Cohwsion in Essay Writing of Thai as A Second Language Learners

Abstract

This article aims to investigate cohesion devices used in essay writing of Thai as a second language learners. The data was collected from essays of foreign undergraduate students majoring in the Bachelor of Arts Program in Communicative Thai Language for Foreigners (International Program), Department of Thai Language, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University. Halliday & Hasan’s (1976) taxonomy of cohesion and Chanawangsa’s (1986) cohesion in Thai were used as analytical frameworks of cohesive devices. The findings reveal five types            of cohesive devices including reference, ellipsis, reiteration, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. Conjunction was             the dominant device as it ties sentences or sections of a text to be more connected and enhance comprehension for readers. In addition, some errors were found in their writing such as verbal ellipsis that a verb in the earlier phrase was missing, the lack of using conjunctions leading to ambiguous meaning, and the misuse of conjunctions. To make texts more coherent and comprehensible, the researchers have provided suggestions for teaching foreign students using Thai as a second language.