A Study of Cohesive Devices in Selected English Stories In Third-Year Intermediate Students' Book in Iraq

Abstract

To comprehend any writing or reading, the reader or listener needs to understand how to use cohesion devices. It is important that writing should be coherent as well as cohesive. Cohesive means the elements are joined together as a whole. This study depends on the hypothesis that students can stories and in turn improve their ability to speak fluently and write by using suitable cohesion devices with their proper place according to the grammatical rules, as well as their meaning. This study employs discourse analysis to investigate cohesive devices in third-intermediate stories in English for Iraq. The text analyzed includes the abstract, introduction, research methodology, findings and discussions, and conclusion. To achieve the aim of the study and verify its hypotheses, the study adopts two kinds of procedures: Theoretical and practical. The theoretical procedures consist of presenting a theoretical framework of grammatical and lexical cohesion as conceptualized by Halliday and Hasan's (1976) concept, i.e., reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, reiteration, and collocation. Furthermore, light is shed on the relation between student comprehension of coherence devices with their meaning and usages by employing logical relations. The practical procedures consist of analyzing four stories selected randomly from the third intermediate student book (2024). The first story is ( Lucky customer 50), the second story is ( The champion) ,he third story is ( How to fill a space ). and the fourth story is (A powerful lesson for everyone The selected passages define and describe the cohesive devices based on the work of Halliday and Hasan (1976). Both qualitative as well as quantitative research methods are used in this study. The qualitative method is represented by the detailed analysis of every single cohesive device and sentence. On the other hand, the quantitative analysis is represented by the use of statistical tables and figures to discuss the frequency and percentages of employed devices in the whole sample of the selected stories. According to the findings, the designers of the English for Iraq book for the third intermediate school used cohesive devices in the design of story writing products. From the selected four stories, it was determined that almost all types of cohesive devices are used throughout the text. But lexical devices are predominant. The findings demonstrate that repetition is highly frequent in stories, which reveals that Repetition adds emphasis to key ideas. It can help underline central themes or improve the mood of a story. While grammatical coherence devices are more or less especially meronymy, in addition, ellipsis and substitution are nearly neglected to avoid miscomprehension by readers .