VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Lê Đức Hòa AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN READING TEXTS IN TEXTBOOK “TIẾNG ANH 10” AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BINH THUAN PROVINCE MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020 luan an VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Lê Đức Hòa AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN READING TEXTS IN TEXTBOOK “TIẾNG ANH 10” AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BINH THUAN PROVINCE Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Lê Hương Hoa, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020 luan an DECLARATION BY AUTHOR I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the thesis entitled “an Analysis of cohesive Devices in Reading Texts in Textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” at An Upper Secondary School In Binh Thuan” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Language. The thesis has not be submitted for any other degree or professional qualification to any other universities or institutions. Except for reference made, this thesis contains no material previously written or published by another person.
Author’s Signature Lê Đức Hòa Approved by SUPERVISOR Lê Hương Hoa, Ph. Date:…………………… i luan an ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is accomplished with great effort and is contributed by a great deal of enthusiasm and assistance from many people. I would like to express my special thanks to the people who made it possible. First and the foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and high appreciation to my supervisor, Dr.
Lê Hương Hoa for her helpful support. If it had not been for her advice, and comments from her, I would have not completed this thesis. Second, I would like to send my special thanks to all of the teachers at Nguyen Van Troi upper secondary school for all their help and suggestions during the progress of completing this thesis. In addition, I am so grateful for all of the assistance from my colleagues and friends whose support and encouragement help me to get this thesis accomplished.
The last sincere gratitude goes to my dear family. It is their endless love, support and enthusiasm that have motivated me to complete this thesis. ii luan an TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION BY AUTHOR.vi LIST OF TABLES.vii LIST OF CHARTS. viii LIST OF FIGURES .ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
Aim(s) and objectives of the Study. Scope of the Study. Significance of the Study. Structure of the Study.
4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Previous studies on cohesive devices. An overview of the English Textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. The concept of the textbook.
Description of the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”.19 iii luan an 2. The role of the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” in teaching and learning English. 20 CHAPTER 3: GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE DEVICES IN READING TEXTS IN TEXTBOOK “TIẾNG ANH 10”. Grammatical cohesive devices in textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”.
42 CHAPTER 4: LEXICAL COHESIVE DEVICES IN READING TEXTS IN TEXTBOOK “TIẾNG ANH 10”. Lexical cohesive devices in textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. A Comparison of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices in textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. 52 iv luan an CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study .62 APPENDIX 1: List of References in reading texts in “Tiếng Anh 10”.I APPENDIX 2: List of Conjunction in reading texts in “Tiếng Anh 10”. VI APPENDIX 3: List of substitution in reading texts in “Tiếng Anh 10”. IX APPENDIX 4: List of ellipsis in reading texts in “Tiếng Anh 10”.
X APPENDIX 5: List of reiteration in reading texts in “Tiếng Anh 10”. XI APPENDIX 6: List of collocation in the reading texts in “Tiếng Anh 10”. XIX APPENDIX 7: Exercises for teaching cohesive devices .XXX APPENDIX 8: Answer keys for suggested exercises. XXXIX v luan an ABSTRACT This research focuses on the types and the functions of cohesive devices which are used in the reading tests in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” written by Hoàng Văn Vân, et al.
Cohesive devices are made up of reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, reiteration and collocation. The reason for taking the textbook is because during the teaching process, the researcher comes to realize that Students have a tendency to misinterpret ideas conveyed in the texts due to lack of grammatical and lexical knowledge of English language. Furthermore, the textbook ‘Tiếng Anh 10’ is first used to teach at the researcher’s school this year. Therefore, the researcher wants to have an overall viewpoint on cohesive devices used in the book and then makes some suggestions for teaching and learning English with the book effectively.
The data sources are taken from ten reading tests in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. In the study, the descriptive, statistical and analytical methods are used to dealt with the data, based on Halliday & Hasan’s (1976) theory of cohesion. After analyzing the data, the author found out that the occurrence frequency of both lexical and grammatical cohesive devices almost have the equal percentage of 51. Moreover, among six types of cohesive devices, reference, conjunction, reiteration and collocation have a relatively high frequency of occurrence.
On the other hand, substitution and ellipsis are found in a small number in these ten reading texts. Based on the findings, some suggestions are made for the teaching and learning of reading skill in the textbook for grade 10 students. vi luan an LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The percentage of different types of anaphoric reference. 23 Table 2: The percentage of different types of cataphoric reference.
26 Table 3: The percentage of different types of exophoric reference. 28 Table 4: The percentage of different types of reference. 29 Table 5: The percentage of different types of conjunction. 31 Table 6: The percentage of different types of substitution.
36 Table 7: The percentage of different types of Ellipsis. 37 Table 8: The percentage of different types of Grammatical cohesive devices.41 Table 9: The percentage of different types of reiteration. 43 Table 10 The percentage of different types of collocation. 47 Table 11: The percentage of different patterns of lexical collocation.
48 Table 12: The percentage of different patterns of grammatical collocation. 49 Table 13: The percentage of different types of lexical cohesive devices. 51 vii luan an LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: The percentage of different types of reference. 30 Chart 2: The percentage of different types of conjunction.
31 Chart 3: The percentage of different types of substitution. 36 Chart 4: The percentage of different types of ellipsis. 38 Chart 5: The percentage of different types of Grammatical cohesive devices. 41 Chart 6: The percentage of different types of reiteration.
43 Chart 7: The percentage of different types of collocation. 47 Chart 8: The percentage of different types of lexical cohesive devices. 51 Chart 9: The percentage of different types of cohesive devices. 52 viii luan an LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Functions of reference.
9 Figure 2: Types and examples of substitutions. 11 Figure 3: Types and examples of ellipsis. 12 Figure 4: Types and examples of conjunction. 14 Figure 5: Types of cohesion.
16 ix luan an LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS N : Noun V : Verb Adj : Adjective Adv : Adverb Prep : Preposition etc. : et cetera x luan an CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Undoubtedly, in the interconnected and globalized world nowadays, English plays an important role in our lives. It is considered as the language that is widely used in science, aviation, computers, diplomacy, tourism, international communication, the media and the internet.
The fluent use of English helps learners increase the chances of getting a good job and also helps them go into the world with confidence. Being aware of the importance of English, the Vietnamese government has paid special attention to education, especially the teaching of English in the national education system in which the Ministry of Education has developed the ten-year English textbook series for Vietnamese Schools under the National Foreign Language 2020 Project. Obviously, the content of the textbooks focuses on developing learners’ listening, speaking, reading and writing skills equally. Among these skills, reading is considered a receptive skill that aids the learning of other skills.
It is claimed (Tomlinson, 1990) that a good reading competence is essential for English language learners for professional and academic purposes, and many curricula spend a lot of time on reading lessons for learners so as to achieve such competence. However, during the teaching process, the researcher comes to realize that many students seem to have failed to grasp the content of reading texts comprehensively despite having studied English for many years. Students also have a tendency to misinterpret ideas conveyed in the texts. They try to translate reading texts into Vietnamese word by word.
Students find it difficult to comprehend the text even when they know most of the words. One explanation for this is the inability to perceive the cohesive signals of the writer (Nutta,1982; Cook, 1989). 1 luan an According to Connor (1984), “cohesive devices are indispensable elements in documents that aim to align sentences and parts of text in an appropriate manner” (p. These devices make a contribution to connecting ideas in the text closely and logically.
The accurate use of cohesive devices helps readers and listeners to capture the relations between what comes first and what comes next in a text (Zuhair, 2013).11) states that basically, cohesion represented by the relationship of grammar, logic and lexicon refers to the formal relationship that causes texts to cohere or stick together. Obviously, content in texts can only be conveyed logically and coherently with the help of the means of linking sentences and paragraphs. It is, therefore, important to help students grasp and distinguish the types of cohesive devices viewed as the backbone of various types of text. Apart from a variety of mentioned things, it is a fact that the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” (the ten-year English textbook for grade 10 students) is first used to teach at the researcher’s school this year.
Therefore, the researcher wants to have an overall viewpoint on cohesive devices used in the book and then makes some suggestions for teaching and learning English with the course book effectively. Those reasons mentioned above are the most important ones that have stimulated the researcher to conduct “An analysis of cohesive devices in reading texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” and recommended implications for teaching and learning English at an upper secondary school in Binh Thuan” as the topic of this study. Aim(s) and objectives of the Study The study attempts: - To give a description of how the cohesive devices employed in the 2 luan an textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” - To make a detailed analysis of the cohesive devices in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” - To give some implications for teaching and learning cohesion in reading texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. Research Questions In order to achieve the objectives, the study aims at answering the following research questions: 1.
What cohesive devices are used in the reading texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”? 2. How are the cohesive devices employed in the reading texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”? 3. What are the solutions to the teaching and learning of reading skill in the textbook for grade 10 students? 1. Scope of the Study This study will focus on the cohesive devices found in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” by Hoàng Văn Vân (2016).
The theory of Halliday and Hasan (1976) is used to analyze the use of cohesive devices in ten reading tests in the textbook in terms of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices.