Background and Objectives: Normative reference of the connected speech measures (both micro-structural and macro-structural) for descriptive discourse is fundamental to systematic discourse analysis because it provides an anchor for comparison. This study aims to establish a comprehensive normative reference for connected speech measures in…

As integrated writing tasks in large-scale and classroom-based writing assessments have risen in popularity, research studies have increasingly concentrated on providing validity evidence. Given the fact that most of these studies focus on adult second language learners rather than younger ones, this study examined the relationship between written…

The present scenario fact that the English is a language of modern technological and scientific developments, text is a primary tool for students to gain the knowledge in writing skills. However, most male Saudi students show minimum efficient in L2 writing skill and do not have sufficient competence for writing the authentic English passages. To…

Discourse is essential in communicating thoughts and ideas. People around the world communicate their ideas through stretches of language. In order to understand any discourse, it must achieve cohesion. The purpose of this paper is to define and describe the cohesive devices based on the work of Halliday and Hasan (1976). It also aims to emphasize…

This study looks into the use of reiteration relations in EFL student writing. The aim is to determine the extent to which Moroccan college students rely on lexical cohesion to produce native-sounding texts. Twenty essays written by college students from two different levels were analyzed quantitatively using Halliday and Hasan's (1976) and Hoey's…

This study examines how three age-on-arrival (AOA) groups of Chinese-background ESL students use two types of cohesive devices on a standardized essay exam. A discourse analysis of 90 first-year students' expository writing samples was conducted to ascertain how factors such as first language (L1) and length of residence (LOR) in Canada influence…

Examination of syntactic complexity in the movie retellings of 77 elementary school-age Spanish-speaking children revealed developmental differences in the length of T-units, index of subordination, use of relative clauses, and prepositional phrases. Analysis underscores the significance of subordination as a cohesive device and as an indicator of…

A study of native English-speakers' (N=36) and English-as-a-second-language students' (N=60) understanding of conjunctions while reading indicated that more advanced ESL students were more capable of inferencing or using available logical relationships than were intermediate ESL students. (Author/CB)

In a written discourse consisting of a string of "psychological paragraphs," there is in each such psychological paraqraph a "head" structure containing the topic which derives from the deep structure of the discourse. That "head" assertion differs from all other assertions in the psychological paragraph in that it carries new information. The…

A study comparing the speech used by English-as-a-second-language teachers (N=4) when instructing beginning- and advanced-level adult classes found that display questions and self-repetitions were used much less often with advanced students, suggesting that students are being prepared, as they advance in classes, for real communicative…

The quality of hospital medical records, which are usually maintained by transcribing from doctors' dictation, was found to suffer because of foreign medical graduates' phonological problems and lack of familiarity with good dictation procedure. As a step in correcting this situation, eight taped discharge summaries were subjected to an analysis…