The Problems of Coherence in Japanese Composition A Case Study of Thai Students Majoring in Japanese

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study the problems of coherence in Japanese compositions written by Thai undergraduate students majoring in Japanese. Most participants passed JLPT N2. After analyzing the structure and coherence of 23 Japanese compositions, four main problems were identified. The most common problem is the lack of unified content. At the overall structure, the participants tended to write a summary or introduction that was not consistent with the main idea. At the paragraph structure, the supporting sentence or concluding sentence was boader than the topic sentence. The second problem is the lack of consistency between the content and topic. Some participants wrote main idea or detailed content that was broader than the topic. The third problem is poorly organized content or redundancy. For example, some participants wrote details that were mentioned in the introduction again in a body or wrote the supporting sentence after the concluding sentence in the same paragraph.The fourth problem is the lack of unity in terms of word use and sentence structure. Some words in a summary were different from ones used in an introduction or body. Besides, the wrong usages in sequence connectors were identified. The researcher found that, it is vital to make learners understand the structure of a composition and the relationships between the meanings of all the sentences. The analysis framework of the four problems of coherence above explains a practical way to maintain the unity of content and can be used to develop guidelines for teaching Japanese composition.