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

Autor

  • Fatemeh Khonamari Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mazandaran
  • Ehsan Hashemi Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mazandaran
  • Martina Pavlikova Department of Journalism, Faculty of Arts Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, B. Slančíkovej 1, 949 74 Nitra,
  • Bozena Petrasova Department of British and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Nám. J.Herdu 2, 91700 Trnava, Slovakia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2021.2.294.313

Słowa kluczowe:

coherence, writing skills, Gricean maxim, EFL learners

Abstrakt

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.

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Biogramy autorów

Fatemeh Khonamari - Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mazandaran

Fatemeh Khonamari is an assistant professor of TEFL at the University of Mazandaran. She has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses for more than 20 years. Her areas of interest include reading and writing research, metacognition, corrective feedback and teacher’s professional development.

Ehsan Hashemi - Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mazandaran

Ehsan Hashemi is an MA Graduate of the University of Mazandaran, Iran. His main area of interests includes writing research.

Martina Pavlikova - Department of Journalism, Faculty of Arts Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, B. Slančíkovej 1, 949 74 Nitra,

Martina Pavlíková is a university teacher, senior lecturer at the Department of Journalism, Constantine the Philosopher University in NItra, Slovakia. She graduated in English Language and Literature from the Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava. She completed her doctoral studies in the field of Cultural Studies at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. She has also given several lectures and completed research stays at foreign universities. Her research is devoted to the literature of English-speaking countries, ethical behaviour in the mass media and modern trends in visual arts.

Bozena Petrasova - Department of British and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Nám. J.Herdu 2, 91700 Trnava, Slovakia

Božena Petrášová, after graduating from the Faculty of Arts of the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, she received her Ph.D. degree in English linguistics and translatology. Since 2002, she has been working as a teacher‑researcher at the Department of British and American Studies of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia. Her research focuses mainly on English phonetics, phonology and morphology as well as on comparative studies of English and Slovak linguistic systems.

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Opublikowane

2021-09-25

Jak cytować

Khonamari, F., Hashemi, E., Pavlikova, M. ., & Petrasova, B. (2021). Coherence Problems of EFL Students’ Writing in Light of the Gricean Maxims. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 12(2), 294–313. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2021.2.294.313