The USE OF GRAMMATICAL COHESION DEVICES IN ARGUMENTATIVE WRITINGS OF EFL LEARNERS

Abstract

The research aims to investigate grammatical cohesion in EFL learners' argumentative essay writing. The research question was how the EFL learners used cohesive devices in the argumentative essay. The study found that there were 2.186 grammatical cohesive devices from 17 argumentative essays. The results showed that not all grammatical cohesive devices were used in their writing. This research applied qualitative methods and employed the conceptual framework of cohesion by Halliday and Hasan. It included using possessive pronouns as a reference, verbal Substitution, verbal Ellipsis, and clausal Ellipsis. Furthermore, there are also 14 misuses of Reference. Therefore, it could be concluded that the learners used grammatical cohesive devices in their argumentative essays although it contained misuses of some grammatical cohesive devices.