Cohesion Analysis of Iranian Advanced EFL Learners’ Writing

This study seeks to examine the most common cohesive devices used by Iranian advance EFL learners in writing a composition. This study also tries to determine the most common cohesive errors committed by the learners and find probable sources of errors. To this end, 30 advance EFL learners were selected. A proficiency test was conducted to ensure if they were at the same level. Then, participants were asked to write a composition of 200220 words. The data were analyzed. It had been revealed that the most frequent cohesive devices were reference cohesion followed by conjunction, lexical cohesion, ellipsis, and substitution. The most frequent cohesion errors committed by learners were also related to reference cohesion, conjunction, lexical cohesion, ellipsis, and substitution respectively. Furthermore, in this study some pedagogical implications had been suggested for language teachers regarding cohesion.