An analysis of cohesion, ties and coherence and moves in abstracts and introduction sections of master two dissertations in the department of english at Mouloud Mammeri University

Abstract

The current study focuses on functional grammar and genre analysis. It seeks to scrutinize twenty i students’ abstract and introduction in order to identify students’ weakness in writing in a cohesive and coherent style and reveal the different rhetorical moves followed by master two students at the department of English of Mouloud Mammeri University, Tizi-Ouzou. To achieve these objectives, three theoretical frameworks are employed namely :Bhatia’s abstracts moves(2000) ,Swales and Feak's introductions moves (2009),and Halliday and Hassan's cohesive taxonomy(1976) .This work involves the identification of some terms /sentences which express cohesion ties and coherence and the moves of the aforementioned sections .An additional research tool, namely an online questionnaire has been used to get an idea about the participants’ motivation towards the use of cohesion ties and coherence and the moves as an academic writing. It was found that some abstracts and introductions have not been organized following the same moves. The analysis of cohesion ties and coherence in students’ productions revealed that students’ abstracts displayed grammatical cohesion as well as lexical cohesion, but it has been noticed that students have problems with cohesive ties such as excessive repetition of lexical items, indiscriminate use of conjunctions, misuse of pronouns and the use of pronouns without antecedent. The conclusion to be drawn from the different outcomes, some of the moves has been displaced and others omitted while the additional moves are to be found in some abstracts and introduction. In what comes to cohesion and coherence, some ties are to be found while others are absent.