A GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL COHESIVE DEVICES

ANALYSIS ON THE ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN THE

JAKARTA POST NEWSPAPER

Qurrotul Faizah
Syaiful Bahri, M.Pd.

Abstract : This thesis deals with discourse analysis

which concerns with the analysis of grammatical and
lexical cohesion within a text. The text analyzed in
this thesis is in the article in the Jakarta Post
Newspaper. The writer intends to find out what
grammatical cohesive devices (reference, substitution,
ellipsis, and conjunction) and lexical cohesive devices
(repetition, synonym, antonym, hyponym, meronym,
and collocation) are in the article and their
contribution in making the article coherent and
unified. The data applied in this writing are qualitative
data which mean the data are written text. Data
collection in this thesis is documentary study. This
thesis is a descriptive study which elaborates
grammatical cohesive devices and lexical cohesive
devices and their contribution in the article. In
conclusion, the analysis of cohesive devices is used to
know how coherence is achieved by employing
cohesive devices in the article.
Key words : Discourse Analysis, Article in the
Jakarta Post Newspaper,
Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive
Devices, Coherence

Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University

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Syaiful Bahri, M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh University
 Journal of A Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive Devices Analysis

I. Background of the Study

Language is the main instrument of communication in
human life. By the language, we can understand what other people
say. It means that communication is also an effective instrument
for communicating in social activities. Without using language
someone cannot establish the social relationship and interact with
another. People use language both spoken and written to convey
their ideas or feeling in various purposes and reasons.
The use of language can be seen in speech. Language which
is used in speech is not easy to be understood for some people
because of unfamiliar dictions. In other words, people need to
study about the language in speech to understand the content of
the text. The analysis the particular words used in speech are
almost often the first stage of any texts in discourse analysis.
Discourse is examined to use language to communicate
(Brown and Yule). Cook defines discourse as the stretches of
language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive
(1989:156). Discourse is meaningful since it is constructed in a
correct way. It means that the discourse must have coherence.
The cohesion is an important contribution in making a text
coherent. In line with this, Halliday and Hasan (1985:48) argue
that an important contribution to coherence comes from cohesion.
Moreover, Halliday and Hasan (1976:5) add that cohesion
includes grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. Thus,
grammatical cohesion is used in terms of grammar while lexical
cohesion analyzes a text through its vocabulary.
An overview to the whole thesis is provided in order to give
the readers a clear description about the topic being discussed.
The topic is about the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices
appeared in the articles of The Jakarta Post Newspaper. This
study conducted to investigate the relationship between one
sentence and another sentence on the articles.

26 Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University Syaiful Bahri,

M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh University
 Volume 3 issue 1st June 2014

II. Literature Review

1. Context
Context is an important thing in the discussion of
discourse analysis. Context is the words and the sentences that go
before and come after the particular words sentences that one is
looking at (Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 6). Regarding to the
explanation in the previous part, it is reasonable to say that text
and context cannot be separated one to another.

2. Text
A text is a unit of language in use; it refers to any passage,
spoken or written, of whatever length, that does from a unified
whole (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 1). Text is realized by a set of
related sentences (Halliday and Hassan, 1976: 293). Not all of the
written language can be called a text. If it has the relation between
one sentence and another it can be called as a text.

3. Discourse Analysis
Discourse is a stretch of language larger than a sentence,
often constituting a coherence unit such as sermon, agreement,
joke, and narrative. Finally, Cook claims discourse as the stretches
of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive
(1989:156).

4. Coherence
A text is characterized by coherence, and the text hangs
together (Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 48). If passage hangs
together as a text, it will display context of situation (Halliday and
Hasan, 1976: 23) it means that coherence means hanging together
and it displays to the context of situation. Coherence means
holding clauses or sentences in the text together by using cohesive

Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University

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Syaiful Bahri, M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh University
 Journal of A Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive Devices Analysis

devices. In fact, coherence can be used to distinguish whether a

passage is a text or non-text.

5. Cohesion
Cohesion refers to relations of meaning that exist within
the text. Cohesion is a semantic relation between an element and
some other elelment in the text (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 293).
Cohesion occurs where some elements in the discourse is
dependent on another (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 4). The
cohesion of any text can be divided into two; they are
grammatical and lexical cohesion. The first is realized through the
grammar and the second through the vocabulary.

6. Grammatical Cohesion
Grammatical cohesive devices include reference,
substitution, ellipsis and conjunction. Reference is the specific
nature of the information that is signaled for retrieval. In this case
of reference, the information to be retrieved is the referential
meaning, the identity of the particular thing or class of things that
is being referred to, and the cohesion lies in the continuity of
reference, where the same thing enters into discourse a second
time. There are three types of reference: personal, demonstrative
and comparative. Substitution signals that the actual item
required, the particular word, group or clause is recoverable from
the environment; the substitute preserve the class of the
presupposed item, which may therefore be replaced in the “slot”
created by it. There are three types of substitution: nominal
substitution, verbal substitution and causal substitution. Ellipsis
occurs when something that is structurally necessary is unsaid;
there is an incompleteteness associated with it. There are three
types of ellipsis: nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis and causal
ellipsis. Finally, conjunction is not primarily a device for

28 Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University Syaiful Bahri,

M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh University
 Volume 3 issue 1st June 2014

reaching out into preceding text, but it expresses certain meaning

which presupposes the presence of other components in the
discourse. There are four categories of conjunction such as,
additive, adversative, temporal and causal.

7. Lexical Cohesion
Lexical cohesive devices include reiteration and collocation.
Reiteration is the repetition of a lexical item, or the occurrence of
synonym of some kind, in the context of reference, that is, where
two occurrences have the same referent. There are seven types of
reiteration: repetition, synonym, antonym, hyponym, cohyponym,
meronym and comeronym . While collocation refers to a word
that is some way associated with another word in the preceding
text because it is a direct repetition of it or it is in some synonym
with it, tends to occur in the same lexical environment.

III. Methodology
This thesis uses descriptive method to analyze the data.
Descriptive method can be considered as the procedure to solve
problems of the research by using current facts and phenomena,
and this method describes the facts and explains the phenomena
(McMillan, 1992: 12). Descriptive method is a method to make
description, illustration and systematically (Djajasudarma, 1993:
8). Firstly, the thesis describes grammatical cohesive devices
(include reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction) and
lexical cohesive devices (repetition, synonym, antonym,
hyponym, cohyponym, meronym, comeronym, and collocation).
Secondly, this thesis explains that grammatical cohesive devices
and lexical cohesive devices make the article unified, coherent,
meaningful and purposive. Finally, this thesis explains about the
dominant kind of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices used
in the article would be clear after they were interpreted.

Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University

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Syaiful Bahri, M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh University
 Journal of A Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive Devices Analysis

IV. Discussion
The discussion deals with the words or the grammatical and
lexical items which are analyzed based on the characteristics of it.
Grammatical cohesive devices are divided into reference
(personal reference, demonstrative reference and comparative
reference), substitution (nominal substitution, verbal substitution
and clausal substitution), ellipsis (nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis
and clausal ellipsis), and conjunction (additive, adversative,
temporal and causal). While lexical cohesive devices are divided
into: reiteration (repetition, synonym, antonym, hyponym,
cohyponym, meronym and comeronym) and collocation. The
analysis observes whether the grammatical and lexical items occur
with cohesive function and form continuity on the text or not.

On the first article “From Parents with Love” grammatical

cohesive devices include reference (126 items), substitution (1
item), ellipsis (3 items) and conjunction (17 items). Thus, the
article is frequently realized by reference. Moreover, lexical
cohesive devices include repetition (226 items), synonym (116
items), antonym (20 items), hyponym (6 items), cohyponym(7
items), meronym (2 items), comeronym (0 item), and collocation
(22 items). In other words, the article is frequently realized by
repetition.
On the second article “Bali’s Unique Wooden Beads”
grammatical cohesive devices include reference (41 items),
substitution (1 item), ellipsis (2 items) and conjunction (12 items).
Thus, the article is frequently realized by reference. Moreover,
lexical cohesive devices include repetition (111 items), synonym
(27 items), antonym (2 items), hyponym (47 items), cohyponym
(40 items), meronym (3 items), comeronym (0 item), and
collocation (18 items). In other words, the article is frequently
realized by repetition.

30 Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University Syaiful Bahri,

M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh University
 Volume 3 issue 1st June 2014

On the third article “Crocodile Attacks Person in Jambi”

grammatical cohesive devices include reference (37 items),
substitution (1 item), ellipsis (1 items) and conjunction (9 items).
Thus, the article is frequently realized by reference. Moreover,
lexical cohesive devices include repetition (56 items), synonym
(15 items), antonym (6 items), hyponym (6 items), cohyponym (7
items), meronym (4 items), comeronym (0 item), and collocation
(12 items). In other words, the article is frequently realized by
repetition.

V. Conclusion
There are many grammatical and lexical items in the three
articles in The Jakarta Post that can be categorized as
grammatical cohesive devices and lexical cohesive devices. The
grammatical cohesive devices and lexical cohesive devices
establish the cohesion and coherence in the articles. Reference and
repetition plays an important role making the text coherent and
unified. That is why the grammatical cohesive device of reference
and the lexical cohesive device of repetition are frequently used in
the three articles of the Jakarta Post. Anaphorically reference is
normal in the article. It means that the normality of reference, of
course, plays an important role in making coherence of text.
Therefore, it means that reference is helpful to build cohesion in
the text. Then, the lexical item of repetition creates the relation of
meaning in the clauses, so it can build continuity in the text. The
continuity that is demonstrated by the repetition shows that there
is cohesion in the text. Thus, reference and repetition play an
important role making the text coherent and unified.

We can conclude that the text depend on cohesive

relationship within and between the sentences to give them unity.
The application of grammatical cohesive devices and lexical

Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University

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Syaiful Bahri, M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh University
 Journal of A Grammatical and Lexical Cohesive Devices Analysis

cohesive devices makes the text coherent and unified because it links the sentences and helps
the readers understand the text. Coherence here makes sentences hang together. Moreover,
grammatical cohesive devices and lexical cohesive devices makes the text unified because the
semantic relation of words forms a unified whole (a unity).

References
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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cook, Guy. 1989. Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University
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Crystal, David. 1992. Introducing Linguistic Analysis.
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Djajasudarma, Fatimah. 1993. Metode Linguistik: Ancangan
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Introduction to Systemic Functional
Linguistics. Continuum international publishing group. Halliday, M.A.K. 1994. An
Introduction to Functional Grammar.
London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1985. Language, Context and Text: Victoria:
University Press.
Henriono, Nugroho. 2008. A Summary of Functional Discourse. Jember: Jember
University.
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Wilde’s Short Story “The Selfish Giant”. Jember: Jember
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Nunan, David. 1993. Introducing to Discourse Analysis. London: Penguin.

32 Qurrotul Faizah : Student of Abdurachman Saleh University Syaiful Bahri, M.Pd. : Lecturer of Abdurachman Saleh
University