ANALYSING COHESIVE DEVICES AS ONE OF THE ASPECTS OF

CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC IN ACADEMIC WRITING COMPOSITION

Discourse Analysis Class C

By:
KHUSNUL LIA FATMAWATI
NIM 130210401002

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

THE FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF JEMBER
2015

I.

INTRODUCTION

According to Ulla Connor (1996:5), contrastive rhetoric is an area of study

in second language acquisition that shows L2 learners often find difficulties in
organizing their idea in writing a composition. They are interfered by their first
language. One of the aspects of contrastive rhetoric is cohesion and coherence.
According to M.A. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan, coherence and cohesion play an
important role of creating texture in a text. Formal links within the text that
connect sentences or clauses are known as cohesive devices. Cohesive devices
consist of five aspects such as reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion,
and conjunction. Those five aspects show coherence in texts.
In this paper, I will analyse my own composition in Academic Writing
subject titled The Importance of Learning English for Indonesian Children. I
would like to analyse the cohesive devices in my composition. I will explain what
kinds of cohesive devices are there in my composition, how many they are, and
which one is mostly used. I will show my reason why I use them in my
composition. On the last section of this paper, I provide the composition with
coding as well on the attachment.

II.

DISCUSSION

2.1 Analysis of Cohesive Devices

In my composition, I find four out of five types of cohesive devices. They are
reference, ellipsis, lexical cohesion and conjunction.
Reference
The most frequently used is reference, especially for anaphoric reference. In
total, there are 37 words that belongs to anaphoric reference, such as the word
it, they, and their. Each of those three words refers to the previous
sentence. For example:
1. Science and technology have developed significantly in the globalization
era today. It requires everyone to compete in almost all aspects of life.
(paragraph 1)
The word it in bold typed refers to the globalization era.
2. Second, children still have sharp memory for remembering something.
They have bigger capacity for remembering than adults. (paragraph 3)
The word they refers to the children in the previous sentence.
3. Third, learning English at early childhood gives the children greater
opportunity for their study and career in the future. (paragraph 4)
The word their in bold typed refers to the children who learn English at
early childhood.
Lexical Cohesion
a. Collocation
In my composition, I find many collocations. The number is 24
collocations in total. When I compose this writing, I did not realize if I
used collocation. I just picked the appropriate terms that I am familiar
with.

These are collocations I used in my composition

Combination

Words

adjective + preposition

international language, foreign language,

free time, international language, daily life,
successful career, bilingual language, new
foreign words, sharp memory, interesting
game
afraid of, interested in

noun + noun

globalization era, Indonesian people

verb + noun

making mistakes

verb + preposition

prefer to, go abroad, move from

adjective + noun

b. Reiteration
For reiteration, I find synonym, anonym, and repetition. The word
they belongs to synonym and repetition. They in this case is similar
in meaning with the children who learn English. The word they is
considered as repetition as well because it is overused. There are 16
words in total. At first, I just wanted to use another word instead of the
word children. I wanted to avoid overusing the same word, but in
fact, I still keep repeating the word they many times. Another reason
of why I kept repeating the same word is I also used they to refer to
children and adults as the subjects of sentences, so that I overused it in
my composition.
Another word that is considered as repetition is the word English.
There are sixteen numbers in total for this word. It is overused so that it
belongs to repetition as well as the word they.
For antonym, it is represented by the words children and adults.
These two words have different meaning, so that it belongs to antonym.
Ellipsis
For Ellipsis, I find one in my composition. The word one in bold typed in
the sentence They move from one place to another one for finding jobs and for

visiting new places around the world (paragraph 4) belongs to nominal ellipsis
because the element that is omitted is a noun head. The word one here indicates
the other place. My reason for using ellipsis here, I only wanted to make little
variation in my composition. I only wrote something that I ever heard before.
Conjunction
For conjunction, the total number of conjunction is 26. I use both
coordinate conjunction such as and, and or, and sub coordinate conjunction, such
as which, in order to, as, when, even though, so that, as well, as long as and
which. In my composition, I only used the familiar conjunction because I do not
know much about conjunction.

III.

CONCLUSION

In my composition, I find four types of cohesive devices: reference, lexical

cohesion, ellipsis, and conjunction. Cohesive devices that becomes he most
frequently used is reference, especially anaphoric reference. There are 37 words
that belong to reference. It consists of the words it, they, and their. For
lexical cohesion I find reiteration, such as repetition, synonym and antonym, and
collocation as well. For ellipsis, I only find one, especially for the nominal
ellipsis. For conjunction, the total number of conjunction is 26. I use both
coordinate conjunction and sub coordinate conjunction.

ATTACHMENT

The Importance of Learning English for Indonesian Children

Khusnul Lia Fatmawati 130210401002
Science and technology have developed significantly in the globalization
era today. It requires everyone to compete in almost all aspects of life. English
becomes one important thing to support the development of science and
technology. It becomes an international language which is usually used in many
countries around the world. In Indonesia, English is a foreign language because it
is not commonly used by Indonesian people in daily life. English is usually given
in school. In order to be able to compete in the globalization era today, Indonesian
people need to have good ability in English especially as a means of
communication. English in Indonesia should be learned from early childhood
education because of three reasons.
First reason is in the early childhood learning a foreign language is easier
to do. Children have more free time to learn than adults. They can get longer time
to learn English rather than those who start learning English when they are older.
They also do not feel hesitate to show their ability in pronouncing foreign words,
even though it is incorrect. Mostly, when someone starts to learn English when
they are older, they will feel hesitate when they have to practice their ability in
front of their friends. They are afraid of making mistakes or pronouncing words
incorrectly.
Second, children still have sharp memory for remembering something.
They have bigger capacity for remembering than adults. They prefer to remember
something when they like it or they are interested in it. They usually learn English
by playing games. It will make them to be more enthusiastic, so that the learning
process will be more effective as well. What they have learned will not easily
forgotten, it will stay in their mind.

Third, learning English at early childhood gives the children greater

opportunity for their study and career in the future. Parents in Indonesia usually
think that learning English is not important as long as their children do not go
abroad. That opinion is not true. In the globalization era today, people around the
world are connected. They move from one place to another one for finding jobs
and for visiting new places around the world. English is an international language,
so that mastering English will help them easier get their successful career in their
future as well. It helps the children master another subject as well such as math
and biology which are usually used bilingual language both Indonesian and
English.
In conclusion, learning English in the early childhood is easier to do
because children still have much time and they usually more confident practicing
their English rather than adults. Children have sharp memory to remember
something, especially new foreign words because it is given by playing an
interesting game. Learning English also make their opportunity in their study and
career becomes greater, even though they are not going to go abroad. That is why;
English in Indonesia should be learned from early childhood education.

Notes:
Collocation
Conjunction
Repetition
Antonym
Ellipsis
Reference