Understanding genre differences in cohesive use of EFL Learners: Insights from systemic functional linguistics

Despite extensive research on the role of cohesion in essay quality, little attention has been paid to the genre effects on the (in-)appropriate use of cohesive ties. This research, adopting a SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics) taxonomy of texts and cohesion types, sought to examine how different task types (argumentative, descriptive, narrative, and interactive) influence the overall use, correct use, misuse, overuse, and underuse of cohesion (sub-)types and how these indices predict overall essay quality. Cohesion was assessed by referential indices (pronominals, definite articles and demonstratives, and comparatives), conjunctive indices (additives, adversatives, causatives, and temporals), and lexical indices (repetition, synonyms, and superordinates). One hundred and forty-four essays written by Chinese EFL students were manually coded and holistically rated. The results showed that narratives, compared to other genres, displayed the lowest incidences of nearly all cohesion types, whereas argumentative writing showed a relatively higher frequency of cohesive cues. It was also found that the learners tended to overuse repetitions and pronominals in narratives and underuse demonstratives and definite articles in interactives. Six indices of cohesive use contributed significantly to overall writing scores. The implications of these findings for the validity issues of cohesion and genre-based classroom teaching pedagogy are discussed.