Cohesive Devices in Dholuo Sermons: A Textual Analysis
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Date
2013-04-23
Authors
Saddimbah, Christine R.
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Abstract
This study investigates the elements in spoken discourse that make words in a text be
mutually connected within a sequence in selected Dholuo sermons. It falls in the area of
discourse analysis. The Halliday and Hasan's model of cohesion was used to determine
the nature of cohesion, establish the cohesive devices used and determine the frequency
of use of the various categories of cohesive devices. The study is important since it adds
information; on cohesive structure of spoken discourse, to the existing knowledge of
spoken discourse and also to the already existing data on studies in Dholuo and other
African languages. It is also of great assistance to translators due to the differences in the
conventions of cohesive structure between languages.
Descriptive research design was used in the identification, classification and
interpretation of the findings. The significant findings were that, though the five
categories of cohesive devices were present in the sermons, not all preachers used all of
them. The category of ellipsis and substitution were least used while lexical cohesive
devices were preferred. Some subcategories like the article and clausal substitution were
not present it was evident that gender does not determine the choice of cohesive devices.
It is recommended that other text types in Dholuo or other Nilotic languages be studied to
find out whether their cohesive structure would be the same as the current structure. It is
also important to note that the cohesive structure may differ from one language to the
next thus the description of the cohesive structure of other African languages would make
an interesting study.