Discourse Analysis of Grammatical Cohesion in Students Writing.

Abstract

Grammatical cohesive devices are one aspect, which helps to achieve cohesion in any written discourse, in which they strengthen the piece of writing. The study aims at (1) investigating the frequent grammatical cohesive devices used by second year English students during their production of essays. (2) The study seeks to find whether students are aware of the different grammatical cohesive ties and therefore construct cohesive essays. To probe into the subject a hypothesis is set: if students know grammatical cohesive devices, they would construct cohesive essays. To check this hypothesis, students‟ questionnaire as well as a test used to gather data. The two tools are directed to second year English Students‟, in the department of foreign languages, at Abdelhafid Boussouf University Center-Mila. The findings offer a picture on students‟ prerequisite knowledge and the use of cohesive devices. They know conjunctions and they use demonstrative reference device, yet ellipsis and substitution are rarely used. They use some cohesive devices and misuse others. Briefly, the wrong use of cohesive devices creates incohesive essays. Reaching such a conclusion allows us to state that the hypothesis is confirmed.