COHESION AND COHERENCE IN LITERATURE REVIEWS OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS MPHIL THESES AT GCUF: AN SFL-BASED STUDY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/n4xpev27Keywords:
Academic Writing, Applied Linguistics, Coherence, Cohesion, GCUF, Literature Review, MPhil Theses, SFL, Thematic ProgressionAbstract
This exploratory case study investigates the realization of coherence and cohesion in the literature review sections of Applied Linguistics M. Phil theses at Government College University, Faisalabad (GCUF) as a representative case of postgraduate academic writing in the Pakistani university context. The study is based on the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) developed by Halliday and Hasan (1976) in relation to the theory of cohesion and Danes (1974) in relation to the theory of thematic progression as the theoretical models to analyse the construction of textual meaning by the postgraduate writers by using grammatical and lexical cohesive devices. A purposive sample of five M. Phil theses submitted to the Department of Applied Linguistics at GCUF from 2021 to 2022 was chosen. The theses were on various topics in Applied Linguistics, such as the relationship between vocabulary skills, metadiscourse, speech act analysis, and stylistic analysis. The sections on literature review were abstracted and analyzed for cohesive ties such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion, and for patterns of thematic progression. The results show that the most frequent cohesive device is lexical cohesion, especially the exact repetition, while the substitution and ellipsis are barely used. The main means of achieving coherence are through the repeated patterns of constant theme progression; the most prevalent problems encountered involve abrupt topical shifts, formulaic conjunctive use, and source stacking. Given the exploratory nature of this single-institution case study (N=5), findings are preliminary and institution-specific. Replication across departments and universities in Pakistan is necessary before broader generalizations can be drawn. The study is significant for the academic writing pedagogy and thesis guidance at the postgraduate level in Pakistani universities.
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