Research Practices in Cohesive Devices’ Studies: Benefiting from Chaos

Abstract

Abstract-This study has as its main goal exploring the possibility of benefiting from the chaotic status that permeates discourse analysis research done on cohesive devices since their inception by Halliday and Hasan (1976). These research studies have been categorised based on the foci of the research questions and the genres to which the analysed texts belong. The research practices of the reviewed papers have been analysed, compared and contrasted, and evaluated apropos the research design, methodology, literature review and findings. The analysis of the research practices found that the dominant feature of the reviewed studies is incompatibility. On a cautious note, while it is acknowledged that variance is imbued with research purposes, variance can be the product of certain flaws in the research design. This paper seeks to serve three purposes: 1) To critically survey the empirical studies conducted on cohesive devices, 2) to identify the problematic practices that led to the chaotic status, and 3) to propose a host of practices that can be followed in future research done on cohesive devices. Concomitant with this review a brief account of the cohesive devices model that was espoused by the majority of the studies addressed in this paper.

Context and Culture via Cohesive Devices in Higher Education Students’ and Professional Writers’ Opinion Articles

“…However, researchers who focused on the study of cohesive devices within the borders of the text have underscored the importance of understanding the relationships that exist between the linguistic items and the physical-world and cultural contexts. According to Abu-Ayyash (2017), due to the present research practice that focus on studies of cohesion mired in text-only-based analysis, there is a dearth of studies that link cohesive devices to context. As a matter of fact, such ties are significant to both the reader and the writer since both reading and writing are in essence social and cultural processes.…”