A discursive approach of grammatical and lexical cohesion in students' writing

Abstract

Writing is considered as one of the four skills of language whose essential characteristic is cohesion. This research focuses mainly on cohesion in academic writing of English foreign language learners (EFLLs), because cohesion enables learners to connect ideas more accurately through focusing on both grammar and lexis.The present study aims at examining the students' awareness of the use of grammatical and lexical links in their academic writings. Furthermore, it seeks to analyze the frequency, variety, and control of employing cohesion and its effect on the style of writing.A descriptive study was adopted to answer the research questions and to illustrate to what extent the third year students of English at the University of Medea are familiar with the use of cohesive devices. This is a quantitative descriptive research. Hence, the sample population of the current research consists of 30 students of third year English at Medea University, promotion of 2018 – 2019. The sample was randomly selected. The research results revealed that students tend to employ grammatical cohesive devices (GCDs) more than lexical cohesive devices (LCDs). One of the main reasons behind this is their lack of semantic knowledge.