Coherence in written discourse has been a problematic concept for many
English Language Teachers when teaching to write in English. It is considered as a
crucial part of academic written discourse, which students are expected to master to
be able to pursue their academic studies. This study aims to examine how much the
coherence-related difficulties/problems of Turkish EFL students in writing English
essays are related to writing Turkish essays. The subjects for this study were chosen
from the upper-intermediate level students at the Preparatory Program of Istanbul
Bilgi University. For a detailed understanding of the nature of the coherence-related
difficulties/problems of students&rsquo / Turkish and English essays, this study suggests a
pragmatic analysis, involving the use of Grice&rsquo / s Cooperative Principle and maxims
and sub-maxims of Cooperation.
This study was conducted in the middle of 2005-2006 Academic Year with
the participation of 20 students who were chosen randomly. Each student was asked
to write an essay in English on a given topic from their weekly program. Threeweeks
later, the same students were asked to write essays on the same topic in
Turkish. Thus, 20 English essays and 20 Turkish essays (i.e., Total 40 essays) were
collected as data for this study. The essays were rated for coherence by three
different raters. All English essays were analyzed by one monolingual Americanrater and one bilingual (Turkish and English) rater. Similarly, all Turkish essays
were analyzed by one monolingual Turkish rater and the same bilingual (Turkish
and English) rater. The coherence ratings showed that there is a positive significant
correlation between the coherence judgments of monolingual raters and the
bilingual rater, which means that both monolingual raters and the bilingual rater
agree on the similar coherence judgments. Next, the essays were analyzed in light
of the Gricean Maxims to find the violations of each maxim in each essay by the
researcher. In the comparison of maxim violations and the coherence judgments of
the raters, the maxim of Relation was found to be the most significant maxim that
affected the coherence judgments of the raters both for Turkish and English essays.
In addition, Manner maxim was significant for Turkish essays and Quantity maxim
was significant for English essays. However, in the comparison of the violation of
individual maxims in Turkish and English essays, the violation of Relation maxim
in English essays was found to correlate with the violation of Relation, Quality and
Quantity maxims in Turkish essays. Similarly, violation of Manner maxim in
English essays was also found to correlate with the violation of Quantity and
Relation maxims. On the other hand, the violation of Manner maxim in Turkish
essays was found to correlate with the violation of Quantity maxim in English
essays. In conclusion, by looking at these relationships between Turkish essays and
English essays, it may be argued that students may have inadequacies in writing
skills or may lack some writing skills in Turkish, which may cause inadequacies in
English academic writing skills. However, this study suggests the same study be
replicated in different contexts and with larger sample sizes, similar research studies
be conducted in Turkish writing instruction in the contexts of Turkish Secondary
Education, and further studies be conducted on the effect of Relation and Manner
maxims on other maxims.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12607724/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Creators | Zor, Bayram Mustafa |
| Contributors | Ruhi, Sukriye |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.A. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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