Quality of Iranian EFL Learners’ Argumentative Essays: Cohesive Devices in Focus

Abstract

The ability to compose a piece of argumentative text is important for EFL and ESL learners. Despite its importance, there
is a gap in the literature about how Iranian students write essays in this genre that this study intends to fill. Building upon Halliday and
Hasan's (1976) cohesion theory, this study intended to investigate Iranian graduate non-English majors' use of cohesive devices in
argumentative essays, and also the relationship between the number of cohesive devices and writing quality. An analysis of forty
argumentative essays written by forty Iranian graduate non-English majors showed that the students were familiar with various cohesive
devices and used them in their writings. Among the cohesive devices used lexical devices had the largest percentage of the total number of
cohesive devices, followed by reference devices and conjunction devices. Furthermore, it was found that there was no significant relationship
between the number of cohesive devices used and quality of writing. The findings of the study have some important implications for EFL
writing teachers and learners.