Topic The common errors in usage of written cohesive devices among secondary school Malaysian learners of English of intermediate proficiency

Objectives  To investigate the common errors in usage of written cohesive devices among secondary school Malaysian learners of English of intermediate proficiency  To investigate the frequency of the above errors among the learners in their L1 written products

Theoretical background The introduction of Halliday and Hasan’s Cohesion in English (1976) had a major influence on the understanding and teaching of coherence features. Halliday and Hasan (1976) cited that, “Cohesion occurs where the INTERPRETATION of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The one PRESUPPOSES the other, in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except by recourse to it. When this happens a relation of cohesion is set up” (p.4). According to Paltridge (2006) “cohesion refers to the relationship between items in a text such as words, phrases and clauses and other items such as pronouns, nouns and conjunctions” (p.131).

Cohesive devices Cohesion in a text is realized by using cohesive devices. A cohesive tie occurs “between a particular meaning, realized as a surface marker such as a noun or noun phrase, and another instance of that meaning, realized usually by linguistic units such as pronouns and definite noun phrases” (Botley and McEnery, 1996:5). According to Hoey (1991) cohesion is achieved through the use of lexical devices. Halliday and Hasan (1976) categorized cohesive devices in two major categories, namely grammatical and lexical. Grammatical category consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction. Lexical category consists of lexical cohesion such as reiteration and collocation.

Related studies Firoz (2012) investigated the most frequent cohesive errors committed by Iranian undergraduate who are EFL learners at different levels of proficiency as well as the sources of cohesive errors. Johnson (1992) examined cohesion in expository essays written in Malay and in English by native speakers of both languages and in ESL by Malaysian writers.

Related studies Neuner (1987) studied cohesive devices and chains in 20 good and 20 poor essays written by 40 college freshman which were rated by a panel of 12 professors using a four point holistic scoring scale. The researcher found that none among the different types of cohesive devices was used more frequently by good writers than poor writers The majority of the cohesion studies only examined the relationship between the number of cohesive devices and the quality of writing without taking into consideration whether or not the cohesive devices were used correctly

The significance of the research Cohesion is an important aspect in writing. Ting (2003) believed, “cohesion as an indispensable text-forming element plays a critical role in composing a text” (p.1). According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) cohesive devices are formal elements in the text that function to make links between the components of a text. It can be concluded that cohesive devices are crucial elements that create flow in texts.

The significance of the research In my teaching experience of 8 years at secondary level, I found out that students tend to use cohesive devices incorrectly. As a result of that, their writing lack in terms of coherence. Furthermore, the topic on incorrect usage of cohesive devices seems not to have received as much attention as it deserves. In L2 writing of ESL/EFL students, this linguistic feature should be taught in an attempt to help improve readability of L2 composition.

Research Questions  What are the common errors in usage of written cohesive devices among secondary school Malaysian learners of English of intermediate proficiency?  What is the frequency of the above errors among the learners in their L1 written products?

Research design This is a quantitative study

Participants  The participants of this research are 32 Form 4 students from a secondary school in Malaysia with an intermediate level of English  The participants are 16 years old  All of the students speak Malay as their native language and learn English as a second language

Data collection instruments  Narrative compositions of 300 words. The narrative topic is selected because this type contains a story line or plot which is commonly used in real life and achieved in the writing with the use of cohesive devices.  According to Henley (1988), this type of writing is easy for students to write when compared to other types of writing as it is a reflection of the past events or an exploration of the author’s values in a story form.

Procedures  The students will be selected based on their lower secondary school exam results.  The students will be divided into 4 groups consisting 8 students in a group.  The question papers will be given to the students in the classroom and they are required to write the compositions immediately. They will be given an hour to write the compositions and will be immediately collected.

Data analysis This study will examine the frequency of incorrect usage of cohesive devices in English and Malay narrative essays. This will cover the study of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices. The wrongly used cohesive devices will be first identified. A series of statistical analyses (frequencies, mean, standard deviation of incorrectly used cohesive devices and T-test comparing the errors in English and Malay compositions) will be employed in this study.

Ethical consideration  The permission of the school principal will be obtained before the research is conducted.  As the participants are 16 years old, the informed consent form will be signed by the students.  The participants will be informed that the research results will be anonymous.

Time plan ProceduresMonth Literature researchMay-June 2013 Design of research instrumentsJune 2013 Data collectionJune 2013 Analysis of dataJuly 2013 Writing-up the dissertationJuly-September 2013

The challenges I am expecting during the process of my research Time management Students will not write enough Data analysis