Students’ awareness of grammatical cohesion in written discourse

This research aimed to investigate the extent of awareness of Junior High School students on grammatical cohesion in written discourse. The study used the descriptive correlational research design that specifically described the extent of awareness of students in recognizing and using grammatical cohesive devices and investigated the relationship between the extent of awareness of students to recognize grammatical cohesive devices and to use them correctly in their written discourse. Four selected paragraphs were used for the recognition of grammatical cohesive devices while four topics were provided for the use of grammatical cohesive devices in their written discourse. The students were asked to use the different types of grammatical devices in their written discourse. Frequency counts, mean, and Pearson Product Moment of Correlation were used in analyzing the data gathered. Results show that on the recognition of grammatical cohesive devices, the students had a great extent of awareness for conjunction. Students displayed a moderate extent of awareness for reference and substitution. Ellipsis was recognized at a little extent. On the use of grammatical cohesive devices, it is noticed that the most used grammatical cohesive devices were conjunction and reference. On the contrary, there is a little evidence on the use of substitution and ellipsis in the students’ written discourse. In general, the students have a moderate extent of awareness in both the recognition and use of grammatical cohesive devices. Furthermore, results showed that among the four grammatical cohesive devices only the recognition of substitution is significantly related to its use in written discourse. Based on the foregoing findings, it seems obvious that the students are not familiar with all types of cohesive devices to the same degree, so they only recognize and utilize those that they are familiar with because they find them easy to recognize and use.