convince the readers about their opinion of a topic. Argumentative writing is a fundamental writing style which is required in higher education to compose various
writing tasks. The goal of argumentative writing is to convince an audience, and it is done in a situation where there exists a conflict between the beliefs and attitudes of
the writerspeaker and the readeraudience. There are some researchers who investigate the use of cohesion devices in
some texts, and here the researcher wants to analyze the errors made by the students in their argumentative texts. In this research, the researcher not only investigated the
errors made by the students in using cohesive devices in their compositions, but she also analyzed the source of the errors. There are two sources of error. They can be
intra-lingual and inter-lingual source of error. Inter-lingual errors are the result of mother tongue influences, whereas intra-lingual interference comes from the target
language itself.
B. Reasons for Choosing the Topic
1. In constructing a composition, students sometimes find difficulties in making
their composition becomes organized and coherent. Cohesion is one of the important aspects in making a good composition.
2. Argumentative text is important for the students as a means of giving their
opinion in a problem.
C. Problem Statements
This research concerns about the following problem statements: 1.
What are the cohesive errors found in argumentative texts of the second year students of English Department Students IKIP PGRI Semarang in academic
year 2011-2012? 2.
How frequent are the error for each type of cohesion devices in argumentative texts of the second year students of English Department Students IKIP PGRI
Semarang in academic year 2011-2012? 3.
What is the source of error that contributes to students’ error on the use of cohesive devices in argumentative texts of second year students of English
Department Students IKIP PGRI Semarang in academic year 2011-2012?
D. Purposes of the Study
The researcher has three objectives in this research. They are: 1.
To find out the cohesive error in argumentative texts of second year students of English Department Students IKIP PGRI Semarang in academic year 2011-
2012 2.
To investigate the frequency of the error in cohesion devices used by the students’ in argumentative texts of second year students of English
Department Students IKIP PGRI Semarang in academic year 2011-2012
3. To find the source of error that contributes to students’ error on the use of
cohesive devices in argumentative texts second year students of English Department Students IKIP PGRI Semarang in academic year 2011-2012
E. Significance of the Study
Through this research, it is expected some benefits of the study, both theoretically and practically.
1. Theoretically
This research is expected to give a valuable contribution to the area of Discourse Analysis especially about Cohesion Error Analysis.
2. Practically
This research is expected to give a contribution to students, lecturers and teachers, and other researcher.
a. For students, it is expected that this research might lead to a better
understanding of the cohesive features in English compositions and give them information about how to make good compositions and use the cohesion
devices correctly because it will affect the quality of their writing. b.
For lecturers and teachers, it is expected that this research can give information about the students’ error in cohesive devices in their English
writing so that they know the most difficult parts in mastering cohesive
devices. Therefore, they can help the students’ problem by giving more
explanation about the cohesive devices. c.
For next researcher, this research can be used as comparison and reference in doing similar research in the future.
F. Scope of the Study
