Research Practices in Cohesive Devices’ Studies: Benefiting from Chaos

Abstract

This study has as its main goal exploring the possibility of benefiting from the chaotic status that permeates discourse analysis research done on cohesive devices since their inception by Halliday and Hasan (1976). These research studies have been categorised based on the foci of the research questions and the genres to which the analysed texts belong. The research practices of the reviewed papers have been analysed, compared and contrasted, and evaluated apropos the research design, methodology, literature review and findings. The analysis of the research practices found that the dominant feature of the reviewed studies is incompatibility. On a cautious note, while it is acknowledged that variance is imbued with research purposes, variance can be the product of certain flaws in the research design. This paper seeks to serve three purposes: 1) To critically survey the empirical studies conducted on cohesive devices, 2) to identify the problematic practices that led to the chaotic status, and 3) to propose a host of practices that can be followed in future research done on cohesive devices. Concomitant with this review a brief account of the cohesive devices model that was espoused by the majority of the studies addressed in this paper.