Omani Undergraduate Students', Teachers' and Tutors' Metalinguistic
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Omani Undergraduate Students’, Teachers’ and Tutors’ Metalinguistic Understanding of Cohesion and Coherence in EFL Academic Writing and their Perspectives of Teaching Cohesion and Coherence Al Siyabi, Jamila Abdullah Kharboosh Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education March 2019 1 Omani Undergraduate Students’, Teachers’ and Tutors’ Metalinguistic Understanding of Cohesion and Coherence in EFL Academic Writing and their Perspectives of Teaching Cohesion and Coherence Submitted by Jamila Abdullah Kharboosh Al Siyabi to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education, March 2019. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signed) Jamila 2 ABSTRACT My interpretive study aims to explore how EFL university students verbally articulate their understanding of cohesion and coherence, how they perceive the teaching of cohesion and coherence and how they reflect on the way they have attempted to actualise cohesion and coherence in their EFL academic texts. The study also looks at how their writing teachers and tutors metalinguistically understand cohesion and coherence, and how they perceive issues related to the teaching/tutoring of cohesion and coherence. It has researched the situated realities of students, teachers and tutors through semi-structured interviews, and is informed by Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) taxonomy on cohesion and coherence. Further, the study employs text analysis of students’ essays to find out how well students write with cohesion and coherence. It explores the diversity, density and accuracy of cohesion devices as well as some coherence-related concepts (i.e. text unity, content, logic, writer’s subject and background knowledge and relationships with the reader). The study is largely qualitative, but it also has a quantitative element. It implements the triangulation of different sources of information: three participant groups (students, teachers and tutors) and two research methods (semi-structured interviews and text analysis). The study findings indicate that the students found it hard to verbally articulate what cohesion and coherence are, and defined the two terms through referring more to concepts that were related to coherence than cohesion. They also struggled with writing cohesive and coherent texts. There were also some synergies and discrepancies between teachers and tutors in how they metalinguistically understood cohesion and coherence, and how they perceived issues related to the teaching of cohesion and coherence. The study offers a deep discussion on its findings regarding its context and the prevailing body of research in the area. Its discussion focuses on researching cohesion and coherence and metalinguistic understanding in writing. It also discusses the characteristics of students’ writing regarding their writing cohesion and coherence, the influence of Arabic on the cohesion and coherence of their EFL 3 academic writing, and the teaching of cohesion and coherence. The study offers some significant implications that inform practice, decision making and future research. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have evolved as a researcher both through researching my participants’ understandings and perceptions of writing with cohesion and coherence, and through my reflection on myself as a researcher, a reader, a writer and a teacher of writing. I thank Dr. Debra Myhill for her guidance, professionalism, kindness and invaluable support. I also thank my second supervisor, Dr. Susan Jones, for her valuable feedback. I thank all the teachers who taught me at the MSc stage, and who have contributed to revolutionizing my understanding of research, education and learning. To my wonderful mother and my father’s soul, you cannot imagine how much difference you continue to make to how I live life. To my husband Khalid, who has been a great loving companion through the odds of my PhD journey, being a PhD student himself. To my sons, Omar, my first champion, and Hamza, my second: my journey has had special sparkles with your company. To my sisters and brothers, who have always been there for me through their kind words, support and prayers, thank you. To friends and family, you have made my journey easier just knowing that that you are there for me. Thank you. 5 LIST OF CONTENTS 1 Chapter one: Introduction .............................................................................................. 17 2 Chapter two: Study background ................................................................................... 23 2.1 Sultanate of Oman: An overview .................................................................... 23 2.1.1 Oman’s economic development .................................................................. 24 2.1.2 Political context ........................................................................................... 25 2.1.3 Language diversity in Oman ....................................................................... 26 2.2 Education in Oman .......................................................................................... 27 2.2.1 Higher education in Oman .......................................................................... 29 2.2.2 Sultan Qaboos University ........................................................................... 30 2.3 Cohesion and coherence in academic writing at the CPS: My personal and professional experience ............................................................................................ 34 2.4 Study aims ....................................................................................................... 36 3 Chapter three: Literature review .................................................................................... 37 3.1 Text ................................................................................................................... 39 3.2 Text and discourse .......................................................................................... 41 3.3 Text and situation ............................................................................................ 44 3.4 Texture and textuality ...................................................................................... 45 3.5 Cohesion .......................................................................................................... 47 3.5.1 Grammatical cohesion ................................................................................ 49 3.5.2 Lexical cohesion ......................................................................................... 54 3.5.3 Investigation of cohesion ............................................................................ 57 3.5.4 Cohesion analysis vs. linguistic analysis ..................................................... 60 3.6 Coherence ........................................................................................................ 61 3.7 Cohesion and coherence: Similarities and differences ................................ 65 3.8 Critical view on the theorization of cohesion and coherence....................... 68 3.9 Theorization of cohesion and coherence: Why Halliday and Hasan’s framework? ................................................................................................................. 72 3.10 Studies on cohesion ........................................................................................ 76 3.11 Studies on coherence ...................................................................................... 79 3.12 Cultural dimension of studies on cohesion and coherence ......................... 80 3.13 Significance of the study................................................................................. 81 3.14 Working definition of cohesion and coherence ............................................. 83 3.15 Metalinguistic understanding ......................................................................... 84 3.15.1 Defining metalinguistics: Contention ........................................................... 85 6 3.15.2 Importance of metalinguistic understanding in developing writing ............... 88 3.15.3 Studies on metalinguistic understanding in writing ...................................... 89 3.15.4 Definition of metalinguistics in my study ...................................................... 90 3.16 Study questions ............................................................................................... 90 4 Chapter four: Study methodology ................................................................................ 92 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 92 4.1 Philosophical assumptions: Research paradigms ........................................ 92 4.1.1 Positivism/post-positivism ........................................................................... 92 4.1.2 Interpretivism .............................................................................................. 93 4.1.3 Paradigm divisions: Reflections .................................................................. 94 4.2 Current study ..................................................................................................