COHESION IN VIETNAMESE EFL ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING: AN ANALYSIS OF TYPES AND ERRONEOUS USE OF COHESIVE DEVICES

The leveling up of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) academic writing necessitates multiple criteria, among which clarity and coherence earn a place. Such a criterion can be fulfiled by means of cohesive devices (CDs), tools that connect texts semantically. While numerous international studies have examined CDs in EFL writing, research focusing on Vietnamese tertiary contexts, especially in argumentative essays, is limited. This study, therefore, was set out to explore the use of CDs in argumentative writing by English-majored students in a university in Vietnam. A manual analysis was accordingly conducted on 30 argumentative essays, written under a 45-minute time constraint during a writing course, to investigate the frequency of CDs and pinpoint their usage errors. The results shed light on the distribution of CDs, wherein grammatical CDs reigned dominance. Among these, reference devices were the most frequently used items, followed by conjunctions. Advanced cohesive forms like substitution and ellipsis were scant, and lexical cohesion was confined to basic reiteration, predominantly repetition. Regarding errors, unnecessary addition occurred most often, trailed behind by misuse, omission, and redundant repetition. Reference, especially demonstrative reference, represented the majority of errors. These patterns are indicative of a reliance on foundational cohesion strategies and thus suggest instructional needs for broader CD usage to enhance writing coherence and ultimately academic proficiency.