ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
One of the most critical sections in a doctoral dissertation is a Problem Statement (henceforth PS). As emphasized this is where most assessors start when trying to comprehend and evaluate the merits of any research study. The PS can then be considered as the basic part of a research study, which may lead to a valuable or, conversely, worthless piece of writing. This type of writing forms a coherent section of the information structured to preserve consistency with the topic and the logical links between the items. A growing body of studies suggests that exploring how certain cohesive devices are employed in a text to create unity provides information that will help L2 students improve cohesion in their writing as they play an essential role in cohesion by organizing and elucidating the relationships of the ideas within the context. One of the cohesive devices that researchers emphasize is references, arguing that ineffective use of referents may weaken a text’s cohesion and coherence. This study aims to investigate references and their different types as cohesive devices and their role in the cohesion of PS writing. For this purpose, the current study used 60 doctoral dissertation Problem Statements published during 2010-2022 from English discipline via Hallidayan Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). For this purpose, this study employed the discourse analysis method, using a descriptive interpretive approach. TagAnt 2.0.5 software application was used to examine the occurrences and frequency of references in the PSs of doctoral dissertations. Overall, the results suggest that in the present work, the demonstrative references were dominant among the types of references. The definite article ‘the’ is greater than the frequency of the other references altogether. Regarding the role of ‘the’, the findings indicate that PS writers depend heavily on it to achieve cohesion in their writing. Regarding the Personal references that are used in the corpus of the present study, the findings reported that (they, theirs) have been used for cohesion in the PS more than other references in making citations to other studies. Whereas, there was no instance of comparative references found in the corpus of study. In addition, the findings of the present research have implications for PS writers and supervisors to produce cohesive PS. Writers need to be aware of how the references specifically the definite article and the employment of comparative features in their PS writing as cohesive devices contribute to the development of their PS texts.
Afful, J. B. A., & Nartey, M. (2014). Cohesion in the abstracts of undergraduate dissertations: An intra-disciplinary study in a Ghanaian university. Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL), 2(1), 93-108.
Afrianto, A. (2017). Grammatical Cohesion in Students’ Writing: a Case at universitas Teknokrat Indonesia. LEKSEMA: Jurnal Bahasa Dan Sastra, 2(2), 97.
Akbar, K. P., Mujiyanto, J., & Sutopo, D. (2022). Assessing Grammatical Cohesive Devices in the Findings and Discussion of Research Articles by Graduate Students. English Education Journal, 12(3), 427-436.
Alshalan, K. F. (2019). A Systemic Functional Linguistic Analysis of Cohesion and the Writing Quality of Saudi Female EFL Undergraduate Students. [Master Thesis, Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University].
Ampa, A., & Basri, D. (2019). Lexical and grammatical cohesions in the students’ essay writing as the English productive skills. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1339(1), 1-6.
Azzouz, B. (2009). A discourse analysis of grammatical cohesion in student’s writing. [Unpublished MA Dissertation, University of Algeria].
Baybay, J. T. (2022). Grammatical Cohesion in SHS Students’ Research Introductions. International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, 4(3), 1 -11.
Benell, T., P. (2018). Referencing For Cohesion in L2 Academic Writing: A Corpus Analysis. [Master thesis, ?hsan Do?ramaci Bilkent University Ankara].
Biber, D. S., Johansson, G., Leech, S., Conrad, & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Pearson Education.
Cabrejas, M. M. (2022). Cohesive Devices on the Abstracts of Select Research Articles Presented in the International Academic Forum (AIFOR): A Discourse Analysis. British Journal of Multidisciplinary and Advanced Studies, 3(1), 22–41.
Chanyoo, N. (2018). Cohesive Devices and Academic Writing Quality of Thai Undergraduate Students. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 9(5), 994-1001.
Crosthwaite, P. D. (2017). Managing referential movement in Asian L2 writing: Implications for pedagogy. Writing & Pedagogy, 8(3), 537-558.
Dania, R. (2018). Cohesion in the Abstract of the Theses Written by Undergraduate Students of English Education Program. Tell-Us Journal, 4(2), 141-157.
Dejica, D., & Superceanu, R. (2004). Thematic-Structure Analysis of the Section Statement of Problem in Project Proposals. Transactions on Modern Languages, 3 (2004), 45-52.
Ebrahimi, S. F. (2014). Thematicity in English academic research articles across Disciplines in hard and soft sciences. [PhD thesis, University Putra Malaysia].
Gailea, N., Syafrizal, S., & Hafipah, A. (2018). The Analysis of Cohesive Devices in Students’ Writing Discussion Text. The Journal of English Literacy Education, 5(2), 88-98.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English.Longman.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.). Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. (3rd ed.). Routledge.
He, Z. (2020). Cohesion in Academic Writing: A Comparison of Essays in English Written by L1 and L2 University Students. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 10(7), 761-770.
Hinkel, E. (2001). Matters of cohesion in L2 academic texts. Applied Language Learning, 12(2), 111-32.
Imane, A. (2020) a Corpus-Based Analysis of Grammatical Cohesive Devices in Master Thesis Abstracts. [Master’s Thesis, Oum El Bouaghi University].
Junina, A. K. (2022). Grammatical Cohesion in Argumentative Essays by International EAP Learners in New Zealand. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 5(2), 98–108.
Khairunisa, N. C., & Savitri, W. E. (2018). Analysis on Cohesive Devices Errors in EFL University Students’ Argumentative Composition. Retain, 6(1), 70-77.
Kim, Y. (2012). An analysis of referential use in Korean EFL learners' argumentative essays. English Teaching, 67(3), 181-204.
Kirana, R. P. Mukhrizal, M., & Jayanti, F. G. (2020). Types of Lexical Cohesion and Grammatical Cohesion in Thesis Abstracts. Jadila: Journal of Development and Innovation in Language and Literature Education, 1(1), 57-68.
Ludji, I., Hambandima, E. S. N., & Christiani, Y. N. (2022). Cohesive devices used in students’ argumentative essay; A discourse analysis. VELES: Voices of English Language Education Society, 6(1), 14-24.
Meisuo, Z. (2000). Cohesive Features in the Expository Writing of Undergraduates in Two Chinese Universities. RELC Journal, 31(1), 61-95.
Mindeel, E. A. K. (2021). A study of selected Iraqi theses in terms of cohesion. [Master’s thesis, Karabuk University].
Mwinyi, I. K. (2017). Effective use of cohesive devices in essay writing by students at the State University of Zanzibar. [Master’s thesis, The University of Dodoma].
Naderi, S. (2014). A systemic functional approach to academic writing of Iranian graduate students. [PhD. Dissertation, University Kebangsaan Malaysia].
Ong, J. (2011). Investigating the use of cohesive devices by Chinese EFL learners. The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 11(3), 42-65.
Paltridge, B., & Starfield, S. (2007). Thesis and dissertation writing in second language: A handbook for supervisors. Routledge.
Prasetyaningrum, A., & Asrobi, M., Surayya, A., & Fikni, Z. (2022). Grammatical cohesion in students’ undergraduate thesis. Premise Journal of English Education, 11(2), 297.
Puteri, A., Ermanto, E., & Tahar, H. E. (2018). Grammatical Cohesion in the Thesis. Proceeding of International Conference on language, literature, and education (ICLLE) 263, 415-42.
Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The language of schooling: A functional linguistics perspective. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Suari, N. K. L. A., Udayana, I. N., & Parthama, I. G. N. (2022). The Effects of Cohesive Devices Used in the Background of the Study of English Department Students’ Undergraduate Theses. Pustaka: Jurnal Ilmu-Ilmu Budaya, 22(2), 107-113.
Tsareva, A. (2010). Grammatical cohesion in argumentative essays by Norwegian and Russian learners. [Unpublished Master’s thesis, The University of Oslo].
Warna, D., Wijaya, B., Sartika, E., & Riznanda, W. A. (2019). Cohesive Devices Used in Argumentative Essays of Undergraduate EFL Students in Indonesia. ENGLISH FRANCA: Academic Journal of English Language and Education, 3(2), 125-148.
Zhang, M. (2000). Cohesive features in the expository writing of undergraduates in two Chinese universities. RELC Journal, 31, 61–95.
Bhatti, N., Jalaluddin, I. B., Nimehchisalem, V., & Geng, H. (2025). References as Cohesive Features of Problem Statement Section in Doctoral Dissertations English Studies in Malaysian University. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 15(2), 1679–1695.
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode