Cohesive devices in reading texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12 – Ban Cơ Bản Bùi Thị Nga Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Nguyen Thuy Phuong Lan, MA. Năm bảo vệ: 2011 Abstract: The study aims at finding out the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” for grade 12 students in general throughout Vietnam. The reason for choosing grammatical and lexical cohesion as the main objects of the study lies in their popularity in linguistic fields and the tests for examinations at upper secondary schools these days. In this paper, some theories of discourse and cohesion leading to the basic background for the study are discussed. According to that, the theory of cohesive devices by Halliday and Hasan (1976) is the major framework. Besides, the source of the study is reading texts; hence, features of written discourse are necessary base to characterize the study. Throughout investigating 16 units in the textbook, the author found out that the most prominent cohesive device is collocation, then conjunctions, reference and repetition. It was suggested that during the process of teaching, teachers should instruct students in understanding and employing these cohesive devices correctly. Keywords: Bài đọc; Sách giáo khoa; Tiếng Anh; Lớp 12 Content PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the interconnected and globalized world nowadays, knowing English is of great importance. That forces students, especially high school students, to have to equip themselves with the basics of English, so that they can enter the world more easily, and to some extent, better their future life. To grade 12 students, this is more essential. Not only do they need English in the future, but in the nearer view English is one of the core subjects in the GCSE examination, and the entrance examination to university. Tracing back to these two national examinations recently, the high occurrence proportion of cohesive devices can not be denied. In my observation, except for phonetic parts, cohesive devices, along with their usage and meaning, are useful tools in both reading texts, and many sentences in such parts as writing, mistake correction, and multiple choice questions. That is to say, the teaching of cohesive devices is essential to grade 12 students. Moreover, on the process of mastering language in general, English in particular, to Vietnamese secondary students, reading is seen as the crucial tool that aids the learning of the other skills. However, it is a fact that, these days, many high school students do not have adequate linguistic knowledge to read and understand a whole written text in English. During my process of teaching high school students, I come to realize that one of the foremost reasons for which students often make errors at sentence and discourse levels is due to their inattention to the cohesive devices used in the context of texts. What they do is to try to look up new words, and then translate the texts into Vietnamese. As a result, students find it hard to understand the text or express their answers in the comprehension check questions even though they know most of the words. Those who are given in advance unfamiliar words still show their inability in recognizing sentences, and word relations, which leads to the misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the meaning of the texts. In addition, according to my past experience of being a final-year student at high school, as well as during my observation at my working place, most of the teachers, both my former ones and my present colleagues, do not teach students how to realize word relations through the cohesive devices. Apart from a variety of mentioned things, many people have done researches on linguistics and discourse analysis; yet, no suggestions have been given to high school teachers and students so that they can do tasks relating to cohesion more successfully. Consequently, the decisive motivation in doing this research derives from the extremely important role of cohesion in the text and also the difficulties of my students who lack the ability to make proper recognition of cohesive devices in written texts in their textbooks. This research spends a large part looking closely at grammatical and lexical cohesive devices, under the theory of cohesion by Halliday and Hasan (1976), used in the textbook for grade-12 students in general in terms of the frequency of occurrence 2. Aims of the study While carrying out this research, the researcher, firstly, attempts to describe and analyze cohesive devices in the English textbook for grade 12 students in general throughout Vietnam in term of grammar and lexis. Then, the research aims at giving some implications for teaching cohesion, as well as certain sample cohesive exercises for designing material for the revision of GSCE examination and the entrance examination to university. Finally, by doing this study, the researcher hopes to indicate striking features of cohesive devices so as to help students understand the reading texts more effectively. The following research questions are raised for exploration while carrying out the study: 1. What are the cohesive devices used in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12 – Ban Cơ Bản” for grade - 12 students general throughout Vietnam? 2. How can the findings help teachers and their students in the teaching and learning the textbook for grade 12 students? 3. Scope of the study Within the limited time and knowledge, only grammatical and lexical cohesion in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” for grade - 12 students general throughout Vietnam edited by Hoang, V.V et al (2010), Education Publication House are observed. Furthermore, the study does not propose all the possible solutions to teaching and learning cohesion but only some implications that are directly drawn from the textbook observation and the observation of the tests for GSCE examination and the entrance examination to university over the past few years. Only two skills, reading and writing, are chosen to present. 4. Significance of the study Theoretical significance: The study brings with it the task to verify the correctness and significance of linguistic theory by working on the discourses of different issues in social life mentioned in the researched textbook. It is hoped to prove the existing ideas on cohesion to satisfy the individual’s question and, to some extent, hopefully to open a new way of revising and preparing for candidates of the GCSE examination and the entrance examination to university. Practical significance: This research gives out some practical applications, such as combining linguistic theory and practice in analyzing written English discourses in the researched textbook. In addition, the researcher hopes to give teachers and students a hand with teaching and learning cohesion through reading and writing skills. 5. Method of the study Approaches and methods The study can not reach its final page without a logical system of approaches and methods. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are applied. However, the latter is exploited most of the time. The tackling methods are statistic and descriptive (getting the statistics from the texts in the chosen textbook), analytical and synthetic (drawing striking features from the book observation). Firstly, a number of materials on discourse analysis are discovered to give the research a theoretical base. Then, it is ensured that none of the most noticeable cohesive devices in the reading texts in the textbook for intermediate students at grade 12 is missed their analysis and induction. Finally, the results are drawn out so that the author can suggest some implications. Data collection and analysis The grammatical and lexical cohesive devices to be studied will be taken from the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” for grade 12 students at intermediate level edited by Hoang,V.V et al (2010), Education Publication House. 6. Design of the study The thesis capacity is within 40 pages, structured as follows: Part A: Introduction introduces the rationale, objectives, scope, significance, methodology and the design of the study. Part B: Development Chapter 1: Literature review deals with the theories related to Discourse and Discourse Analysis, cohesion, and the textbook. Chapter 2: Findings and discussion of textbook observation analyses cohesive devices in the reading texts in the textbook for intermediate grade 12 students, basing on the view of Halliday and Hasan (1976) Chapter 3: Pedagogical implication of the study gives implications for teaching and learning cohesion basing on reading and writing skills. Part C: Conclusion aims at summarizing the thesis by showing the study results and giving concluding remarks. Some suggestions for further studies are also included to promise the continuance of the author’s future work. REFERENCE ENGLISH Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. 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Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số:. noticeable cohesive devices in the reading texts in the textbook for intermediate students at grade 12 is missed their analysis and induction. Finally, the results are drawn out so that the author