Investigating lexical Cohesion in the Essays of EFL learners at the University of Basra

Abstract

The present study investigates lexical cohesion in the essays written by third-year students at the University of Basra, College of Education. The study adopts Halliday and Hasan's model of lexical cohesion, which divides it into two types: Reiteration and Collocation. Reiteration is further divided into four categories: Repetition of the same word, synonyms and near-synonyms, superordinate words, and general words. The results indicate that students rely heavily on Reiteration in their writing, which accounts for 89% of the total lexical cohesion used. Collocation represents only 11% of the total lexical collocation used. The repetition of the same word is the most frequent, accounting for 60% of the total. The second category is superordinate words, with a total of 16%, followed by synonyms and near-synonyms with a total of 8%, and general words with a frequency of 4% of the total. EFL students tend to overuse the repetition of the same word, particularly nouns.