Investigation of Bilingual 7th Grade Students’ Narrative Writings in Terms of the Elements of Coherence and Cohesion

Abstract

In the current study, the narratives of bilingual middle school 7th grade students who acquired Turkish as a second language were examined in terms of the elements of coherence and cohesion, which are among the criteria of textuality. The study group of the current research is comprised of 20 bilingual 7th grade students attending a middle school in the Mazıdağı district of the city of Mardin in the spring term of the 2020-2021 school year. All the students in the study group are bilingual students who first acquired Kurdish and then Turkish at school or in the social environment. The study is descriptive in nature and was carried out using the survey method. In addition, a document analysis was performed on the narrative writings obtained from the students in the study. The data obtained from the study were analyzed with the measurement tools of the “Coherence Level Evaluation Chart” and the “Cohesion Level Rubric”. In the study, the bilingual 7th grade students were asked to create another story based on a minimal story that was given to them before and combining this short story with the new story they were going to create. The students were asked to put the minimal story given to them in any part of the story according to the plot of the new story they would create. In this way, the effect of bilingualism on the students’ writing coherent and cohesive texts was investigated on the basis of the narrative texts the students had written. In the study, it was determined that the students’ mother tongue was also reflected in their narrative writings and they formed their texts in line with the language schemes they first acquired.