A STUDY ON GRAMMATICAL COHESION IN THE DESCRIPTIVE ESSAYS BY THE THIRD SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MATARAM IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2019/2020

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the use of grammatical cohesion in the descriptive essays which were written by the third-semester students of English Education Program in the University of Mataram in the academic year 2019/2020. In detail, it was aimed to identify the types and the frequent types of grammatical cohesive devices which were used by the students in writing their essays. This study used the 21 third-semester students’ descriptive essays as the resource of the data and they were analyzed by using the descriptive qualitative method. The results of this research show that all types of grammatical cohesive devices are found in the analyzed essays. There are reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. Among those four types which were found, reference occurred 1011 times or (83.6%) out of the total number of grammatical cohesive devices that were found in the students’ essays, it becomes the most predominantly used grammatical cohesive device by the students. Followed by conjunction for existing 179 times or (14.8%), and then there is ellipsis with 17 times occurrences or (1.4%), meanwhile, substitution becomes the least prominent type used by the students with only 2 times occurrences or (0.2%) in their essays. The reference became the most used type from the other types is likely to happen because they are more familiar to use it. The frequent use of reference in the students’ essays can be interpreted as an attempt to minimize the repetition of people’s names, objects, and events occurring in the same essays.