The Association between Cohesive Ties Frequency and Grammatical Accuracy among English Major Juniors

This paper set out to examine the association between the frequency of the use of cohesive ties (especially conjunctions) and grammatical accuracy. The data of the research was collected in the form of letters produced by Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) learners. A sample of 27 university students majoring English translation language including nine males, and eighteen females was selected. Based on the classification of conjunctions proposed by Halliday and Hassan (1976), the study was designed to analyze the association between conjunction density and the composition global score. The cohesive devices identified in the sample texts were categorized and classified, and their occurrence frequencies were counted manually. Being an open and argumentative field of research, the article revealed that there is generally a negative relationship between the cohesive ties use frequency and grammatical accuracy among junior students. Since juniors are not provided with any instructions on cohesive ties, most of them use these discourse markers awkwardly, unaware of the specific punctuation accompanied by them. The erroneous sentences were restructured to the natural ones, regarding the context in which they occurred. The findings of the research have some implications for language teachers and students.