Grammatical Cohesion in Teacher Trainees’ Argument Essay: A Linguistics Analysis of Argument essay of a Private College of Education in Ghana
Grammatical Cohesion in Teacher Trainees’ Argument Essay: A Linguistics Analysis of Argument essay of a Private College of Education in Ghana
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Date
2016-04
Authors
Anto, Sylvester Kwabena
Josephine, Brew Daniels
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Publisher
IRA International Journal of Education and Multidisciplinary Studies
Abstract
This study examines grammatical cohesion in teacher trainees’ argument essay. Twenty
scripts of teacher trainees’ argument essay were purposely selected from a total of hundred
essays which were assessed by two inter-raters and used as data for the study. The study
basically applied a qualitative method of analysis to the data. The theoretical framework that
underpins the study is Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) influential theory of cohesion in English.
Three major findings were made. First, teacher trainees frequently use reference and
conjunctions to achieve coherence in their argument essay. Second, a good quality essay
cannot be judged on the number of cohesive markers present, linguistic features such as
grammatical rules of concord and verb tense are equally important. The study further showed
that the least used cohesive devices are substitution and ellipsis. The findings of this study
have implications for pedagogy and further research.
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Citation
Daniels, J. B., & Kwabena, A. (2016). Grammatical cohesion in teacher trainees’ argument essay: A linguistics analysis of argument essay of a private college of education in Ghana.