American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR)
2018
American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR) e-ISSN :2378-703X Volume-02, Issue-03, pp-14-22 www.ajhssr.com
Research Paper
Open Access
Lexical Repetition and Written Text’s Unity from Gender Perspective: A Case of Languages and Translation Students at the University of Tabuk 1 1,2,
Mohammad Naser,2Reem Almoisheer
Department of Languages and Translation, Faculty of Arts and Education, Saudi Arabia P.O.BOX : 471
ABSTRACT : This research aims at investigating lexical repetition and written composition‟s unity produced by 60 Male and female students studying Languages and Translation at the University of Tabuk in Saudi Arabia for the academic year 2018 / 2019. The sample of the study was selected randomly. This study involves two research instruments are; Hoey's (1991) Matrix of Lexical Cohesion and a Semi-structured Interview. The findings indicated that lexical repetition plays a great role in the unity and coherence of the students‟ written compositions. This research recommends that further research be conducted to investigate other types of dialogues.
I.
INTRODUCTION
English is one of the most commonly used languages in the world in which learning English as a second or foreign language is very significant. English language is used by about 328 million speakers worldwide (Lewis, 2009). In fact, the significance of learning English language is highly emphasized throughout different cultures and array of people that make up our global speech community. English language, nowadays, is the key for participating in the global communication and creating a sphere for modern life. It has a dominant position in science including technology, medicine and computer. English is the most widely used language in sectors such as business, trade, diplomacy, international organizations and companies, mass media and journalism, sport and youth life, music, education systems and most importantly in foreign language teaching. It is through all the means above that English language has found its way into many cultures (Mugglestone, 2006). In this connection, it is obvious that Arabic is the official language in Saudi Arabia where English is used as a foreign language for many purposes. English language in Saudi Arabia is commonly communicated in business, administrative, and political sectors and metropolitan sections of the country. It is sometimes informally spoken by the elite and educated populations throughout the country (Klebanov and Shamir 2006). But with regards to the academic environment in Saudi schools and universities, the significance of English language is limited to the process of enabling students to pass school exams and universities' entrance selection criteria. That is, teaching English as foreign language (EFL, hereafter) in Saudi Arabia has also undergone transformation just like other similar countries that consider the teaching of EFL as an educational and instrumental language that is necessary in all folks of life (Hyland, 2004b, 2004c). Zheng (1999) demonstrates that learning the writing skill appears to be more protracted and stipulating compared to other language skills. So, the only motive for EFL students in different parts in the world to practice and exercise writing is to pass examination or to get a good grade in the writing class. Thus, this approach of students is to emphasise only on passing the examinations provides them no common sense of writing purpose. This results in the weakness and poor written academic literacy. Research has shown that English as a foreign language learners face problems not only in learning new vocabulary, words, phrases, syntactic patterns, and phonology, but also in acquiring discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, interactional competence, and strategic competence (Diab, 1996). Consequently, the researcher concurs with different scholars such as Riggenbach (1999) who affirms that English as a foreign language learners should be given the prospect to investigate the systematicity of language at diverse levels including writing, particularly at the discoursal level. Therefore, discourse analysis (DA, hereafter) as an approach had been established as more than a random set of utterances and displays interrelatedness (Sanders and Maat, 2001). Due to the relevance of writing skills to discourse analysis, varied models of discourse analysis have been proposed, outlined and evaluated in terms of discovering the connectedness of the text
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