Coherence Problems of EFL Students’ Writing in Light of the Gricean Maxims

• Authors: Fatemeh Khonamari , Ehsan Hashemi , Martina Pavlikova , Bozena Petrasova

Abstracts

EN

Aim. In academic writing, lack of coherence is thought to occur mostly due to the lack of necessary linguistic skills and knowledge in L2. Thus, the analysis of a written text is concerned with understanding the local relations among the ideas conveyed in a text. Concept. As is usually the case, students writing in a second language generally produce texts that contain varying degrees of grammatical and rhetorical errors. Most of the studies have been conducted with only one criterion for the analysis of coherence and they reported different results. Also, most of them have been conducted on a small scale in terms of the number of participants, and writing samples collected. Therefore, this study tries to investigate the coherence problems/errors of university students in their writing, if any, on a fairly large scale in light of the Cooperative principle and its maxims. Results and conclusion. The study revealed that the basic problem of the students in their essay writing was the way the text should be structured with reference to how cohesion and coherence are established. In the analysis of maxim violations, the violation of the Quality maxim was identified as making overgeneralisations or giving inadequate or no evidence/support for the claims/ideas. The violation of the Quality maxim indicates that students tend to do it due to their linguistic inadequacies.

Keywords

EN

coherence; writing skills; Gricean maxim; EFL learners

• Publisher: Fundacja Pro Scientia Publica
• Journal: Journal of Education Culture and Society
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 294-313

Dates

published

2021

Contributors

author

Fatemeh Khonamari

• Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mazandaran

• https://orcid.org/0000000268335347

author

Ehsan Hashemi

• Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mazandaran

• https://orcid.org/0000000157509770

author

Martina Pavlikova

• Department of Journalism, Faculty of Arts Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra

• https://orcid.org/0000000267383320

author

Bozena Petrasova

• Department of British and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius

• https://orcid.org/0000000254309084

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Identifiers

DOI

10.15503/jecs2021.2.294.313

Biblioteka Nauki

1878471