Conjunctive cohesion and relational coherence in students' compositions

Abstract

This research study examines the relationship between conjunctive cohesion and relational coherence in students' narrative and expository compositions and writing quality (here defined in terms of teachers' ratings). Altogether 64 compositions were analysed using Halliday and Hasan's (1976) cohesion theory and Crombie's (1985) set of interpropositional relations. The results of the study show that both conjunctive cohesion density and relational coherence, as defined by the density of contiguous functional relations, affect perceptions of writing quality. Writers of low-rated narrative and low-rated expository compositions not only used a more limited range of conjunctives but their compositions manifested less cohesion density and contiguous relation density than writers of high-rated narrative and expository compositions did.