutchinson. T & Waters. A (1987). English for Specific Purposes: A learner-centered approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 17. Jordan, P. W. (1998). An introduction to Usability. Taylor & Francis, London. 18. McNamara, Carter, PhD. General Guidelines for Conducting Interviews. Minesota, 1999 19. Malinowski, B. (1923). The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World 20. Nunan, David (1993). Introducing Discourse Analysis. Penguin 21. Oppenheim, A. N. (1992). Questionnaire Design, Interviewing and Attitude Measurement. Pinter Publishers, London. 22. Quirk, R and Greenbaum, S (1973). A University Grammar of English. London: Longman Group Limited 23. Richard et al (1998). Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. London: Longman Group Limited 24. Richards, J and John, P, and Heidi, W (1985).Longman dictionary of applied linguistics. Harlow, Essex, England: Longman 25. Seliger, H.W and Shohamy, E. (1989). Second Language Research Methods. OUP: Oxford 26. Telesmans, G (2001- 2002). Discourse Analysis. Hanoi: VNU Press 27. Tickoo, Makham, L. (1998). ESP: State of the Art. SEAMEP Regional Language Centre 28. Widdowson, H.G (1979). Pragmatics. UK: Oxford University Press . Aims of the study Firstly, the study mainly aims at describing and analyzing cohesive devices in the ESP textbook on Accounting in terms of grammar and lexis. Secondly, it attempts to find out. supplies the findings and discussion of analyzing cohesive devices used in written discourse of textbook on Accounting: grammar cohesion and lexical cohesion to find each subtype of cohesion’s. reach the aims of the study: 1. What are the frequencies of occurrence of cohesive devices in the ESP textbook on Accounting? 2. What are teachers’ attitudes towards teaching cohesion? 3.