Gender differences in using cohesive devices while writing
by Sara Vali and Parnaz Kianiparsa
Abstract
The present study investigated gender differences in using cohesive devices while writing. About 24 (male and female) M.A. students of Payam Noor University (PNU) who were studying English language teaching participated in this study. The instrument used for eliciting their writing behavior in using cohesive devices was a writing composition test about ‘Transportation in Cities’. After collecting the subjects’ papers, the data was analyzed using two chi squares to determine the amount of the frequency of the occurrence of cohesive devices. The cohesive devices selected for the investigation were references and conjunctions. The results of the study suggest that there is no gender difference in using cohesive devices while our participants tried to write a composition in English. Findings also indicate that Persian EFL students use references and conjunctions at the same level in their writings.
Introduction
Writing is a process of forming a text as a communicative connection between the reader and the writer (Seidlhofer & Widdowson, 1999). It is the second productive skill which may be difficult for both EFL and ESL learners around the world. Most of the time, students complain about their problems in arranging the ideas beside each other and organizing a proper structure for their writing compositions. It has been suggested that many factors, such as cultural differences, cognitive and interlanguage development, and negative transfer from L1 to L2 may result in L2 learners’ problems in writing.
However, the focus of the present study is not on learners’ problems in writing, but on the possible differences which can exist between the writing of some male and female students in Iran when they try to write in English as their foreign language. As you know, for having a good composition many features should be taken into account by the L2 learners. They should learn how to outline the ideas, organize them into different paragraphs, and make the paragraphs related to each other.
Every mentioned step in writing needs some strategies which should be taught to the learners to help them write a good essay. Here, in this study, we are going to investigate the gender differences that may exist in using cohesive devices or linking words in organizing and structuring a paragraph. But, before going into details about the aim of the study, some terms, such as cohesion and coherence should be defined carefully in order to shed light on the objective of the research better.
Cohesion is the grammatical and/or lexical relationships between the different
components of a passage. Cohesion can exist within or between sentences in a text (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1987). Halliday and Hasan (1976) identified five types of cohesion: reference, conjunction, substitution, lexical and ellipsis.
Cohesion is a term for the quality of a text such as appears as a single unit, not as random sequence of thoughts or sentences which is achieved by a number of devices or ties. These devices are called cohesive devices which have various kinds[3]. Typical cohesive devices are linking words, such as however, nevertheless, thus, for example, in addition to, by contrast, etc. Other cohesive devices can be classified as synonyms, pronouns, antonyms, comparative expressions, paraphrasing, etc.
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesion is considered as one of the most significant techniques in text analysis in terms of its present appeal in applied linguistics. De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) emphasized that cohesion is created on the basis of predetermined coherence. The presence of cohesive devices, conjunctions, ellipsis, substitution, reference and lexical cohesion can help a text to be stable and adequately understood.
Thus, another term that should be considered along with the concept of cohesion is coherence which as Wiśniewski (2006) defined, is the order of statements joins each other by sense. In other words, it is related directly to the thematic structure of the discourse. “Coherence, including both sentence and paragraph coherence, lies in the deep structure of a text, and refers to the complex non-linear notional-functional relations behind the linear sequences of words, sentences or paragraphs.” (Wang & Sui, n.d., p. 2) In other words, it can be described as the relationships that connect the ideas in a text to create meaning for the readers (Lee, 2002).
Cohesive devices are among those elements which contribute to the coherence of the text in a positive way if they are used correctly by the writer. However, as Brown and Yule (1983) proposed, cohesive ties do not always lead readers to a coherent interpretation of what they have read. Therefore, it is important to teach L2 learners how to understand the coherence of a text when reading/writing. Cohesion is never necessary nor enough to create coherence, though most discourse contains cohesion. It is necessary to know that “[c]ohesion is a manifestation of certain aspects of coherence, and a pointer towards it, rather than its cause or necessary result” (Cook 1994, p. 34). That is, cohesive ties have to be considered as a “manifestation of how we are making sense of the message in the text” (Carter & McCarthy, 1988, p. 204).
After this brief explanation of cohesion and coherence, it is time to introduce the aim of this study thoroughly. The aim in this study is to explore the difference of men and women in using cohesive devices in their writing. In other words, we want to investigate which group uses more explicit cohesive devices in their writing. It is believed that men and women are different from each other both biologically and psychologically. Many scholars suggest that men and women think completely different from each other in many situations (Goldberg, 1993; Scheinfeld, 1965; Archbold, 2006; Conner, 2000; Glaser, 2008; Nadeau, 1997; York, 2008; Streitmatter, 1994; Shaywitz et al.1995). They differ from each other in speaking and reading as well. Studies show that they use different strategies in their speaking and reading to convey an idea and comprehend a message (e.g. Brown, 2000; Hudson, 2000; Brantmier, 2003; Doolittle & Welch, 1989). Therefore, there may be some differences between men and women in their writings in terms of using cohesive devices when they try to write in a FL like English.
In Iran, many learners have difficulty in using proper amount of cohesive ties to be coherent in their writing. Some students, even, have difficulty in using correct cohesive devices. These weaknesses cause us to conduct this study to find the strengths and weaknesses among male and female learners in using cohesive devices to help the instructors find some ways to remedy the weaknesses since these techniques are among crucial ones to writing skill in the target language. In other words, the comparison between males’ and females’ differences in using cohesive devices can be one of the helpful ways for finding these weaknesses among our learners.
In the following section, some studies which have done by other researchers in this regard are explained and their findings will be presented.
Review of the related literature
As mentioned before, using cohesive devices is one of the ways through which writers make their writings more coherent and comprehensible. Moreover, gender differences which exist between men and women can be crucial to writing skill. In this section of the research, our aim is to investigate the outcomes of the other studies in this regard to shed light on the aims of the research clearly.
In the literature, cohesion is considered as one of the aspects in the textual analysis of any discourse. Baker (1992) has defined cohesion as a set of connections between lexical, grammatical, and other relations which join various parts of a text to each other. Cohesive devices are those tools which contribute to provide links between these parts without any difficulties.
Halliday and Hassan (1976) classified cohesive devices into 2 categories: (1) lexical devices and (2) grammatical devices. They claimed that grammatical cohesion includes four different devices as follows:
a. Reference which relates one element of the text to another one for its interpretation
b. Substitution which is the replacement of one item by another
c. Ellipsis which is the omission of an item
d. Conjunctions which are particular expressions contribute to create discursive connections, such as but, and, therefore, thus, however, etc.
However, lexical cohesion can be achieved by the selection of vocabulary. These kinds of cohesive devices can be categorized as follows:
a. Lexical repetition (Hoye, 1991) which concerns with the repetition of lexical items with or without an alternation.
b. Synonymy (Halliday & Hassan, 1976) which is understood as the repetition of a synonym, near synonym, or use of a general word
c. Antonymy (Ellis, 1992) which describes pairs of opposites.
d. Hyponymy (Ellis, 1992) which includes the use of superordinate.
e. Metonymy (Ellis, 1992) which describes pairs of lexical items related as part to whole.[4]
In a study conducted by Buitkiene (2005) on variability of cohesive devices across registers, it was found that the distribution of different types of cohesive devices within the general framework is affected by register. Closed registers favor lexical cohesion rather than other types of cohesions.
Some studies show that even L1 written discourse strategies can influence textual cohesion. In her study on written narratives in Korea, Yusun Kang (2005) found that Koreans use their own linguistic strategies when writing in a target language like English. They utilize demonstrative references and repetitions in their writing more than the other types of cohesive devices.
These kinds of studies about cohesive devices in different fields of writing make some researchers interested in the possible difference which may exist between men and women in using cohesive ties in their writing.
The question of recognizing and understanding possible differences in linguistic styles between males and females has been examined by linguistic researchers for decades (e.g. Trudgill, 1972; Lakoff, 1975; Labov, 1990; Coates, 1998). It has been suggested for some time that some constant differences exist in speech (as summarized in Holmes, 1993). Most previous work has explored evident phonological and pragmatic differences between male and female language use in speech (e.g. Trudgill, 1972; Key, 1975; Holmes, 1990; Labov, 1990; Eckert, 1997) and informal writing (such as student essays (Mulac et al, 1990; Mulac & Lundell, 1994) and electronic messaging (Herring, 1996)).
Formal written texts such as books and articles, on the other hand, which are planned for unseen audiences, lack the intonational, phonological and conversational cues that are used in speech. One might, therefore, expect that such differences would be decreased or even omitted in such formal written texts. In fact, some authors (Berryman-Fink & Wilcox, 1983; Simkins-Bullock & Wildman, 1991) have stated that no difference between male and female writing styles can be observed in more formal contexts. In a research by Jones and Myhill (2007) on examining gender differences in linguistic characteristics of writing, the results of the study indicated that boys and girls are different from each other regarding the features of paragraphing, text length and organization, and linking devices. It was found that boys’ paragraphing is more proficient than girls’. Girls have a tendency to use shorter paragraphs than boys. These differences could also be observed in using cohesive devices. Boys tend to use manner adverbials, verbal repetition, synonyms and hyponyms, while girls usually use more proper nouns as a linking device. However, it was revealed that at the sentence level, there is no gender difference in writings of boys and girls. Jones and Myhill believed that since boys use longer sentences and paragraphs than girls they encounter some lapses in coherence at sentence level.
In a study by Agamon et al. (n.d.) on gender differences in formal written texts, it was found that men and women are significantly different in using pronouns and certain types of noun modifiers: females tend to use more pronouns while males use many more noun specifiers. Females like to involve themselves in courses of the events, whereas males like to be more informational. However, some authors have asserted that no difference could be observed between the writings of men and women in more formal contexts (e.g. Berryman-Fink & Wilcox, 1983; Simkins- Bullock & Wildman, 1991).
Pronouns and specifiers both predetermine information about the “things” of the world as they are offered in nominal groups (Halliday, 1994). Pronouns show the identity of the “thing” to the reader, while specifiers give information about “things” that the writer supposes the reader does not know. Consequently, one of the main differences between men’s and women’s writing is the way the people, objects, collectives and institutions are shown. In particular, since women use more pronouns than men in their writings, we can conclude that men talk more about objects, while women talk more about relationships (Aries & Johnson, 1983; Tannen, 1990).
After this brief review of the literature in terms of possible differences which can exist between men and women in writing and using cohesive devices in different cultures and registers, now, it is time to turn to the aims posed by the present paper. The main aim of this study is to investigate whether any differences can be found in the writings of some Persian male and female students when trying to write in English. In other words, the study concerns with the possible differences which may exist between some Persian EFL learners (males and females) in using cohesive devices, such as references and conjunctions. Aside from this comparison, we try to examine Persian EFL learners in using references and conjunctions as cohesive devices in their writings, as well. Finding this difference can make clear which cohesive device—reference or conjunction—our learners tend to use more. To reach these aims, the questions of the study were posed as follows:
Research questions
- 1. Are there any differences between Persian male and female EFL learners in using cohesive devices while writing?
- 2. Are there any significant differences in using references and conjunctions among Persian EFL learners while writing regardless of their gender?
Based on this question, the following hypotheses were developed:
Hypothesis
- There is no significant difference between Persian male and female EFL students in using cohesive devices while writing.
- There is no significant difference in using references and conjunctions among Persian EFL learners while writing regardless of their gender.
In the next section of the study, the method and procedure used in the present research will be explained in details.
Method
This chapter concerns with an overview on the participants of the study, the types of the data collected, the design of the study, the material used for collecting data and the statistical procedures employed for analyzing the data.
Participants
About 24 (15 females and 9 males) M.A. students who were studying English language teaching at Payam Noor University (PNU) participated in this study. All of the subjects had similar English background as they were senior students at PNU. Since PNU is basically a curriculum-based institution, our subjects can be considered homogeneous in terms of proficiency because they have to study the same textbooks and pass the same tests at PNU. These subjects were randomly selected from the different classes which were held at the university.
One of the problems that should be mentioned here with regard to selection of the subjects was the number of the boys in this study. As you can see, the number of the male students was very smaller than the number of the female students. This imbalance between the number of boys and girls might be considered as one of the limitations of the study since from statistical point of view, having a sample with the same number of male and female subjects can contribute to the outcomes of the study in a logical manner; however, this problem made us have a sample with more female students than males. This problem occurred because of the lack of male students at PNU especially in this major i.e. English Language Teaching.
Research design
The design of the research in this study was pre-experimental. It means that although we selected our participants randomly from different classes in the university, actually we did not use any treatment, experimental, and control group in our research design. It has been suggested that when a researcher eliminates some parts of true-experimental research design because of different reasons, his/her design is changed into another type of research design which is called pre-experimental (Farhady, 1374). Our aim was only to compare Persian men’s and women’s differences when writing in English. Thus, it was not necessary to have a treatment or experimental and control group in our study.
After selection of the subjects, they were divided into 2 groups of men and women. To evaluate the data, quantitative data analysis was performed in the present study. Calculating the frequency of the occurrence of cohesive devices and using two chi squares for obtaining the results were done in this study as our statistical procedures to get to the aims in this research.
Instrumentation
The material used in the course of this study was a test of writing composition. The subjects of the study were supposed to write 2 to 3 paragraphs (about 750 words) about transportation in cities. No time limit was set for writing these paragraphs to eliminate the factors of stress and pressure. Time limit might affect the quality of the students’ writings negatively, as well. Students were allowed to use dictionary whenever they had some problems in finding a proper word for their writing.
One important point that should be mentioned here was that we were not interested in the students’ writing ability, or the errors which they might make in their writings. The concern of the study was on the number of cohesive devices which the subjects might use in their writings and their gender. Thus, most of the grammatical and mechanical errors were ignored when reading their writings.
Procedures
Before starting to give the tests to the subjects, the participants were chosen randomly from different classes at PNU. Then, they were informed about the aim of the study to the extent that had no negative effect on the results of the study. After giving the information, the subjects were asked to write their paragraphs in a session. After collecting the data, the papers were read, and the number of cohesive devices which had been used by the subjects was calculated for each subject. Next, some tables were prepared to tally the frequency of the occurrence of the cohesive devices in both males’ and females’ writings. And, at the end, the data was analyzed to find the results of the study.
Data analysis
After collecting the data, the papers were divided into two sets of papers for different groups of subjects (male and female subjects). The frequency of the occurrence of the cohesive devices for each subject and group was obtained, and then, two chi squares were run to analyze the data. We should mention here that as our variables were nominal in this study, we used chi squares to analyze the data. The alpha level in this study was set to p< .05, as is common in language study of this type.
The results of the analysis will be presented in the next part.
Results
The results of the study have been presented in some tables below.
Table 4.1
The frequency of the occurrence of the cohesive devices in females’ and males’ writing
| Gender | |||
| Observed N | Expected N | Residual | |
| Male | 118 | 130.5 | -12.5 |
| Female | 143 | 130.5 | 12.5 |
| Total | 261 | ||
As you can see in Table 4.1, female subjects used about 143 cohesive devices in their writings whereas male subjects used about 118 cohesive devices in their paragraphs. Figure 4.1 shows these differences between these two groups clearly.
As it is obvious in this table, male students used about 118 cohesive devices in their writings which 74 of them were references and 44 of them were conjunctions. By comparing the men’s and women’s writings, we can see that although the number of the male subjects is less than the number of the female subjects, they used more references as cohesive devices in their writings than females. It means that men tended to use references, such as pronouns, demonstratives, and comparative references as cohesive devices in their writings, and they did not like to use conjunctions as the connectors between their sentences and paragraphs, whereas women tended to use conjunctions more than references as linking words between their sentences and paragraphs.
For finding the significance of these differences between men and women in using cohesive devices, as mentioned before a chi square was employed to investigate the significance of these differences. Table 4.2 shows the results of the chi square in this regard.
Table 4.2
Chi-square analysis of male and female Persian writers’ use of cohesive devices
| Test Statistics | |
| Gender | |
| Chi-Square | 2.395a |
| df | 1 |
| Asymp. Sig. | .122 |
| a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 130.5. | |
As you can see the results of the chi square indicates that the observed x at 1 degree of freedom (we had two rows and two columns, so that degree of freedom became 1 for this study) is lower than the critical xwhich is 3.84. In other words, x (1/24) = 2.395, p< .05 is lower than the critical xi.e. 3.84. Thus, the null hypothesis concerning the differences between men and women in using cohesive devices in their writings (i.e. There is no difference between Persian male and female EFL students in using cohesive devices while writing.) was not rejected. This result suggests that there is no significant difference between men and women in using cohesive devices in their writings. In other words, gender differences may not exist among Persian foreign language learners in writing.
Because of the size of the male subjects which was less than female ones in the study, we could not certainly say that which group used more cohesive devices in their writings; however, we could say that male students used different references in their writings more than female ones, while female subjects used different conjunctions in their writings more than male ones. But, these differences were not statistically significant enough to draw a certain conclusion.
About the second hypothesis concerning the differences in using references and conjunctions among Persian EFL writers, chi-square analysis found no significant relationship between these variables. You can see the frequency of using references and conjunctions as cohesive devices by Persian EFL writers and the result of chi-square analysis of total references and conjunctions used by Persian EFL writers in Table 4.3. and Table 4.4. respectively.
Table 4.3.
The frequency of using references and conjunctions as cohesive devices by Persian EFL writers
| Cohesive Devices | |||
| Observed N | Expected N | Residual | |
| References | 144 | 130.5 | 13.5 |
| Conjunctions | 117 | 130.5 | -13.5 |
| Total | 261 | ||
Table 4.4.
Chi-square analysis of total references and conjunctions used by Persian EFL writers
| Cohesive Devices | |||
| Chi-Square | 2.793a | ||
| Df | 1 | ||
| Asymp. Sig. | .095 | ||
| a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5.
The minimum expected cell frequency is 130.5. |
|||
As it is obvious in these tables, although we could observe some differences in using references and conjunctions by Persian EFL learners, the chi-square procedure did not indicate a significant difference in using references and conjunctions among our subjects. The chi-square observed value at 1 (df) is 2.793 which is lower than the critical value of 3.84. In other words, x (1, N= 24) = 2.793, p < .05 is lower than the xcritical which is 3.84. This implies that Persian EFL learners were not different from each other in using cohesive devices significantly. Thus, the second hypothesis, i.e. there is no significant difference in using references and conjunctions among Persian EFL learners regardless of their gender was not rejected, as well.
Conclusions
Having presented the results of the study in the previous section of the paper, now, in this part, the implications of the findings, suggestions for further studies, and the limitations of the research will be discussed briefly.
The outcomes of the research indicated that although males used more references and females used more conjunctions as their connectors in their writings, there is no significant difference between the writings of men and women in Iran at least in using cohesive devices. These small and insignificant differences in the writings of males and females can pave the way for the other researches in the field of writing in this regard. Due to the small number of subjects in this study, we can not generalize our findings to other situations and settings. Thus, possible gender differences may exist in other phases of writings, such as paragraph development, outlining, structuring, using proper mechanics, and other parts which are essential in writing a composition. It is recommended that the other researches are conducted on writing skill in order to examine these possible differences between men and women in Iran.
Based on the second hypothesis, our final result did not show any significant differences in using cohesive devices among Persian EFL learners regardless of their gender, too. This may suggest that Persian EFL learners do not differ from each other in using cohesive devices while writing. Other complementary studies in this regard can help us to confirm this obtained result better.
The studies of this kind can help the teachers or instructors to work on their students’ lacks in writing, and help them to use appropriate devices in their proper places, as well. If a group of learners (men /women) have problems in using cohesive devices to make their paragraphs more coherent, the results of such studies can help them find their weaknesses in this regard. Repetition, substitution, and ellipsis are the other cohesive devices which can work better than references and conjunctions in some situations, while most Persian EFL learners tend to use references and conjunctions as linking words in their writings. Such limitations can be examined by other studies to find some ways to remedy them.
Now, in this part, some explanations of the limitations we faced in this study are necessary to pave the way for other research in this ground. One of the important limitations in this study, as mentioned before, was the number of the male subjects which made the comparison a little bit difficult. Another problem in this study was the size of the sample which could be larger than this, but because of lack of students at PNU this problem occurred in the present study. The last problem was due to the scope of analysis. It was very small in comparison with the other studies in this regard. References and conjunctions were merely considered as cohesive devices and counted in the writings of the subjects in the present study.
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[1] M. A.-TEFL and lecturer at Payame Noor University, Iran (Damavand Center)
[2] M. A.-TEFL and lecturer at Payame Noor University, Iran (Damavand Center)
[3] Cited from http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/cohesion.htm
[4] Because of the scope of the research only two categories of cohesive devices were analyzed. These cohesive devices were (1) references such as, demonstrative references, pronouns, and some comparative references, and (2) conjunctions such as, however, and, but, moreover, etc.
There are citations used in this article that are of questionable scholarship. One is York, a member of NARTH, an organization whose sole purpose is to fight the increasing rights of homosexual people. They pretend to be an American academic organization, but they are not. By citing them, you have given them credibility.