Investigating the Use of Cohesive Devices by Kurdish EFL Learners' Writing

This paper aims at investigating the types of cohesive devices, frequency of these types, how cohesive devices contribute to the quality of the texts used by Kurdish EFL learners, and finally finding out their problems in employing appropriate cohesive ties in their writing tasks. This study employs a mixed – method research design for analyzing twenty essays written by third – year students at the Department of English, College of Basic Education, University of Duhok. This study uses final examination sheets as data. The data are analyzed by using the concept of cohesive devices proposed by Halliday & Hasan (1976), which covers reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. The findings indicate that the learners mostly employ three types of cohesive devices, i.e., reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion. Based on the findings, it is recommended that EFL university teachers should guide their students to utilize appropriate cohesive devices in their texts and encourage them to read a lot.