UNIVERSITY OF GHANA COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES A STUDY OF THE USE OF CONJUNCTIONS IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ESSAYS IN GHANA BY CHARKITEY STEPHENSON (10268478) THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MPHIL ENGLISH DEGREE JULY 2016 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is the result of my own work, except for the reference to other works which have duly been acknowledged. I also declare that it has not been previously submitted to this university or any other institution in application for admission to, or for the award of a degree, diploma or any other qualifications. ………………………………….. ………………………. CHARKITEY STEPHENSON DATE (STUDENT) PROFESSOR IYABODE OMOLARA DANIEL DATE (SUPERVISOR) ……………………………………. …………………….. PROFESSOR JOHN FRANKLYN WIREDU DATE (SUPERVISOR) i DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my wife, Juliana Acheampong and children, Gerald Nene-sina, Duke Odehe Nene-sina and Duchess Dede Nene-sina. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to the almighty God for seeing me through this work. My gratitude also goes to my supervisors, Professor Iyabode Omolara Daniel and Professor John Franklyn Wiredu, for their time and candid suggestions which made this work a success. To Dr. George Frimpong Kodie of the Department of English, University of Ghana, I say another big thank you for his support, reference materials, pieces of advice and encouragement. I also wish to express my profound appreciation to the Headmasters of AKWAMUMAN, AMEST, MAKROSEC and YIKROSEC for permitting my data collection in their schools. Furthermore, I thank the students of AKWAMUMAN, AMEST, MAKROSEC and YIKROSEC who spent time to write the essays that were analysed in this study. Lastly, my heart-felt gratitude goes to my wife, Juliana Acheampong, for her support and encouragement. iii TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION ........................................................................................................................ i DEDICATION ........................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................iii TABLE OF CONTENT ............................................................................................................ iv LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................viii ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER ONE ...................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.2. Background ......................................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Statement of the Problem ..................................................................................................... 4 1.4. Aims and Objectives of the Study ...................................................................................... 5 1.5. Scope of the Study .............................................................................................................. 7 1.6. Significance of the Study .................................................................................................... 8 1.7. Definition of Terms............................................................................................................. 9 1.7.1 Cohesion ........................................................................................................................... 9 1.7.2 Conjunction/conjunctive expression ................................................................................. 9 1.7.3 Conjunctive Relations ....................................................................................................... 9 1.7.4 Clause .............................................................................................................................. 10 1.8 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER TWO ................................................................................................................... 11 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ....................................... 11 2.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 11 2.2. Review of Related Literature ............................................................................................ 11 2.2.1. Errors in the Use of Connectives ................................................................................... 12 2.2.2. The Use of Connectives in Different Mediums of Communication .............................. 15 2.2.3. Factors Affecting ESL/EFL Learners‘ Use of Connectives .......................................... 18 2.3. Theoretical Framework ..................................................................................................... 23 2.3.1. The Theory of Cohesion ................................................................................................ 23 2.3.5. Conjunction .................................................................................................................... 26 2.3.5.1. Types of Conjunction .................................................................................................. 27 iv 2.4. The Conjunctive Relation/Logico-semantic Relation ....................................................... 28 2.4.1 The Additive Relation ..................................................................................................... 29 2.4.2. The Adversative Relation .............................................................................................. 30 2.4.3. The Causal Relation ....................................................................................................... 31 2.4.4. The Temporal Relation .................................................................................................. 32 2.5. Summary ........................................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER THREE ............................................................................................................... 35 METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................. 35 3.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 35 3.2. The Research Design ........................................................................................................ 35 3.2.1. Ethical Issues ................................................................................................................. 35 3.2.2. Method of Data Collection............................................................................................. 36 3.2.3. Method of Data Analysis ............................................................................................... 41 3.2.3.1. The First Stage ............................................................................................................ 41 3.2.3.2. The Second Stage ........................................................................................................ 42 3.2.3.3. The Third Stage........................................................................................................... 42 3.2.3.4. The Fourth Stage ......................................................................................................... 43 3.3. The Essays ........................................................................................................................ 44 3.4. The Subject ....................................................................................................................... 44 3.5. Summary ........................................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................................................................. 46 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS .................................................................... 46 4.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 46 4.2. The Identified Conjunctions ............................................................................................. 46 4.2.1. The Additive Relation .................................................................................................... 48 4.2.2. The Adversative Relations ............................................................................................. 51 4.2.3. The Causal Relation ....................................................................................................... 52 4.2.4. The Temporal Relation .................................................................................................. 54 4.3. Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 58 4.3.1.1. The Conjunctive Relations .......................................................................................... 58 4.3.1.2. Regular Syntactic Positions of the Conjunctions ........................................................ 59 4.3.1.3. Regular Syntactic Positions of the Conjunctive Relations ......................................... 62 4.3.2. Findings in Relation to the Research Question Two: Do the subjects have appreciable repertoire of conjunctive expressions?..................................................................................... 67 v 4.4. Answering the Research Question Three: What could account for the problem/patterns shown? ..................................................................................................................................... 72 4.5. Summary ........................................................................................................................... 75 CHAPTER FIVE ................................................................................................................... 76 SUMMARY OF THE STUDY, SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS, ..................................... 76 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................. 76 5.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 76 5.2. Summary of the Study ...................................................................................................... 76 5.3. Summary of the Findings .................................................................................................. 77 5.4. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 77 5.5. Recommendations for Teachers, Examiners, and the English Language Curriculum Developers ............................................................................................................................... 78 5.6. Suggestions for Further Studies ........................................................................................ 80 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 81 Appendix One: The results from the analysis of the SPSS software ....................................... 83 Appendix Two: Sample Clauses ............................................................................................ 100 Appendix Three: Sample Essays ........................................................................................... 120 Appendix Four: Consent Forms ............................................................................................. 137 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The additive conjunctions across all the four schools ............................................... 48 Table 2: The adversative conjunctions used in all the four sets of essays ............................... 51 Table 3: The causal conjunctions across all the four schools .................................................. 52 Table 4: All the temporal conjunctions from the four sets of essays ....................................... 54 Table 5: The frequencies of the semantic relations ................................................................. 58 Table 6: Frequencies of conjunctions at paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions ................................................................................................................................... 60 Table 7: How frequently clauses are linked ............................................................................. 61 Table 8: The ratio of paragraphs to the number of conjunctions at paragraph initial position 61 Table 9: Distribution of the additive relation at paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions ....................................................................................................................... 63 Table 10: Distribution of the adversative relation at paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions ............................................................................................................ 64 Table 11: Distribution of the causal relation across syntactic positions of paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial ............................................................................................... 65 Table 12: Distribution of the temporal relation across syntactic positions of paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial ............................................................................................... 66 Table 13: The most frequently used conjunctions for each relation ........................................ 69 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. c ini — clause initial 2. c med — clause medial 3. p ini — paragraph initial viii ABSTRACT The researcher observed that his students used certain conjunctions very often in their essays regardless of the topic under discussion. This motivated this study to explore the use of conjunctions for cohesion in Senior High School (SHS) students‘ essays in Ghana. The study also investigated the possible existence of this phenomenon in schools other than the schools in which such patterns of conjunctions usage in students‘ essays was first observed. Finally, the study also sought to find out some plausible reasons for the patterns observed. The study analysed 128 essays from four schools. The theory of Conjunctive Relations in Systemic Functional Linguistics as explicated by Halliday and Hasan (1976) was the theoretical basis employed in analysing the data. The SPSS software was used in analysing the data. It was found that the students used more additive and temporal conjunctions than the adversative and causal conjunctions. The students also showed a propensity for the use of the temporal conjunctions in relating information from one paragraph to another while the additive, adversative, and causal conjunctions were used more frequently in relating information between clauses. The students lacked an appreciable repertoire of conjunctions and for that matter, they used a few conjunctions more frequently than many others that are available in English. The students need more tuition in their use of conjunctions to turn them into better writers. ix CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction This introductory chapter of the work discusses the background, the problems that motivated the study, the main objectives, as well as the significance of the study. Furthermore, the chapter outlines the scope of the work. Operational definitions of some of the key terminologies used in the work such as cohesion, conjunction, conjunctive relations, and clause are also provided in this chapter. 1.2. Background Creating a text is no doubt an art and words are the main resources. Wiredu (1999) asserts that the study of grammar involves how words in a language combine with each other to form correct sentences in the language and the concern of grammar is to describe these combinations. This means that words do not hang loosely in clauses they are logically connected. Halliday and Hasan (1976: 1) postulate that, ―The word text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole.‖ For a text therefore to form a unified whole, clauses must also stick together. The following quote from Halliday and Hasan (1976: 1) buttresses the point. If a speaker of English hears or reads a passage of the language which is more than one sentence in length, he can normally decide without difficulty whether it forms a unified whole or is just a collection of unrelated sentences. This suggests that if clauses do not stick together, then we do not have a text but rather random clauses. To be able to produce a meaningful text, therefore, clauses must combine in a sequence. In that way, they can function as a unit of meaning. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), if this is achieved, then the text is said to have texture. Eggins (2004: 24) describes texture as ―what holds the clauses of a text together.‖ Texture is then achieved by 1 cohesive devices or ties, of which conjunction is one important type. Nunan (1993) (in Aidinlou & Reshadi, 2014) explains cohesive ties as devices that distinguish a text from random clauses that are put together. Conjunctions perform two main functions in a text: grammatical and semantic. By their grammatical function, they create structural ties between elements of a clause such as the participants, processes, circumstances, attributes, etc. By their semantic function, they serve as cohesive ties by establishing cohesive relationships between propositions, clause elements, clauses, or paragraphs by indicating the way in which what is being said now relates or contributes to the meaning of what was said before the current information (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). Readers who fail to note such cohesive ties may misinterpret the propositions and fail to comprehend fully the message of the author. Similarly, authors who fail to make judicious use of conjunctions leave their audience guessing about the connections between the ideas they have presented. Single clauses may be clear, the whole paragraph or text, however, may be vague because there are fewer clues to the logical relationships between them. As clause linkers, conjunctions act as clues drawing attention to and making explicit the logical relationship between propositions inherent in the preceding and the new clause or paragraph. Er (1993), (in Aidinlou & Reshadi, 2014), defines conjunctions as a semantic connection between clauses. The essence of conjunctions does not only lie in their connection of ideas but also in the fact that they can introduce a certain shift, contrast or opposition, emphasis or agreement, purpose, result, or conclusion, etc. in the line of argument or exposition. In view of this importance of conjunctions, it is thus imperative for every writer to manipulate them effectively. Writers are offered choices to facilitate this sort of manipulation and to break monotony. Repetition of the same word at the beginning of almost every clause or paragraph underscores a writer‘s failure to see the various choices available to them. This style makes 2 the writing insipid and mind-numbing since different themes of an essay may require their own expressions, including conjunctive ties that would reflect different perspectives on the various themes or a particular circumstance. By employing diverse choices and subtle variety of conjunctive ties or a class of words in a piece of writing, texture is enhanced and readers easily follow the inherent logic. Very good writers employ different conjunctions to link propositions in successive clauses and to express diverse layers of semantic relations, which enhance readability of the text. Hudson (1996) states that no two persons speak the same way. This means that people (even twins) do not make the same linguistic choices even, if they are using language for the same purpose. It will therefore be surprising if a set of students (being of the same school or class, or studying the same course) makes the same or very similar choices in their use of conjunctions, amidst the vast range of options available to them. In spite of the unlimited number of conjunctive expressions, the researcher has observed in his former school that his students were using certain conjunctive expressions more frequently in their essays than others. In his current school, he has observed a similar situation. It seems that students at this level of education in Ghana have a peculiar way of using conjunctions. This style makes their use of conjunctive expressions monotonous and the reading of their essays becomes boring since a few and almost the same conjunctive expressions run through almost every essay very often. The situation is more worrisome because in writing, different themes may require different conjunctive expressions. Individual writers employing diverse choices in their use of conjunctions bring variety and break the monotony of the conjunctive expressions. Good writers can utilise several conjunctive relations in a single paragraph to accomplish the purpose of that paragraph. For instance, if the purpose of a paragraph is to present two ideas or subjects for comparison and 3 contrast, then several conjunctions need to be carefully selected for readers to clearly understand this intention. Therefore, a series of conjunctions would be selected to (a) introduce the first idea (e.g. to begin with), and (b) introduce the second idea for comparison (e.g. similarly). Conjunctions can also be carefully selected in a paragraph to contrast two ideas (e.g. while, however, on the other hand, yet); and finally conjunctions can as well be carefully chosen to concede a point (e.g. granted) or to conclude a discussion (e.g. finally), etc. The researcher perceives the phenomenon of the ineffective employment of conjunctions as a problem because (a) this lack of variety in the students‘ choices of conjunctions impedes readability and (b) it bears much resemblance to the use of conjunctions in the local languages, Dangme and Twi spoken in the area. People tend to use some conjunctions very often in these languages, especially in narratives. The researcher therefore perceives the phenomenon as a possible transfer of spoken strategies from the L1 of the students into the written genre. The phenomenon could be characteristic of students at this level of education in Ghana. These suspicions therefore motivated the researcher to carry out this study to find out if these tentative phenomena will be confirmed or otherwise. The study seeks to find out if students at the SHS level in Ghana have an appreciable repertoire of conjunctive expressions in expressing such semantic relations as additive, adversative, causal and temporal elements or whether certain factors may cause them to use conjunctions in a similar fashion. 1.3 Statement of the Problem The West African Examination Council (WAEC) states in the preamble of its English Language Syllabus for SHS that its objective is to measure the extent to which the aims of the teaching syllabuses of the member countries have been realized in the candidates‘ secondary school career (Regulations and Draft Syllabuses for West African Senior School 4 Examinations, 2011). The English Language examination, the Council says, sets out to test the different basic skills of communication in English language, using the mediums of speech and writing. These skills include students‘ ability to: 1. Use English correctly. 2. Organize materials in paragraphs that are chronologically, spatially, and logically coherent. 3. Control sentence structures accurately. 4. Exhibit variety in the choice of sentence patterns. 5. Comply with the rules of grammar (pp. 298 – 299). This study is in line with these objectives, especially, (1) and (2). This research therefore seeks to evaluate the extent to which the objectives of the teaching syllabus for English Language for Ghanaian SHS students manifest through the medium of writing. This work therefore seeks to find out if students at the SHS level have an appreciable stock of conjunctive expressions and are able to express diverse semantic relations in their essays. Furthermore, from a preliminary study before putting the proposal together for this study, this researcher realised that not many studies had been carried out in the area of language use in the SHS students‘ essays in Ghana, especially, on the subject of conjunctive expressions and this study was intended to fill that gap. 1.4. Aims and Objectives of the Study It appears that students at this level of education in Ghana have a peculiar style of using conjunctions since the phenomenon was observed in two different schools. The problem could as well be an influence of the L1 of the students since the two schools are in the same municipality and use the same L1. The study would arguably therefore be the first of its kind in Ghana that will describe the SHS students‘ use of conjunctive expressions. For other 5 studies to be worthwhile, it was imperative to first establish the existence of the phenomenon in the country‘s educational system. For that reason, the primary aim of this study was to compare the patterns of conjunctions usage in a cross section of the Senior High schools to describe some of the common patterns that will emerge and to establish the existence or otherwise of the phenomenon. The establishment of the existence of the phenomenon will then set the tone for other studies. Beyond these aims, the study was also intended to provide some plausible reasons for the patterns, that is, the similarities or differences that will emerge. The immediate objectives of the study therefore are: 1. To describe some characteristics of the use of conjunctions by SHS students in the Yilo Krobo, Manya Krobo, and Asuogyaman municipalities and districts. 2. To find out if the SHS students have an appreciable stock of conjunctive expressions. 3. To determine some plausible reason(s) for the phenomenon. Specifically, the study aimed to answer the following research questions: 1. What are some of the characteristics of the use of conjunctions by the SHS students in the Yilo Krobo, Manya Krobo, and Asuogyaman municipalities and districts? 2. Do the subjects have an appreciable repertoire of conjunctive expressions? 3. What could account for the patterns that may be exhibited? To answer these research questions, the researcher captured all the conjunctions in each set of essays and compared their frequencies of occurrence as well as the semantic relations expressed by the conjunctions and also the syntactic positions of the conjunctions to determine whether there were similarities/differences in the patterns across the four sampled schools. 6 It was expected that drawing similarities and differences between students of various schools in their use of conjunctions will be a step forward in providing a model for the description of the patterns of the SHS students‘ use of conjunctions. It will also be a way of finding out if L1 (the dominant language in the districts in which the schools are located) influences the patterns of usage or there is a transfer of strategies in spoken discourse from the indigenous languages. The work will also assess the level of proficiency of students at this level and if (English Language) teachers' influence may be revealed as plausible causes of the similarities or differences. 1.5. Scope of the Study Analyzing conjunctions in texts comes in two distinct dimensions: grammatical and semantic analysis (Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Martin, 1992; Eggins, 2004; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). The grammatical analysis involves analyzing how single clauses are joined into clause complexes and the relators involved. The semantic analysis on the other hand involves analyzing how clauses are joined with the use of conjunctions to create cohesive ties such as contrast, emphasis, purpose, result, conclusion, etc. between them. This study is concerned with both the semantic and grammatical analysis. It analysed semantic relations such as the additive, adversative, causal, and temporal as explicated by Halliday and Hasan (1976). These relations were identified between clauses and between paragraphs. It analysed grammatical relations as well because these expressions also existed within clauses. Conjunctive relations are sometimes expressed implicitly. That is to say that conjunctive relations are not always marked by the explicit use of conjunctions, but also, by merely juxtaposing one clause with another with the use of a punctuation mark such as the full stop (Eggins, 2004). However, Halliday (1985) cited in (Eggins, 2004; Martin 1992) cautions about reading too many implicit conjunctive relations in analyzing conjunctive relations. Due to this caution, the researcher thought it wise to avoid the implicit relations (semantic 7 relations that are not overtly marked by an explicit use of a conjunction) but rather focus on only the relations that are expressed explicitly between clauses or paragraphs in the data. In order to address the research questions of this study, the researcher used a mixed method research. The study analysed 128 essays obtained from the four schools in the three municipalities and a district: Akwamuman Senior High School (AKWAMUMAN), in the Asuogyaman District; Akuse Methodist Senior High/Technical School (AMEST), in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality; the Manya Krobo Senior High School (MAKROSEC), also in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality; and Yilo Krobo Senior High School (YIKROSEC), in the Yilo Krobo Municipality. AMEST is the researcher‘s previous school, while MAKROSEC is the current school of the researcher. It is important to sample these two schools in the study since the case being investigated was first observed there. Although there are two senior high schools in the Yilo Krobo Municipality and four senior high schools in the Asuogyaman District, YIKROSEC and AKWAMUMAN were randomly selected for the study. The only consideration in selecting them however was that YIKROSEC, MAKROSEC and AMEST are schools in neighbouring districts and, for that reason, share the same L1. AKWAMUMAN, on the other hand, was included to find out if the pattern will differ since the indigenous language of that community is different from that of the other three schools. In order to have a fair representation of students, students of varying academic fields were sampled for the data collection. Literature-in-English students were selected from AMEST; Home Economics students were selected from MAKROSEC; Business students were selected from YIKROSEC; and Science students were selected from AKWAMUMAN. The collected data was analyzed using the SPSS software. 1.6. Significance of the Study The research findings will make information available for English Language pedagogy and curriculum development. Teachers will become aware of what to expect of students at this 8 level in their use of conjunctions. The curriculum developers will also become aware of what more needs to be added to the English Language syllabus to help both students and teachers to overcome any challenges that may arise in the classroom. The study also seeks to provide rich information for researchers who will be interested in providing answers to a related problem. 1.7. Definition of Terms This section provides operational meanings of some of the key terminologies used in the work. They are presented in (1.6.1 — 1.6.6) below. 1.7.1 Cohesion Cohesion in this study refers to how a conjunction relates the meaning of one clause or paragraph to another one immediately before or after it in the essay. 1.7.2 Conjunction/conjunctive expression Conjunctions/conjunctive expressions in this study refer to words or expressions that express a semantic relationship between two clauses or paragraphs. They are either: (i) Proper conjunctions (ii) Prepositional phrases or (iii)Conjunctive adjuncts 1.7.3 Conjunctive Relations This refers to the semantic relationship expressed by conjunctions. They are additive, adversative, causal, and temporal relations. The conjunctive relations are otherwise referred to as semantic relations and the two terminologies are used interchangeably in the thesis. They may exist between clauses or paragraphs. 9 1.7.4 Clause Clause in this work refers to both clause simplexes and clause complexes, otherwise called the sentence. The term, clause is used in this study in order to easily refer to both clause simplexes and clause complexes. 1.8 Summary In this introductory chapter of the work, the discussion featured the background to the study. In addition, the statement of the problem as well as the research objectives and the questions which the study seeks to answer were presented. The other issues discussed in the chapter include the significance of the study, the scope of study and major terminologies used in the thesis. Chapter two will present the review of related literature and the theoretical framework. 10 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1. Introduction In chapter one, the background to the study, the research problem, and the scope of the study were presented. Operational definitions of some key terminologies used in the study were also explained. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part reviews earlier works on the subject of conjunctive cohesion. This review is classified under three thematic headings namely Errors in the Use of Connectives, The Use of Connectives in Different Mediums of Communication and Factors Affecting ESL/EFL Learners‘ Use of Connectives. The second part of the discussion in this chapter provides a broader perspective of the theoretical framework on which this study hinges. It discusses the theory of cohesion, the concepts of conjunction and the conjunctive relations. The chapter concludes with an overview of the conjunctions under each category of the conjunctive relations and how the theory will be applied to the collected data. 2.2. Review of Related Literature Research on cohesion, especially conjunctive cohesion, has gained much currency in recent years, most predominantly, in ESL and EFL countries. However, at the time of putting the proposal together for this study, efforts by this researcher to review related literature from Ghana on the subject of cohesion, or the use of conjunctions have not been successful. It could be that the subject has not been explored in Ghana and for that matter the research materials were not available or the search has not yielded the required results. That notwithstanding, this present work is expected to bridge that gap between Ghana and the world outside it, in that it is focused on Ghanaian students but organized within other global efforts in describing the use of conjunctions in non-native English-speaking contexts. Apart from bridging this gap, this current work will also add to existing study on the subject matter. 11 2.2.1. Errors in the Use of Connectives Kum (1993) studied the use of connectives in the writings of AL class students. The work analyzed the use of logical connectives in twenty-five argumentative essays of F.6 students in an Anglo-Chinese school in Tsing Yi. These twenty-five students were divided into two groups. Students of sample group one were randomly selected and students in sample group two were labelled as good, medium, and poor writers with reference to their scores in the trial marking of two essays from each subject by experienced AL markers. Kum (1993) recommends that an extended study which will involve more students or more schools can be carried out to obtain broader validity and that a precise and objective instrument for classifying and identifying the errors should also be formulated to reduce subjectivity. This recommendation is of interest to this current work. This current work is expected to provide that continuity that Kum recommended, providing such broader validity, in that, it intends to use more students and a reliable instrument. There were two hypotheses in the study. First, the researcher hypothesized that those who were identified as good writers would employ fewer connectives than the poor writers in their writing as they can use other cohesive devices such as repetitions and substitutions to link up their texts. The second hypothesis was that those who were identified as poor writers would use more connectives to disguise their poor writing skills and impose surface logicality in their writings. The occurrence and frequency of five types of logical connectives from their essays were recorded and three types of errors, namely 'misuse', 'underuse', and ‗overuse‘ were also examined in the work. This is purely a case of error analysis — classification of errors. It was found that, firstly, the hypotheses of the study were rejected. The findings show that the good writers used more connectives than the poor writers. However, these good writers 12 showed a higher frequency of overuse of connectives while the poor writers had more problems with misuse of connectives. The poor writers also had problems relating to underuse of connectives. Secondly, connectives which are conceptually more difficult to handle, such as contrast and contradiction, were seldom used by the students. This is similar to the problem that motivated this current study where students were using a fewer conjunctions very frequently than others. It could also be posited that the Ghanaian students also find certain connectives difficult to use. With these similarities, except for Kum‘s classification of errors, this current work replicates Kum‘s work in a different geographical location. Even though this current work is not about error analysis, it sees no logic in Kum‘s (1993) classification of errors such as overuse, misuse, and underuse in the use of connectives. The illogic of the classifications can be seen from the operational definitions of those terms provided in the work. There seems not to be much of a difference in the classifications of the errors. For instance, in defining overuse, Kum (1993: 10) says, ―Secondly, an idiosyncratic use of a particular conjunction that has appeared repetitively in an essay when it is not necessary.‖ Meanwhile, in the definition of misuse, Kum states that, ―Connectives intended to introduce a contrastive meaning may be used mistakenly by students to reinforce an argument or that the connectives are used when it is not necessary.‖ Juxtaposing these two definitions, there cannot be any obvious operational difference between overuse and misuse of connectives, as far as this current study is concerned. Other works, including Mudhhi and Hussein (2014), Cho (1998), etc. also made such distinctions between overuse, misuse, and underuse of conjunctions. For example, Mudhhi and Hussein‘s (2014) study reveals that Kuwaiti EFL learners overuse conjunctive adjuncts, namely, additives and causals. In addition, the results of their work show that Kuwaiti EFL learners overuse certain conjunctive adjuncts such as in addition, for, and but, and underused 13 certain conjunctive adjuncts such as however, though and also. Although this current work admits that there are cases where students may apply certain conjunctions inappropriately, this present study is not interested in error analysis. This is because this present study rather holds a strong view that there are no hard and fast rules regarding the use of conjunctions, and that the use of conjunctions is arbitrary and involves choices; it can even be considered as idiolectal; claiming that mistakes in the use of conjunctions are as usual as in using any other linguistic resource or aspect of the language such as syntax, phonology, etc. It however becomes an issue of interest if what is expected to be an idiosyncratic use becomes rather widespread amongst a group of people and that is the motivation of this current work which attempts to investigate how prevalent the usage patterns could be amongst the participants — SHS students in Ghana, especially, those with the same linguistic background. Furthermore, in the definition of underuse, Kum (1993: 11) writes: This refers to the condition where connectives which are needed to create connections between ideas are absent, thus making it difficult for readers to follow the writer‘s line of thought. This kind of problem is common in expository writing, especially, argumentative, where connectives that indicate contrastive ideas are most needed to facilitate the reader‘s comprehension. It has been found that students seldom make use of them to signpost their thinking. This usually results in confusion and 'mismatch' in expectation. On the contrary, the absence of a connective between two grammatical or discourse units does not necessarily or always result in incomprehension of or a break in the writer‘s line of thought. This is so since punctuation marks such as the full stop, the colon, or the semi-colon can sometimes be perfectly employed by the writer to take the place of explicit linguistic markers of cohesion such as conjunctions, and meaning can still be made. Eggins (2004: 49), for example, states that ―not all conjunctive relations are expressed explicitly, and that conjunctive relations can also be expressed implicitly through the simple juxtaposing of sentences.‖ Two clauses may have no structural relationship but a logical relation can still be established. Moreover, in most situations (though not in all), with the presence of other 14 cohesive devices such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, etc., meaning can still be made without such overt connectives. In conclusion, this is not to say that connectives are not necessary in marking logical connections between clauses or in making meaning out of a text. However, it is to establish a point that without overt marking of connection, readers can also rely on other sources of cohesion to make meaning out of a text. Halliday and Hasan (1976) even advised that users of the language can rely on their ‗common sense‘ combined with the knowledge that they have of the nature and structure of the vocabulary of the language when analyzing a text in respect of lexical cohesion. This suggests that cohesive elements are not ends in themselves, but are rather means to an end. It is also important to reiterate that this study does not seek to look into errors of usage but rather seeks to describe patterns of usage. 2.2.2. The Use of Connectives in Different Mediums of Communication In a study to find out the use of connectives to achieve different communication purposes, Schleppegrell (1996) compares strategies in the use of conjunctions in spoken English and ESL writings. Using the conjunction because as a focal example, the paper examines conjunction and clause combining strategies in the essays of ESL students, showing how they sometimes draw on registers that are more appropriate for genres of interactional speech. The paper claims that spoken English uses because clauses for functions which are typically different in academic writing. She describes the use of clause combining strategies which are rather appropriate for spoken communication in written genres, in which other strategies for clause combining are expected, as infelicitous. This is yet another case of error analysis. However, as indicated in 2.2.1 above, this study is not interested in making error analysis. Schleppegrell suggests that this shows ESL writers' lack of experience with the appropriate choice of the linguistic resource of connectives for the appropriate medium of 15 communication. This current work may also reveal this lack of experience among the subjects. This current work therefore seeks to establish if Schleppegrell‘s (1996) findings would be replicated in this study. This will be achieved by comparing the patterns that will emerge from the data. However, this current work does not hold the view that the choices that the students make in their use of conjunctions are infelicitous. It will rather consider and rely on the frequency of usage to draw conclusions. Schleppegrell (1996) again states that for ESL writers to develop their skills in new genres, they require knowledge about how grammatical resources are typically used in realizing those genres. This current study is of the view that this assertion is not enough. This current study therefore makes a case that it is not only grammatical resources that writers need in order to communicate effectively in (new) genres but that also semantic resources are needed to make such grammatical resources cohere. Again, Schleppegrell (1996) opines that her study contributes to the understanding of the role of conjunctions in the structuring of spoken and written texts, and of the role of register differences in shaping ESL writing. It is imperative to establish the point that writers‘ choices in the use of conjunctions in different communication mediums is part of the appropriate register for that genre and that choice is very crucial regarding the participants and in driving home the writer‘s message. While Schleppegrell‘s (1996) work is mainly concerned with the appropriate choice for the genre, this current work rather places emphasis on, not the genre, but the frequency of the choices that the students make in the vast range of options available. In a recent study of cohesion in different mediums of communication, Aidinlou and Reshadi (2014) compared the use of conjunctions and references in electronic mails versus paper- based letters by Iranian EFL learners. All the participants were asked to write paper-based letters. The same participants were asked to produce letters in the form of electronic mails 16 after two weeks. The researchers compared the two sets of data on the basis of the use of three types of conjunctions and three types of references. Their study reports that while the use of conjunctions presented a significant difference in the two mediums, the use of references on the other hand was not significantly different in the electronic mails and paper- based letters. Their analysis and comparison of the frequency of the use of the different types of conjunctions: coordinating, correlative, and transitional conjunctions; and references: anaphoric, exophoric and cataphoric reveal that coordinating conjunctions are the most common conjunctions in both types of letters. Since coordinating conjunctions have grammatical rather than semantic relations, while transitional conjunctions on the other hand exhibit semantic, rather than grammatical relations, the report about transitional conjunctions is of more relevance in this current work than the coordinating conjunctions. The manifestation that coordinating conjunctions were most frequently used than transitional conjunctions in both electronic and paper-based letters lays credence to the usual report from various studies such as McClure and Steffensen (1980), Cho (1998), Mudhhi and Hussein (2014), etc. that ESL/EFL learners have difficulties in using connectives. This current work is therefore expected to provide yet another voice to the study of conjunctions in written communication, providing a description of some characteristics of the use of conjunctions by SHS students in Ghana. Mudhhi and Hussein (2014) also assert that the use of conjunctive adjuncts (which according to Halliday & Matthiessen (2014), occupy the same semantic space as conjunctions) depends on different communicative functions. They contend, for example, that conjunctive adjuncts such as therefore and consequently are commonly required in scientific registers to express cause and effect relationships but are rarely used in informal conversations. This current study finds this assertion quite untenable, given the position of this current work that the use 17 of conjunctions is stylistic and not cast in stone. For instance, therefore and consequently can both be used to express additive, causal, and temporal relations regardless of the genre and depending on the writer‘s choice, so classifying them as scientific registers is quite arguable. This is why this current study holds the view that the use of conjunctions is a discretionary one and it is therefore interested in the choices that the subjects make and the frequency of the choices, rather than the genre of their writings. 2.2.3. Factors Affecting ESL/EFL Learners’ Use of Connectives As said in 2.4. above, various research works report that ESL/EFL learners face difficulties with the use of linking words, making it an almost universal phenomenon. Examples of such works include, McClure and Steffensen (1980), Crewe (1990), Schleppegrell (1996), Cho (1998), Mudhhi and Hussein (2014), etc. Most of these studies have identified various factors that contribute to this difficulty. Notable among them and relevant to this current work are McClure and Steffensen (1980), Cho (1998) and Muddhi and Hussein (2014). Cho (1998) studied the use of connectives in the writings of Korean learners of English and reports that mastery of the use of connectives is determined by the learners‘ length of study. The purpose of Cho‘s (1998) study was to investigate the relationship between the use of connectives by learners of EFL and their length of study. Eighteen writing samples were collected, six from learners with two years of study of English and 12 from learners with three years of study. The results show that students' length of study is related to the overall occurrence of the range of connectives produced. The work suggests that while age and/or cognitive ability are related to the acquisition of connectives in the first language, in second language acquisition, proficiency also affects the use of connectives. Cho (1998) cited Norment (1984) who also found that Chinese and Spanish ESL learners with high proficiency employed twice as many connectives than those with low proficiency. This establishes a 18 point that the length of study, in other words, how long the learner is exposed to the target language is a significant factor in attaining proficiency in the use of connectives. This current study agrees with this assertion that the length of exposure of the learner is a significant factor in their mastery of the use of connectives. The subjects of this current work have had twelve years of contact with the target language and, in the view of this current researcher, twelve years is a significant exposure period to the target language. This is considered long enough time for the language learner to exhibit appreciable mastery of the use of conjunctions. It is in this light that this current work uses final year students of the SHS as the subjects of the study instead of the first or second year students who have barely been exposed to the topic or second year students who may have been presented with the concept of conjunctions not too long ago. The findings of the study of the final year students‘ use of conjunctions is considered valid to describe the second and first year students‘ use as well since they too have passed through those classes. A recent study by Mudhhi and Hussein (2014) reports that the arbitrary nature of connectives, among other factors, militates against non-native speakers‘ ability to master the use of connectives. Their study explored the use of conjunctive adjuncts by Kuwaiti EFL and native speakers of English. They investigated the frequency of occurrence of conjunctive adjuncts in the writings of Kuwaiti EFL learners and native speakers of English. Their study also sought to find out the semantic categories of conjunctive adjuncts such as additive, contrastive, causal, temporal and continuatives in Kuwaiti English language corpus and native speaker corpus. Finally, it again aimed to find out the overused and underused conjunctive adjuncts in the two corpora. The studied corpus consisted of essays collected from Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Students‘ papers and essays written by Kuwaiti EFL learners enrolled at Kuwaiti universities. 19 Results of their study reveal that Kuwaiti EFL learners overuse conjunctive adjuncts, namely, additives and causals. Native speakers of English use adversatives frequently. However, Kuwaiti EFL learners do not use the various types of conjunctive adjuncts as the native speakers do. In addition, the results show that Kuwaiti EFL learners overuse certain conjunctive adjuncts such as in addition, for, and but, and underused certain conjunctive adjuncts such as however, though and also. The issue of misuse, overuse, and underuse of conjunctions in Mudhhi and Hussein‘s (2014) work has been discussed in 2.2.1 above. The issue of interest here is the cause of the EFL learners‘ apparent difficulty in the use of certain conjunctions. This is one of several research reports to show that EFL/ESL learners find it difficult to use connectives in their writings. The arbitrary nature of conjunctions cited by Mudhhi and Hussein (2014) as a bane of the EFL learners‘ use of conjunctive adjuncts is in tandem with the position of this current work. This current work is also of the view that the use of conjunctions may be arbitrary as suggested by the patterns noticed in the corpus obtained for this study. It however seeks to find out if similarities/variations exist in the choices that the students of these neighbouring schools with similar or same L1 but different academic backgrounds make. Their study also avers that EFL learners find it difficult to decide when to use conjunctive adjuncts. They cited the large number of conjunctive adjuncts as another reason why EFL learners find it difficult to use them. On the contrary, this current work is of the view that the infinite number of conjunctions should rather not pose difficulties for the language learner since there is a wide range to choose from. Another factor cited is that, to borrow their own words, ―learners' first language may cause linguistic interference which influences their choice of conjunctive adjuncts.‖ They cited Biber, Leech, Conrad and Finegan (1998) who also contend that many EFL learners find conjunctive adjuncts difficult to master because of numerous factors which include the optional nature of these cohesive devices. This first 20 language interference is envisaged by this present study to have an effect on its subjects. It is also one of the factors that motivated this current work. This is why three of the schools used for this study were selected from the same linguistic background while one with a different linguistic background was selected in addition to determine if the L1 interference could actually reveal similar or different patterns in the students‘ choices of conjunctions in their essays. In another study to investigate if cultural backgrounds of non-native speakers of English affect their use of conjunctions, McClure and Steffensen (1980) studied children's use of conjunctions across grades and ethnic groups. One of the major aims of their study was to find out if ethnicity influences the use of conjunctions. Beyond the issue of ethnic differences, other issues addressed by their study were, linguistic complexity and developmental differences. The subjects for their study were third, sixth, and ninth graders of Anglo, Black, or Hispanic ethnicity who were made to complete sentence fragments ending in the conjunctions and, but, because, and even though. These conjunctions were paired, and- but, and because-even though, where the second member of each pair is basically the negative of the first. Their findings indicate that: 1. The positive member of each pair was easier than the negative one; the complete order of difficulty for the four conjunctions was because, and, but, and even though; 2. The order of difficulty was constant across grades and ethnic groups; 3. For all ethnic groups, there was improvement in the use of conjunctions between third and ninth graders; 4. The grade by which effective mastery of each conjunction was reached differs for the three ethnic groups, being in general earliest for Anglos and latest for Hispanics. 21 The fourth finding is of interest in this study. It suggests that cultural background/ethnicity influences learners‘ use of conjunctions since the Anglos, whose first language is English, are said to acquire the use of conjunctions at an earlier stage than their Hispanic counterparts whose first language is not English. It underscores the case that social and cultural variables are factors that should always be considered in the discussion of language. This is why this current work selects respondents from four different socio-cultural backgrounds. The study seeks to find out if this is also the case in the Ghanaian socio-cultural milieu. Nevertheless, since Ghana is highly multilingual and since multilingualism is such a complex linguistic issue and so indeterminate, sampling the subjects of this current study in a way that distinguishes their L1 is beyond the scope of this present study. It will require another study devoted to finding out how the L1 of ESL learners influences their use of English conjunctions. The scope of this current work is thus to determine if there are similarities or differences in the students‘ choices of conjunctions and ascribe plausible reasons for the similarities/differences. These plausible reasons may include the learners‘ linguistic background, depending on the patterns that will emerge from the data. The case of EFL learners‘ difficulty in using cohesive devices may not be drastically different from the case of ESL learners since they are both non-native speakers. The subjects of this current study being ESL learners may be challenged by similar factors (such as students' length of study, proficiency issues, the arbitrary nature of connectives, the large number of conjunctive adjuncts, first language interference, etc. in their use of conjunctions as cited by the various research works discussed in this section) and are therefore likely to exhibit similar traits as their various EFL counterparts described in this section. This study therefore seeks to find out if students with similar linguistic background make similar choices in their use of conjunctions. This study will therefore either confirm or reject those earlier reports that social and cultural factors influence the second language learner‘s use of conjunctions. 22 To further enrich the ongoing discourse, the present work will also add yet another description of ESL learners‘ use of conjunctions and provide some plausible reasons for the similarities/differences in the subjects‘ choices of conjunctions. This therefore situates this current work in the global contexts of language study and within such global efforts at describing this linguistic phenomenon of cohesion in text. It in turn provides a Ghanaian perspective on the international discussion of the linguistic issue of cohesion in the writings of EFL/ESL learners. To conclude the discussion of the review of related literature, it is evident that earlier studies on the subjects of cohesion and/or connectives have mainly been about error analysis, revealing what the subjects did wrong. This current study departs from this type of study, holding the assertion that the choice of conjunctions is an arbitrary one and choices do not follow rigid rules. Considering the use of conjunctions as a matter of choices rather than any hard and fast rules, this work rather wishes to lay emphasis on the frequency of the choices from a socio-cultural perspective. 2.3. Theoretical Framework This study employs the system of conjunctive relations, otherwise referred to as logico- semantic relations in Systemic Functional Linguistics as explicated by Halliday and Hasan (1976) as its theoretical framework. The system of conjunctive relations/logico-semantic relations is part of a larger theory of cohesion, which was propounded by Halliday and Hasan (1976). 2.3.1. The Theory of Cohesion Halliday and Hasan (1976) state that cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another in the sense that the latter cannot be effectively decoded, except by recourse to the former. They state that if the interpretation of 23 one linguistic element happens to depend on another linguistic element coming before or after it, a relationship of cohesion is then set up and the two elements are thereby potentially integrated into a text (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). This therefore means that if a passage of English contains more than one sentence and is perceived as a text, then certain linguistic features will be present in that passage and can be identified as contributing to this unity or cohesion (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). One of such linguistic features is the conjunction. Halliday and Hasan (1976: 4) elucidate the concept of cohesion as a semantic one and define it as ―relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text‖. It is a specification of the way in which what is to follow is systematically connected to what has earlier been said (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). Other cohesive resources include reference, and lexical cohesion (Eggins, 2004). However, following Halliday and Hasan (1976), we can identify five types of cohesive resources: reference, substitution, lexical cohesion, ellipsis, and conjunction. 2.3.2. Reference According to Eggins (2004: 33), ―the cohesive resource of Reference refers to how the writer/speaker introduces participants and then keeps track of them once they are in the text‖. He explains that this is how the writer/speaker signals to the reader or listener whether the identity of the participant is already mentioned or not. Referential cohesion is usually realized by pronouns such as him, her, them, it, us, etc. It is also realized by expressions such as, as stated earlier/previously, as mentioned above, the aforementioned, etc. This is one of the ways by which cohesion can be achieved. However, this study is not concerned with referential cohesion and thus will not be analysed in the data. 24 2.3.3. Substitution Substitution is a sort of counter which is used in place of the repetition of a particular item (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). For example, (a) Joseph: Do you think Mary can win the competition? Duke: I hope so. (b) We all like the new teacher, and I am sure you do too. In example (a), so is a substitute for the expression she will win. So, instead of repeating the expression, I hope she will win, Duke decided to substitute that expression with the word so. The meaning of the word so can therefore be easily fetched from the dialogue. In example (b), do is a substitute for the expression also like the new teacher. The speaker rather avoided the repetition of the expression, I am sure you like him too and substituted it with the word do. Halliday and Hasan (1976) indicate that the difference between Reference and Substitution is that Reference is a semantic construct while Substitution and Ellipsis are grammatical constructs. I think that Substitution is both semantic and grammatical. It is semantical because the meaning of the substitute can be fetched anaphorically in the discourse. It is grammatical because, according to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 89), ―the substitute item has the same structural function as that for which it is substituted‖. They cite the following examples: My axe is too blunt, I must get a sharper one where the substitute item one and the substituted item axe are both Heads in the nominal group. Also, in the earlier examples, it can be seen that both substituted expressions in (a) and (b), that is, she will win and you like the new teacher too respectively have shifted ranks because these are both clauses that have been reduced to words, and rank shifting is a grammatical construct. Substitution is yet another resource that is employed in writing to achieve cohesion. This will however not be analysed in this study because this study limits itself to conjunctions. 25 2.3.4. Ellipsis Halliday and Hasan (1976) assume that ellipsis is a form of substitution. They define it as ―substitution by zero‖ Halliday and Hasan (1976: 89). It implies that with ellipsis, something is left unsaid but it (that which is unsaid) is understood. Example, Dante brought some fruits but Aduda, nothing. In this example, the word brought is omitted but can be supplied for meaning to be derived from the context or situation. This is another form of cohesive device but it is not a consideration for this study. This study concerns itself with only the conjunctive resource of cohesion. 2.3.4. Lexical Cohesion Eggins (2004: 42) indicates that ―the cohesive resource of Lexical Cohesion refers to how a writer/speaker uses lexical items such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. and event sequences to relate text consistently to its area of focus or its field.‖ He further explains that lexical cohesion is derived from word expectancy relations. For example, a reader would expect words such as rodent, computer, etc. after reading the word mouse. This is because these words are associated with the word mouse. 2.3.5. Conjunction Halliday and Matthiessen (2014: 107) define conjunction as ―a word or group that either links or binds the clause in which it occurs structurally to another clause.‖ Examples include: and, but, so, then, yet, after, because, etc. This definition suggests a structural relationship. Nevertheless, as stated in 1.1 above, conjunctions perform two main functions in a text, that is, grammatical and semantic functions, and as stated in 1.4 above, this study is concerned with the semantic use of conjunctions in the data. Regarding the semantic use, Bloor and Bloor (2004) define conjunction as the term used to describe the cohesive tie between clauses or sections of a text in such a way as to demonstrate a meaningful relationship between them. 26 They further opine that it is also possible to perceive this process as the linking of ideas, events or other phenomena. Halliday (1985) also describes the conjunction as one or other of a specific semantic relation between a clause, clause complex, or a longer stretch of text and another one that follows it. This suggests that the conjunctive relation can be identified not only between clauses, but also between longer stretches of text such as the paragraph. The same conjunctions used for structural relations can as well be used for cohesion between two clauses or paragraphs. The cohesive conjunction is used in text to indicate how new information in the discourse is related to an earlier one immediately before it. This cohesive relationship may be realized within the same clause, or between two clauses or between two paragraphs. Eggins (2004: 47) contends that ―the cohesive pattern of conjunctions or the conjunctive relations refers to how the writer creates and expresses logical relationships between the parts of the text.‖ Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) are not different in this contention in their statement that conjunctive relations marked by explicit cohesive conjunctions may also hold within sentences and between text segments realized by clause complexes, or between longer text segments such as paragraphs. In this study, the conjunctive relations will be identified only between clauses and between paragraphs, rather than within clauses. This is because the conjunction expresses structural relations within the clause as well, making their semantic relations within the clause less in focus. Also, Halliday and Hasan (1976) assert that cohesion is not a relation within sentences but rather a relation between sentences. 2.3.5.1. Types of Conjunction In addition to conjunctions such as, but, and, or, because, and many more, the conjunctive relation is also expressed by conjunctive adjuncts such as similarly, briefly, however, therefore, furthermore, meanwhile, instead, and so forth; and prepositional phrases such as, 27 in the same way, in addition, for instance, on that note, in the meantime, in fact, at the moment, in view of that, to be precise, etc. (Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) describe the conjunctive adjunct as adverbial groups that relate the clause to the preceding text and cover roughly the same semantic space as conjunctions. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), the conjunctive adjunct usually comes at the beginning of the clause. 2.4. The Conjunctive Relation/Logico-semantic Relation The theory of Conjunctive Relations varies from the perspective of one literature to another. For example, Halliday and Hasan (1976), who first propounded the theory, focus their classification on cohesive relations between clauses and came up with four main classifications of the logico-semantic system (Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Martin, 1992). These are additive, adversative, causal, and temporal relations. Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) on the other hand base their classification on relations within the clause and explain that the system of conjunctions are logico-semantic relations that are manifest in three types of expansion, where one clause elaborates, extends or enhances another or an earlier clause in the clause complex (Martin, 1992). On this assumption, they set up three main relations: elaboration, extension, and enhancement. According to Martin (1992), Martin (1983) also splits up the adversative relation into concession and contrast relations. Martin (1992) again cites Beekman and Callow (1974), Langacre (1976), Man and Thomson (1986), whose works add up to these variations in the theory. These divergent classifications leave the theory indeterminate. For this indeterminacy, Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Martin (1992) declare that no single classification is completely satisfactory and that no attempt to generalize a framework for the logico-semantic relations is tenable. Nevertheless, the system of conjunctive or logico-semantic relations as propounded by Halliday and Hasan (1976) has been considered by many linguists and linguistic researchers 28 as the system that describes the specific meaning relationships between clauses — a preceding one and a following one. This is why this current researcher finds it more convenient to adopt this theoretical framework for this study. Halliday and Hasan (1976: 9) claim that ―cohesive ties across clause boundaries are more striking and the meanings are more obvious.‖ They further explain that cohesive ties between clauses stand out more clearly because they are the only sources of texture. ―In the description of a text, it is the inter clause cohesion that is significant, because that represents the variable aspect of cohesion, distinguishing one text from another‖ (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 9). They categorize conjunctive relations into four main categories: additive, adversative, causal, and temporal with sub-classifications of each category. These four main categories will serve as the framework for analyzing the data. The conjunctions identified as indicating a semantic relationship between two successive clauses in the data will be classified under these four categories. These four relations are discussed from 2.4.1 to 2.4.4 below. 2.4.1 The Additive Relation Additive relations are expressed by the words and, or, and nor, though they appear also structurally in text. The additive relation often seems to convey a sense of ‗there is something more to be said in the discourse‘ — the linking of more information. There are a number of conjunctive expressions which have just this meaning: further, furthermore, again, also, moreover, what is more, besides, in addition, in addition to this, etc. (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). The additive relation is further classified by Halliday and Hasan (1976) into other sub- classifications such as: I. Negative --- It is expressed by nor and other composite expressions with more or less the same meaning. 29 II. Alternative --- It is expressed by or with its expansion or else and other expressions with similar meaning. III. Similarity --- It involves a comparison of what is being said with what has been said before it. Forms such as similarly, likewise, in the same way, etc. are used to assert that a new point is being added, or an earlier point is being reinforced. IV. Contradiction --- This is expressed by phrases such as, on the other hand, by contrast, as opposed to this, and so on. V. Exemplification --- In this sense, items such as, for instance, for example, thus, namely, example, etc. are used. Other relations within the additive relation are relations of emphatic and afterthought. VI. Emphatic is expressed by items such as further, furthermore, moreover, additionally, besides that, adding to this, in addition, and another thing, etc. VII. Afterthought is expressed by incidentally, by the way, and other expressions which convey a similar sense. 2.4.2. The Adversative Relation Halliday and Hasan (1976) explain that the adversative relation expresses a sense of ‗contrary to expectation‘. It has the sense of not ... but, which expresses a sense that the first item is denied to make room for the second. It is generally expressed by tokens such as yet, however, but, though, nevertheless, still, in spite of this, etc. The adversative relation is further classified as: I. Contrastive --- It is expressed by conjunctions such as but, however, on the other hand, etc. II. Avowal (a form of contrast) is expressed by such expressions as in fact, as a matter of fact, actually, to tell (you) the truth, etc. ―The meaning is something like ‗as against 30 what the current state of the communication process would lead us to expect, the fact of the matter is …‘, and the conjunction takes the form of an assertion of veracity, an avowal‖ (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 253). III. Correction is another adversative relation and it is closely related to the avowal relation. The meaning of this relation is ‗as against what has just been said‘. ―Here, one formulation is rejected in favour of another‖ (as against what you have been told) (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). Characteristic expressions of this relation are, instead (of that), rather, on the contrary, at least, I mean, etc. IV. Dismissive is another adversative relation that presupposes that some circumstance has been dismissed as irrelevant. ―Dismissive expressions include, in any/either case/event, any/either way, whichever happens, whether ... or not, etc.‖ (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 254). 2.4.3. The Causal Relation In the words of Halliday and Hasan (1976: 256), the simple form of causal relation is expressed by so, thus, therefore, consequence (of that), because of that, etc. These may combine with an initial and. Specific causal relations include: result, reason, and purpose. I. Result: It is expressed by as a result (of this), in consequence of this, arising out of this, etc. II. Reason: It is expressed by such tokens as, for this reason, on account of this, it follows (from this), on this basis, and many more. III. Purpose: The sense of purpose is typically conveyed by for this purpose, with this in mind/view, with this intention, and so on and so forth. IV. Emphatic Conditional: Closely related to the causal relation is the conditional relation. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the simplest form of expression of the 31 conditional relation, meaning ‗under these circumstances‘ is the word then. Halliday and Hasan (1976) explain that the difference between the causal and the conditional relations is that: while the conditional relation means ―possibly A: if so then B, the causal relation on the other hand means A, therefore B‖ (p. 258). Expressions such as in that case, that being the case, in such an event, under those circumstances, and many more express emphatic conditional relations. 2.4.4. The Temporal Relation The temporal relation is an expression of time sequence or sequence in time. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 261), ―it is expressed in its simplest form by then.‖ Other expressions of sequence of time include and then, next, afterwards, after that, sequentially, and so forth. There are additional components more specific in the sense of time sequence. I. Sequential temporal sense is expressed by a number of expressions, including then, and then, next, after that, subsequently, etc. II. Simultaneous is indicated by (just) then, at the same time, simultaneously, etc. III. Preceding: Temporal relation can be preceding and that is expressed by conjunctive expressions such as earlier, before then/that, previously, and so on. IV. Immediate: Temporal relation can also be immediate. The immediate temporal relation is expressed by at once, thereupon, on which, just before, etc. V. Another temporal relation is interruption. The interruption temporal relation is expressed by soon, presently, later, at a time, sometime earlier, formerly, etc. VI. Repetitive is another temporal relation expressed by next time, on another occasion, the last time, on a previous occasion, etc. VII. Specific is yet another sub-classification of the temporal relation. It is expressed by next day, five minutes earlier, and many more. Other sub-classifications of the Temporal relation include: 32 VIII. Durative: It is conveyed by expressions such as meanwhile, all this time, etc. IX. Terminal is expressed by up till that time, by this time, until then, etc. X. Conclusive relation is expressed by finally, at last, in the end, eventually, etc. The main issue with the theory as far as this study is concerned is that the theory, as presented above, appears to ossify the use of conjunctions. Meanwhile, the position of this work on the use of conjunctions as copiously expounded is that the use of conjunctive expressions is supposed to be a flexible choice-making endeavour. Also, some of the sub- classifications of the relations seem to render the theory overstretched. For example, some of the examples cited under some of the sub-relations can apply to more than one relation. In other words, some of the conjunctive expression may overlap in function. For instance, in any/either case/event, any/either way, whichever happens, whether ... or not, etc. which have been classified under the dismissive sub-relation of the Adversative Relation can also be used to express a conditional relation, which is a Causal one. In view of the above, the determination of the semantic relations of the conjunctions in the data for this study was based on their context in the essays rather than a rigid adherence to Halliday and Hasan‘s (1976) classifications. For example, but which the theory classifies as an expression of adversative relation has been used by some of the subjects to express both adversative and additive relations and have been captured accordingly in the analysis. Nevertheless, the analysis of the data in this study, these four conjunctive relations, Additive, Adversative, Causal and Temporal, discussed above will form the basis for the analysis of the data. The set of sub-relations under each hyper relation will however not be considered in the analysis of the conjunctions in the essay. Each conjunction identified in an essay will be classified under its appropriate hyper relation of additive, adversative, causal, or temporal relation without a recourse to the sub-relations. 33 2.5. Summary The discussion in this chapter is divided into two segments. The first segment reviewed some earlier works on the subject of cohesion under three thematic headings. The second part of the discussion in this chapter presented a broader perspective of the theoretical framework on which this study is based. It discussed the theory of cohesion, the concept of conjunction, and the conjunctive relations. The chapter concluded with an overview of the various conjunctive relations and the conjunctions under each conjunctive relation which will be analyzed in the data. The scope of application of the theory to the collected data was also delineated in this chapter. In the next chapter, the research design as well as various procedures that were followed to arrive at the findings will be presented. 34 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY 3.1. Introduction In chapter two, some research works relevant to this study as well as the theoretical framework on which this study is based were discussed. This third chapter presents the research design. Other issues also presented in this chapter include a detailed discussion of how ethical issues were handled in the process of data collection. The chapter also presents the data processing methods and the instrument for data analysis. 3.2. The Research Design This study is mainly descriptive and exploratory. It is descriptive because it intends to describe some patterns in the SHS students‘ use of conjunctions. It is exploratory since it intends to investigate if the observed patterns in AMEST and MAKROSEC, which motivated this study, exist in other schools in addition to AMEST and MAKROSEC. Finally, the study employs both qualitative and quantitative methods in the analysis of the data. 3.2.1. Ethical Issues The Headmaster of each participating school was contacted by the researcher and presented with a letter of introduction from the Department of English, University of Ghana. A letter of application which spelt out the purpose of the exercise, together with a consent form, both written by the researcher, were attached to the letter of introduction. All the Headmasters cooperated and granted their consents by endorsing the consent form presented to them. The Heads of Department (HoD) in the schools of the students who were required for the exercise were then introduced and charged to take care of the rest of the process after the consent had been granted. They helped with gathering the students together for the tests to be administered. 35 3.2.2. Method of Data Collection Essays written by final year SHS students of the schools listed below were the source of data for the study. The essays were collected from students of: 1. AKWAMUMAN, Akosombo, in the Asuogyaman District., 2. AMEST, Akuse, in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality, 3. MAKROSEC, Odumase-Krobo, also in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality and 4. YIKROSEC, Somanya, in the Yilo Krobo Municipality. All these four schools are in the Eastern Region of Ghana and are in neighbouring municipalities and districts. AMEST, MAKROSEC and YIKROSEC share the same linguistic background — they are located within the indigenous Dangme-speaking communities and enroll about 70 to 80 percent of their students from their surrounding communities. AKWAMUMAN on the other hand is located in a Twi-speaking community; that is, a linguistic background which is different from the other three schools. It enrolls about 50 to 60% of its students from the community while about 40 to 50% come from different parts of the country far beyond the surrounding communities. By this description, it was envisaged that all the subjects selected from each school mostly use the indigenous language of the community as their L1. AMEST and MAKROSEC are in the same municipality. The conjunctive usage pattern was first observed in AMEST and later in MAKROSEC. It was therefore necessary that these two schools are included in the study. YIKROSEC is another Dangme school located in another municipality. It was included to find out if the patterns will be similar to those of AMEST and MAKROSEC. The inclusion of AKWAMUMAN is to ascertain whether students in a school whose linguistic background is different from those of AMEST, MAKROSEC, and YIKROSEC will exhibit a pattern or patterns which will differ from those located within 36 communities heavily populated by Dangmes. By these selection criteria, the study intended to investigate if the language of the community in which the school is located (which may double as the home language of the students) is likely to reveal some patterns in the students‘ use of conjunctions in their essays. In each school, the subjects were drawn from one class or course of study. For instance, all the subjects from AKWAMUMAN were Science students; those from AMEST were all drawn from the Literature-in-English class; those from MAKROSEC were all Home Economics students; while all the subjects from YIKROSEC were drawn from the Business class. This selection criterion was to ensure that the subjects were drawn from different academic backgrounds. Beyond this, there was no other consideration in selecting the subjects by this criterion. It was, more or less, a random selection. Although there were other schools in the Asuogyaman District and the Yilo Krobo Municipality, AKWAMUMAN and YIKROSEC were randomly selected from their Municipality and District respectively. As said earlier, AMEST and MAKROSEC, on the other hand, were included because the conjunctions usage pattern, that motivated this study, was observed there. Three essay questions were presented for the subjects to choose to write on, according to their capabilities. They were made to write the essays under the supervision of the researcher. The essay questions are as follows: 1. Write a letter to your friend in another town/city, describing to him/her three exciting experiences you had during the recent festival celebrations of your town. 2. Write a letter to the Headmaster of your school, discussing three forms of indiscipline in your school and suggesting ways by which the school authorities can deal with these acts. 3. Write an article suitable for publication in a national newspaper discussing the menace of indiscipline in our Senior High Schools. 37 These questions were carefully thought through as reflecting happenings in the immediate environments of the subjects. They were therefore to afford the subjects the opportunity to handle the subject matter in each essay with flexibility such that examples would not be difficult to cite. With regard to question (2), the double-barrelled nature of the questions was also well considered to provide instances where the subjects were expected to vary their use of conjunctions in the essays; that is, when discussing the forms of indiscipline and when suggesting the solutions. For the purposes of obtaining quality essays and eliciting the students‘ true use of conjunctions, the following steps were taken. 1. The researcher explained the questions to ensure that they were fully understood by the subjects. 2. The subjects were allowed to write according to their own paces and were not coerced into finishing their essays within a specified time. 3. The subjects were required to write quality and lengthy essays which were in line with WAEC standards, that is, about 450 words long. 4. Though the subjects were informed that their essays were for the purpose of academic research, they were not told of what exactly the researcher would examine in their essays. This was to avoid the possibility of the subjects trying to impress by pretenses. 5. The subjects were also provided with writing materials such as papers and pens. Initially, the study targeted 200 essays for the study. However, in all the schools, most of the students did not turn up for the writing sessions. This is how the subjects of each school responded to the three questions stated above. 38 AKWAMUMAN Question 1 = 4 students, Question 2 = 30 students and Question 3 = 6 students, making a total of 40 students AMEST Question 1 = 3 students, Question 2 = 37 students and Question 3 = 2 students, making a total of 42 students MAKROSEC Question 1 = 7 students, Question 2 = 30 students and Question 3 = 0, making a total of 37 students YIKROSEC Question 1 = 11 students, Question 2 = 31 students and Question 3 = 17 students, making a total of 59 students In a nutshell, a grand total of 178 essays were collected from all the four schools. However, since an overwhelming majority of the subjects in each school answered question (2), the researcher deemed it appropriate to use the essays for question (2) alone for the study. 39 Moreover, these essays on questions (1) and (3) were of very poor quality. Question (2) alone then provided a total of 128 essays which were used for the study. This is not envisaged to affect the data in any way since this work is of the view that the use of conjunctions does not depend on the type of essay but on the semantic proposition such as contrast, causal, addition, etc. Secondly, this will not affect the outcome because this study in concerned with the choices and the frequency of the choices rather than the genre. The corpus-based approach which was adopted to elicit data for the study was a valuable contribution to the authenticity of the study. Analyzing the actual patterns of the use of conjunctions in students‘ essays is empirical since corpora consist of authentic language use in natural contexts. In other words, the use of students‘ essays for this study ensured a natural occurrence of the linguistic phenomenon — the use of conjunctive expressions being investigated. Alternative methods of obtaining the data were: 1. To allow the subjects to write the essays at home and submit them later. Such approach was envisaged to bring out the best of the subject‘s true choices in their use of conjunctions since they will be writing in more comfort than writing under supervision. However, such method has the tendency of hindering the aims of the study since the subjects were likely to solicit support from others. 2. To collect essays of former WASSCE candidates from the outfit of the WAEC. However, since those essays were written under strict examination conditions, such a condition is not likely to elicit the true ability of the students to manipulate conjunctions effectively. The method which was finally chosen was therefore carefully thought through as the best way to elicit the best of responses from the subjects. 40 3.2.3. Method of Data Analysis In order to address the research questions of this study, the researcher used a mixed method research. The reason for choosing a mixed method research is the need to quantify the amount of conjunctions in the qualitative data. The data analysis process went through four main stages. 3.2.3.1. The First Stage The number of words, clauses, and paragraphs in each essay were counted manually to ascertain their total number in each set of data (that is the set of essays from each school). This was meant to investigate: (1) The proportions of the conjunctions used as compared to the total number of words for each set of essays. (2) How frequently clauses were linked with the use of conjunctions, and (3) How frequently paragraphs were linked with the use of conjunctions. Subsequently, the conjunctions were identified in the essays. Each identified conjunction was underlined in the essay and their semantic relations were determined based on Halliday and Hasan‘s (1976) theoretical framework discussed in chapter two due to its simplicity, clarity, and comprehensiveness. This scheme consists of four main categories of conjunctive relations. They are additive, adversative, causal and temporal. Each conjunction identified in an essay was classified appropriately under the relations of additive (e.g., in addition, furthermore, besides); adversative (e.g., yet, but, however, on the other hand); causal (e.g., hence, therefore, for this reason); and temporal (e.g., meanwhile, secondly, first, to conclude). The determination of the semantic relations of the conjunctions was based on their context in the essays rather than a strict adherence to Halliday and Hasan‘s (1976) classifications. For 41 example, but which according to Halliday and Hasan‘s (1976) classification expresses adversative relations has been used by some of the subjects to express both adversative and additive relations and have been captured accordingly in the analysis. 3.2.3.2. The Second Stage The conjunctions identified and underlined in the essays were entered into a Microsoft Access Sheet under the headings of ID, CONJUNCTION, LOCATION, SYNT POS, and RELATION. ID refers to the serial number of the conjunction entered. CONJUNCTION refers to the conjunctions identified in the essay. LOCATION refers to number of the essay and the serial number of the clause from which the conjunction has been identified. This made it possible and easy to refers to that conjunction and locate the clause from which it was identified. SYNT POS refers to the syntactic position of the conjunction. This was captured to find out if there was a regular pattern of where the students usually place conjunctions. Under this heading of SYNT POS, variables under the searchlight were P INI for paragraph initial, C INI for clause initial, and C MED for clause medial positions. Lastly, RELATION refers to the semantic relations expressed by the conjunction and variables under this heading are additive, adversative, causal, and temporal. All these variables have been coded at the next stage to generate the quantitative data. This Microsoft Access entry was done to compile all the conjunctions of one set of essays into one envelope. For the purpose of comparison, four Microsoft Access sheets were then created; one for each school. 3.2.3.3. The Third Stage At this stage, the conjunctions were coded to aid the generation of the quantitative data. For example, above all was coded as 1, again was coded as 2, also was coded as 3, and also was coded as 4, etc. Two synonymous conjunctive expressions that differed in form by at least one word were assigned different codes and entered into the analysis as different conjunctions. For example, also and and also were entered as different conjunctions, to begin 42 with and to start with were entered as different conjunctions; in a nutshell and in the nutshell were also entered as separate conjunctions; as a result and as a result of were entered as separate conjunctions, etc. This is because this study was interested in the frequencies of the choices that the subjects make amidst the several options available. A conjunction maintained the same code each time it entered into the instrument of analysis. The codes were also maintained across all the four schools. The conjunctions were also assigned location identification numbers. Each essay was numbered as well as each clause in an essay. In this case, the locations of the conjunctions were coded in decimal numerals where the first digit before the decimal point indicates the essay number and the digit after decimal point indicates the clause number. For instance, a conjunction was coded as 1.5 under the LOCATION label, meaning that such a conjunction can be located in clause number 5 of essay number 1 of that school/set. This made it possible to refer to a conjunction and the clause from which that conjunction was identified whenever the need arose during the process of analysis. Furthermore, the relations and the syntactic positions were also coded. For example, additive was coded as 1, adversative was coded as 2, causal as 3, and temporal as 4. The syntactic position of paragraph initial was coded as 1, clause initial was coded as 2 and clause medial position was coded as 3. 3.2.3.4. The Fourth Stage To answer the first research question, the relation of each identified conjunction was entered under the variable name of RELATION to generate the frequencies and percentages of the relations of additive, adversative, causal, and temporal. The coded variables were entered into the instrument of analysis — the SPSS software. To answer the second research question, the codes of the conjunctions were entered under the appropriate variable name of ADDITIVE, ADVERSATIVE, CAUSAL, or TEMPORAL to generate their frequencies and percentages. The third research question was then to be answered by manually comparing the outcomes of 43 the SPSS analysis by manually studying the patterns. In addition, the codes of the syntactic positions of paragraph initial, clause initial and clause medial were also entered under the variable name of SYNT POS to determine their frequencies. For the purpose of comparison, four separate sheets were run; one for each school and the frequencies were analyzed and compared for the conclusions that were drawn in chapter five. In a nutshell, the three research questions have been answered based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis. The use of computer software in the analysis of language corpora reduces errors that would otherwise manifest with manual analysis and ensures precision in the analysis. It underscores reliability of the results and the conclusions arrived at in this study. The SPSS is a reliable data analysis program that many researchers have applied, especially, in quantitative analysis and have come out with satisfactory results. 3.3. The Essays Although the subjects were encouraged to write about 450 words long, a few of them could not write up to the required length of essays, while others wrote more than the required 450 words. The point must be made explicitly that the 450 words long required of each essay was not a ceiling placed on the length of the essays and that it was meant to avert very short essays that may turn out not to be good enough for the purpose of the study. Grammatical as well as other errors in the essays were overlooked as they were beyond the scope of this work. For that reason, no changes were made in the grammatical structures, spelling, etc. in the essays. 3.4. The Subject Formal education in Ghana is structured at three main levels: basic, secondary and tertiary levels. The subjects in this study are final year students at the SHS level of education in Ghana. The SHS is an intermediate level, thus between the basic and tertiary levels. The basic 44 level involves two years of kindergarten (KG), six years of primary school, plus three years of junior high school; taking a total of 11 years to complete. Students of an average age of 15 years complete basic school in Ghana. The SHS requires three years to complete either secondary, technical, or vocational education. Students at the SHS level are between ages 15 and 20. The subjects of this study, who are final year students of the SHS, are therefore students of an average age of 18 years. One revelation from this description is that the subjects of this study are just a year away from tertiary education (university, polytechnic, or training colleges to be trained as professionals such as teachers, nurses, etc.). Per this description, it also becomes obvious that the subjects of this study are considered to be at an intermediary level of English language proficiency — above basic school students and below tertiary level students. 3.5. Summary The chapter presented a discussion of the methods and procedures employed in the course of the study, including ethical issues. It was noted that the data was analyzed using the SPSS software. Much information about the subjects was also presented in this chapter. The essays were also described, stating the number of essays collected for the study. Various justifications were also provided for the choices adopted for the research design and the factors that were considered for the comparison and the final conclusions were also highlighted. Chapter four will present the results of the methods and procedures discussed in this third chapter. 45 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 4.1. Introduction In chapter three, the research methodology was presented. This chapter presents and discusses the results of the SPSS analysis. It also outlines the implications of the findings. The results are presented in tabular forms. They are in quantitative terms — frequencies and percentages. Other quantitative descriptions such as standard deviations, means, medians, etc. are not of interest in this study. In this discussion, conjunctions that had a frequency of occurrence of four times and above are considered as most frequently used. These frequently used conjunctions are compiled and presented in another table for easy comprehension, even at a quick glance. 4.2. The Identified Conjunctions To obtain the quantitative data, the conjunctions identified in the essays went through various stages of analysis, as described in chapter three. For example, the following clauses are (unedited) samples taken from some of the essays. This is to demonstrate how the conjunctions were analysed. 1. And this form of act can be dealt with by dismissing the suspects from the boarding house to become day students (AMEST, 5.6). 2. As a result of this, most students who are part of these group a falling and this is not taking the school to the standard we have to get to (AKWAMUMAN, 2.23). 3. First and foremost, I will like to speak about the dressing of some students to school (YIKROSEC, 7.2) 4. But now the authorities responsible for that is not willing to do work again (YIKROSEC, 14.8) 46 The underlined phrases in each clause are the identified conjunctions. In clause (1), it was classified as expressing an additive relation because the writer is adding new information. In clause (2), the identified conjunction was classified as a causal conjunction because it expresses a result. In clause (3), the conjunction was identified as temporal because it indicates a sequence in time. In clause (4), it was identified as expressing an adversative relation since it tends to provide new information that departs from the current one at hand. (The decimal numerals attached to the name of the school in the bracket indicate a reference to the clause: the first number is the essay number while the number after the decimal point is the clause number. This is to enhance easy reference to the clauses in the set of essays). After identifying the conjunctions in the essays, four separate Microsoft Access sheets, one for each school, were created to collate all the conjunctions in each set of essays. The conjunctions were organized under headings such as ID (for serial number), CONJUNCTION (for the identified conjunctions), LOCATION (the essay and clause numbers to locate the identified conjunction in the entire set of data), SYNT POS (for the syntactic position of the identified conjunction) and RELATION (for the type of semantic relation expressed by the identified conjunction). To avoid any oversights due to the large number of conjunctive expressions that emerged, the SPSS software was used to ascertain the frequency of occurrence of each conjunction identified in all the sets of essays collected for the study. It was found that: AKWAMUMAN recorded a total of 243 conjunctions, constituting about 1.78 percent of the total number of words used. AMEST recorded 236 conjunctions, accounting for 1.82 percent of the total number of words used; MAKROSEC recorded a total number of 188 conjunctions, constituting 1.64 percent of the total number of words used; YIKROSEC recorded a total number of 196 conjunctions, constituting 1.99 percent of the 47 total number of words used. These percentage figures were calculated manually by the researcher by using a calculator. The number of conjunctions was divided by the total number of words and multiplied by 100. The conjunctions identified in all the four sets of essays are presented in Tables 1 to 4 below. 4.2.1. The Additive Relation The table below shows the conjunctions identified for the additive relation. Table 1: The additive conjunctions across all the four schools S/N Conjunction AKWAMUMAN AMEST MAKROSEC YIKROSEC Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. 1 above all 1 1.6 2 additionally 1 1.0 3 again 2 1.8 2 2.0 7 11.3 3 5.1 4 all this/these 2 3.2 1 1.0 2 3.4 5 all this 1 1.0 1 1.7 act/acts 6 also 42 38.5 18 18.2 10 16.1 7 11.9 7 also another 1 0.9 8 and 15 13.8 13 13.1 17 27.4 10 16.9 9 and also 3 2.8 1 1.0 1 1.6 1 1.7 10 another 1 0.9 1 1.7 11 another act 1 1.0 12 another cause 1 1.0 of 13 another form 11 10.1 2 2.0 of 14 another 1 0.9 suggestion 15 another way 2 3.2 48 16 besides 1 1.7 17 by the way 1 1.7 18 equally 19 especially 2 1.8 2 2.0 4 6.5 1 1.7 20 equally 1 0.9 21 even 1 0.9 4 4.0 1 1.6 5 8.5 22 evermore 1 1.7 23 example 1 6.5 24 example of this 1 1.7 25 for example 2 2.0 2 3.2 26 for instance 5 4.6 2 2.0 27 for this point 1 1.7 28 furthermore 8 7.3 16 16.2 7 11.3 8 13.6 29 in addition 2 1.8 8 8.1 1 1.6 30 in addition to 1 0.9 1 1.7 31 in addition to 1 1.0 the above 32 in all this 2 2.0 33 in fact 5 5.1 34 in this case 3 3.0 1 1.6 1 1.7 35 in this way 1 1.0 36 likewise 1 0.9 37 moreover 5 4.6 6 6.1 4 6.5 2 3.4 38 most 1 0.9 especially 39 one form of 1 0.9 49 40 one of 1 0.9 41 other measure 1 1.6 42 some of these 1 1.7 43 that is 1 1.7 44 the other one 1 0.9 45 then also 1 1.7 46 these/this is 1 1.0 1 1.7 47 thus 2 1.8 1 1.0 48 to add more to 1 1.7 49 to add to 1 0.9 1 1.7 50 to add up 1 1.6 51 to add with 1 1.6 52 t o contitnou e 1 1.0 53 tcoo ntinuceo ntinue 1 1.0 with 54 t oo to 1 0.9 1 1.7 continue with 55 to the above 1 1.7 l ist to the 56 with all these 1 1.7 above list 57 worst of all 1 1.7 too TOTAL 110 100% 99 100% 64 100% 59 100% with all *freq = frequency, perc. = percentage these worst As can beo fs eaelln f rom the table above, out of 57 individual conjunctions used for the additive relation, AKWAMUMAN recorded 24 in the entire set of essays. Of the 24 conjunctions, there are six particular ones which were most frequently used. These are also, and, another form of, furthermore, moreover, and for instance. These six conjunctions in the majority constitute 79.8%, while the remaining 18 conjunctions represent 20.2%. The findings from AMEST are quite similar. Twenty-nine individual conjunctions were identified for the additive relations in the AMEST essays. Seven particular ones fall in the category of most 50 frequently used. They are also, furthermore, and, in addition, moreover, in fact, and even. These seven conjunctions constitute 70.8%, while the remaining 22 conjunctions constitute a total of 29.2%. MAKROSEC students follow the same trend. They used 19 individual conjunctions of which six were frequently used. These are and, also, again, furthermore, moreover and especially. These six conjunctions constitute 79.1%, while the remaining 13 constitute 20.9%. The set of essays from YIKROSEC also recorded 29 individual conjunctions that expressed the additive relation. Four of them: and, furthermore, also, and even, occurred very often. These four constitute 50.9%, whereas the remaining 25 conjunctions constitute 49.1%. 4.2.2. The Adversative Relations The table below shows the adversative conjunctions. Table 2: The adversative conjunctions used in all the four sets of essays S/N Conjunction AKWAMUMAN AMEST MAKROSEC YIKROSEC Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. 1 as a matter of 1 5.0 1 11.1 fact 2 at the other 1 11.1 hand 3 besides 1 5.9 4 but 7 35.0 3 42.9 2 33.3 14 82.4 5 but rather 1 5.9 unfortunate 6 but still 1 16.7 7 but then 1 16.7 8 however 6 30.0 1 14.3 9 instead of 2 10.0 1 5.9 10 nevertheless 1 5.0 51 11 on the other 1 5.0 hand 12 notwithstanding 2 33.2 13 rather 2 10.0 2 28.6 TOTAL 20 100% 7 100% 6 100% 17 100% *freq = frequency, perc = percentage Thirteen individual conjunctions were recorded for the adversative relation across all the four schools. AKWAMUMAN recorded seven of these 13 conjunctions; two conjunctions: however and but emerged as frequently used, constituting 65.0% of the seven conjunctions. AMEST recorded 4 of the adversative conjunctions but none falls in the category of frequently used conjunctions. Similarly, four adversative conjunctions were recorded in the entire MAKROSEC data with none falling into the category of frequently used. YIKROSEC also recorded four adversative conjunctions with only but occurring as most frequently used, constituting 82.4%. The remaining three conjunctions: instead of, besides, and but rather unfortunate represent 17.6% of the four conjunctions. 4.2.3. The Causal Relation The table below shows the conjunctions that expressed the causal relations. Table 3: The causal conjunctions across all the four schools S/N Conjunction AKWAMUMAN AMEST MAKROSEC YIKROSEC Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. 1 as a result 3 9.7 1 3.4 1 3.7 2 as a result of 1 3.4 3 as a result of 1 3.7 that 4 because 6 19.4 2 10.0 3 10.3 1 3.7 5 because of 1 5.0 52 6 because of 3 10.3 1 3.7 that 7 because of 1 3.4 1 3.7 this 8 due to this 2 6.5 5 25 1 3.4 4 14.8 9 for that 1 3.7 matter 10 for this 1 5.0 1 3.4 reason 11 hence 1 5.0 12 in order to 1 5.0 13 since 3 9.7 14 so 7 22.6 6 30.0 13 44.8 13 48.1 15 so that 1 3.7 16 So therefore 1 3.4 17 therefore 2 6.5 2 10 4 13.8 2 7.2 18 this is so 1 3.7 19 through this 1 5.0 TOTAL 29 100% 20 100% 29 100% 27 100% *freq = frequency, perc = percentage A total of 19 conjunctions were recorded for the causal relations across all the four schools. AKWAMUMAN recorded 12 of these 19 conjunctions. Of these 12 causal conjunctions recorded by AKWAMUMAN, two — because and so emerged as most frequently used and they represent 67.5%. The remaining ten conjunctions then represent 32.5%. From the set of essays collected from AMEST, there were nine individual conjunctions. It was found that so and due to this were used very often, representing 55%. All the remaining seven conjunctions put together account for 45%. MAKROSEC also recorded 10 of the nineteen causal relations. The most frequently used causal conjunctions in the MAKROSEC essays are so and 53 therefore, representing 58.6% of the 10 conjunctions. It was also found that YIKROSEC recorded 11 conjunctions that expressed the causal relation, two of which were widely used. They are so, and due to this. These two conjunctions constitute 62.5%, while the remaining eight conjunctions account for 37.5%. 4.2.4. The Temporal Relation The table below shows all the conjunctions identified to have expressed the temporal relation. Table 4: All the temporal conjunctions from the four sets of essays S/N Conjunction AKWAMUMAN AMEST MAKROSEC YIKROSEC Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. Freq. Perc. 1 after 1 0.9 3 3.2 2 after this 1 1.1 3 at this time 1 1.1 4 before 1 0.9 1 1.1 1 1.1 5 but now 1 1.1 6 finally 3 3.6 3 2.7 8 9.0 6 6.5 7 first 1 1.2 6 5.5 1 1.1 8 firstly 12 14.3 8 7.3 8 9.0 11 11.8 9 first and 4 4.8 3 2.7 3 3.4 4 4.3 foremost 10 first of all 6 7.1 10 9.1 10 11.2 10 10.8 11 first of almost 2 2.2 12 first of 1 0.9 foremost 13 fourth 2 1.8 14 in a first 1 0.9 place 15 in conclusion 1 1.2 5 4.5 2 2.2 16 in a nutshell 2 1.8 1 1.1 54 17 in my second 1 0.9 point 18 in my third 1 0.9 point 19 in the nutshell 1 1.2 1 0.9 20 in the first 2 1.8 1 1.1 place 21 in the first 1 0.9 point 22 in the last 1 0.9 place 23 in the third 1 0.9 place 24 last 2 1.8 25 lastly 9 10.7 3 2.7 5 5.6 8 8.6 26 last but not 1 1.2 3 2.7 2 2.2 1 1.1 the least 27 last on my list 1 1.1 28 meanwhile 1 1.1 29 my first 1 0.9 1 1.1 suggestion 30 my second 1 0.9 1 1.1 suggestion 31 my third 1 1.1 suggestion 32 now 1 1.1 33 on the first 1 0.9 place 34 one 3 3.6 2 2.2 35 one of 2 2.2 36 second 1 1.2 7 6.4 1 1.1 37 secondly 16 19.0 11 10.0 19 21.3 27 29.0 38 third 4 3.6 55 39 thirdly 8 9.5 4 3.6 6 6.7 4 4.3 40 the first form 1 1.2 3 2.7 of 41 the first 1 1.1 lesson 42 the first of all 1 1.2 43 the first 1 1.1 problem 44 the last 1 1.2 45 the last but 1 1.2 2 1.8 not the least 46 the last form 1 1.2 of 47 the last point 1 1.1 48 the last thing 1 1.1 49 the second 1 1.2 1 0.9 form of 50 then 1 0.9 51 to begin 3 3.2 52 to begin with 5 6.0 7 6.4 3 3.4 53 to commence 1 1.2 with 54 to conclude 3 3.6 3 2.7 4 4.5 55 to conclude 1 1.2 1 1.1 with 56 to drop the 1 1.1 curtains down 57 to end 1 1.1 58 to end 1 1.1 everything 59 to end with 1 1.2 60 to set the ball 2 1.8 1 1.1 56 rolling 61 to start with 2 1.8 2 2.2 2 2.2 62 to wrap up 1 1.1 63 two 1 1.1 64 until 1 0.9 TOTAL 84 100% 110 100% 89 100% 93 100% *freq. = frequency, perc. = percentage The temporal relations recorded the highest number of conjunctions across all the four schools. Sixty-four individual conjunctions were recorded across all the four schools. AKWAMUMAN recorded 25 of this number with 7 as frequently used. These are secondly, firstly, lastly, thirdly, first of all, to begin with, and first and foremost. These seven conjunctions represent 71.4%. The remaining 18 conjunctions constitute a total of 28.6%. AMEST also recorded 38 of the 64 conjunctions for this relation. Nine conjunctions out of the 38 were used very often, representing 56.4% of the 38 conjunctions recorded for this school. They are secondly, first of all, firstly, to begin with, second, first, in conclusion, thirdly, and third. The remaining 29 conjunctions then represent 43.6%. In the MAKROSEC set of essays, 27 individual conjunctions were identified to have expressed the temporal relation. Seven of them: secondly, first of all, finally, firstly, thirdly, lastly and to conclude fall into the most frequently used bracket, representing a total of 67.3%, while the remaining 20 constitute just 32.7%. Finally, YIKROSEC also recorded 24 individual conjunctions. Seven of them: secondly, firstly, first of all, lastly, finally, first and foremost, and thirdly constitute 75.3%. The remaining 17 conjunctions then make 24.7% of the 24 conjunctions. 57 4.3. Discussion 4.3.1. Findings in Relation to the Research Question One: What are some of the characteristics of the use of conjunctions by students of AKWAMUMAN, AMEST, MAKROSEC, and YIKROSEC? 4.3.1.1. The Conjunctive Relations Having observed the research problem in two schools, the researcher of this work was of the view that students at this level of education in Ghana may have some peculiar ways of using conjunctive expressions. The study therefore sought to investigate and describe some of these patterns. One of these patterns is the frequency of the semantic relations in the students‘ essays. The table below shows the frequencies of the semantic relations as revealed by the SPSS analysis. Table 5: The frequencies of the semantic relations School Relation Total additive adversative causal temporal AKWAMUMAN 110 20 29 84 243 44.9% 7.8% 12.8% 34.6% 100% AMEST 99 7 20 110 236 39.8% 5.1% 8.5% 46.6% 100% MAKROSEC 64 6 29 89 188 33.5% 3.7% 15.4% 47.3% 100% YIKROSEC 59 17 27 93 196 33.7% 5.1% 13.8% 47.4% 100% From the table above, it emerges that the temporal relation recorded the highest frequencies in AMEST, MAKROSEC, and YIKROSEC; while the additive relation, on the other hand, recorded the highest frequency in the AKWAMUMAN essays. This means that for AMEST, 58 MAKROSEC, and YIKROSEC, the order of preference for the semantic relations is temporal>additive>causal>adversative (in descending order). For AKWAMUMAN, on the other hand, it is a different pattern: additive>temporal>causal>adversative. That notwithstanding, the divergence in the pattern shown by AKWAMUMAN still conforms to a general pattern in Table 5 that the subjects from all the four schools show a propensity for the additive and temporal relations more than the adversative and causal relations. This underscores a propensity for the temporal and additive relations and a seeming inability to express both the adversative and causal relations. This is also evident in Tables 2 and 3 above where it is shown that in all the four sets of essays, the subjects did not use many conjunctions in these two relations as compared to the overwhelming number of individual conjunctions used for both the additive and temporal relations. It emerged that no conjunction or, at most, only two conjunctions fall in the category of most frequently used in both the adversative and causal relations. The implication here is that the students appear to face difficulties in expressing both the adversative and causal relations; a trend pervasive enough to be described as characteristic of the students‘ use of conjunctions. This trend is consistent with other research reports that ESL/EFL learners face difficulties with the use of linking words. Examples of such works include, McClure and Steffensen (1980), Schleppegrell (1996), Cho (1998), Mudhhi and Hussein (2014), etc. This suggests that the phenomenon may be universal in nature. 4.3.1.2. Regular Syntactic Positions of the Conjunctions As part of the description of some regular patterns in the students‘ use of conjunctions, the study also sought to find out if the conjunctions are fairly distributed across positions such as paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial or, there are regular positions among these that the subjects usually place the conjunctive expressions. This also translates into a 59 comparison of how regularly clauses and paragraphs are linked. This is because a conjunction at clause initial and another at clause medial positions will serve one purpose, which is, linking two successive clauses. Examples: 1. Therefore, they put on certain behavious which they teachers have not been there before (AMEST, 3.9). In this sample clause from the data, the identified conjunction is classified as clause initial position because it is the first word that begins the clause. 2. All these indiscipline acts of students are in actual fact affecting them and… (MAKROSEC, 10.6). In this sample, the conjunction is placed in the middle of the clause so it is classified as clause medial. 3. Secondly, jumping of exeat is also another problem in the school (MAKROSEC, 28.10). This conjunction is classified as paragraph initial because it begins the paragraph. Table 6 below illustrates the frequency of occurrence of conjunctions at paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions. Table 6: Frequencies of conjunctions at paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions School Conjunctions at Conjunctions at Conjunctions at Total paragraph initial Clause Initial Clause Medial AKWAMUMAN 118 80 45 243 AMEST 150 76 10 236 MAKROSEC 107 64 17 188 YIKROSEC 111 66 19 196 To find out how frequently clauses were linked, the number of clauses was divided by the frequency of conjunctions for clause linkage. The figures for clause linkage were obtained by 60 adding the frequencies of conjunctions at clause initial and clause medial positions since they are both for clause linkage. Table 7 shows the ratio of conjunctions to clauses. Table 7: How frequently clauses are linked School Number of Clauses Frequency of Clause Ratio of Clauses to Linkage Conjunctions AKWAMUMAN 678 125 5:1 AMEST 581 86 7:1 MAKROSEC 515 81 6:1 YIKROSEC 507 85 6:1 To find out how frequently paragraphs were linked in the data, the ratio of conjunctions at paragraph initial to the total number of paragraphs was also calculated. This was also done by using the number of conjunctions at paragraph initial position to divide the total number paragraphs. This was also done manually by the researcher with the use of a calculator. The results are shown in Table 8 below. They are rounded-up figures. Table 8: The ratio of paragraphs to the number of conjunctions at paragraph initial position School Number of Paragraphs Frequency of Ratio of Conjunctions at Paragraphs to Paragraph Initial Conjunctions at Paragraph Initial YIKROSEC 172 111 2:1 MAKROSEC 166 107 2:1 AMEST 265 150 2:1 AKWAMUMAN 207 118 2:1 It is revealed that positioning the conjunctions in the clauses in which they occurred is another area in which the subjects from the various schools demonstrated so much similarity 61 in their use of conjunctions. Table 8 shows that across all the four schools, there is a penchant for placing conjunctions at paragraph openings than at any other position. The table reveals that constantly across all the four schools, approximately, for every two paragraphs written, one begins or is linked with a conjunction (2:1). The trend however varies when it comes to clause linkage. For example, in Table 7, with AKWAMUMAN, approximately, one out of every five clauses is logically linked with a conjunction (5:1). For AMEST, approximately, each of every seven clauses is connected with a conjunction (7:1). With YIKROSEC and MAKROSEC, approximately, out of every six clauses written, one gets connected with a conjunction (6:1). This means that paragraphs are more frequently linked with conjunctive expressions than clauses are. This high frequency of connecting paragraphs more than clauses can be attributed to the students‘ level of proficiency in the target language and can yet be described as characteristic of their use of conjunctions. This revelation is not related to any of the literature reviewed but is stumbled upon in the course of this analysis. 4.3.1.3. Regular Syntactic Positions of the Conjunctive Relations Another description of the students‘ use of conjunctions was to find out if there are any regular syntactic positions of the semantic relations in each set of data. To obtain this information, the SPSS was used to run a cross tabulation of the semantic relations versus the syntactic positions of paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions. Tables 9 to 12 illustrate the distribution of the semantic relations at paragraph initial (p ini), clause initial (c ini), and clause medial (c med) positions. 62 The Additive Relation Table 9: Distribution of the additive relation at paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions School Frequency/Percentage Total Frequency/Percentage p ini c ini c med AKWAMUMAN 35 48 27 110 31.5% 43.2% 25.1% 100% AMEST 49 47 3 99 49.5.7% 47.5% 3.0% 100% MAKROSEC 31 29 4 64 48.4% 45.3% 6.2% 100% YIKROSEC 21 30 8 69 35.6% 50.8% 13.6% 100% Among the three positions of paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial, the order of preference is paragraph initial, followed by clause initial, with clause medial being the least preferred position in terms of positioning the conjunctions. However, the interest in this section is to compare the frequencies of the relations linking paragraphs as against their frequencies of linking clauses. For this reason, since clause initial and clause medial positions are both for clause linkage, it is necessary to put their frequencies together and juxtapose that sum with the figure for paragraph initial position. The table above shows that, across all the four schools, the figures for clause initial and clause medial positions outweigh the figures for paragraph initial position. 63 The Adversative Relation Table 10: Distribution of the adversative relation at paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial positions School Frequency/Percentage Total Frequency/Percentage p ini c ini c med AKWAMUMAN 3 10 7 20 15% 52.6% 33.3% 100% AMEST 2 2 3 7 28.6% 28.6% 42.9% 100% MAKROSEC 4 1 1 6 66.7% 16.7% 16.7% 100% YIKROSEC 3 14 0 17 17.6% 80% 0% 100% There is a little exception in this table. While the figures for clause initial and clause medial are more than the figures for paragraph initial in AKWAMUMAN, AMEST and YIKROSEC, with MAKROSEC, the figure for paragraph initial is a little more than the figure for clause initial and clause medial put together. The difference of two with which MAKROSEC shows this divergence (refer to Table 10 above) is rather minimal for any tangible implications to be outlined in this regard. 64 The Causal Relation Table 11: Distribution of the causal relation across syntactic positions of paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial School Frequency/Percentage Total Frequency/Percentage p ini c ini c med AKWAMUMAN 1 22 6 29 3.4% 75.9% 20.7% 100% AMEST 3 16 1 20 15% 80% 5.0% 100% MAKROSEC 5 20 4 29 17.2% 69.0% 13.8% 100% YIKROSEC 3 15 9 27 11.1% 55.6% 33.3% 100% The figures for this table also show that frequencies of clause initial and clause medial put together outweigh the frequencies for paragraph initial positions. This is not dissimilar to the trend observed with the additive and adversative relations. At this juncture, it can be said that there is a proclivity for the expression of additive, adversative, and causal relations between clauses than between paragraphs 65 The Temporal Relation Table 12: Distribution of the temporal relation across syntactic positions of paragraph initial, clause initial, and clause medial School Frequency/Percentage Total Frequency/Percentage p ini c ini c med AKWAMUMAN 79 0 5 84 94.0% 0% 6.0% 100% AMEST 96 11 3 110 87.3% 10.0% 2.7% 100% MAKROSEC 67 14 8 89 75.3% 15.7% 9.0% 100% YIKROSEC 84 7 2 93 90.3% 7.5% 2.2% 100% In this table, there is a reverse of what is reported in Tables 9, 10, and 11 above. Table 12 rather reveals that across all the four schools, the figures for paragraph initial are by far larger than the figures of clause initial and clause medial put together. As noted above, it is evident from the discussion in this section that while the additive, adversative, and causal relations are very often used for relaying information from one clause to another more than they are used for relating information in one paragraph to another; the temporal relation, on the other hand, is used more frequently for paragraph linkage than for clause linkage. This trend is overwhelmingly evident in Table 12 above. It means that most of the temporal conjunctions are very often used at paragraph initial positions than at the other two positions. 66 The general pattern in this section is that the temporal conjunctions are preferred for relaying information from one paragraph into another, while the other conjunctions are less used for this purpose. The implication then is that the addition of new information (additive relation), the expression of a contrary information (adversative), and cause and effect (the causal relation) are often done between clauses than between paragraphs; while sequence of events or time relations are very often expressed between paragraphs than between clauses. This is yet another revelation not mentioned in any of the literature reviewed but found in the course of this analysis. In conclusion, the discussion in this section is nonetheless similar to the findings made by Larson (2011) who studied some characteristics of Swedish Junior High School students‘ writing in English and reported that the subjects have a tendency to use coordinating conjunctions and commas to connect independent clauses more frequently. These two reports, Larson (2011) and this current one, indicate that either for syntactic or semantic purposes, students at the lower levels of education have peculiar ways of using conjunctions in communication. 4.3.2. Findings in Relation to the Research Question Two: Do the subjects have appreciable repertoire of conjunctive expressions? In relation to the observation discussed in section 1.3 which triggers this research, one of the objectives of this study was to investigate if students in other schools also use a few particular conjunctions much more frequently than others. For that matter, the study sought to answer the research question above. To answer this research question, the frequencies of occurrence of the conjunctions identified were compared. The results presented in Tables 1 to 4 above suggest that only a few particular conjunctive expressions get used very often in all the four sets of essays analysed in this study. The analysis of the following (unedited) sample clauses from some of the essays illustrates how some of the conjunctions were used. 67 1. On the first place, students involve themselves in going out without permission note of a teacher (AMEST, 1.2). After the introductory paragraph, this is the first clause that raises the first point to begin the discussion of the acts of indiscipline in the school and, the conjunction is on the first place (in the first place). Regularly across the four sets of essays, the first point either begins with in the first place, first, firstly, first of all, or first and foremost. The next point being raised will usually begin with furthermore, secondly, or second. For example: 2. Further more, students also engage themselves in stealing which is a bad behaviour not to practice (AMEST, 1.4). As can be observed, samples (1) and (2) are taken from the same essay and this is the regular trend throughout all the four sets of essays. It is also possible to find the same conjunction more than once in the same essay. For instance, if furthermore, firstly, secondly, or thirdly is used during the discussion of the forms of indiscipline in the school, discussing the second part of the question, that is, suggesting the solutions to the school authorities, the same conjunctions are repeated in the same manner. For instance, 3. Furthermore, some students are so indiscipline that they brought mobile phones to the school eventhough it is not allowed (AMEST 10.6). Furthermore, I will suggest that if any student is found with mobile phone, that student should be punish… (AMEST 10.14). In sample (3), furthermore is used twice in the same essay. This illustrates a repetitive use of some of the conjunctions, accounting for their high frequencies of occurrence. 68 Tables 13 shows a compilation of the most frequently used conjunctions in each school. Table 13: The most frequently used conjunctions for each relation Relation School AKWAMUMAN AMEST MAKROSEC YIKROSEC also also again also and and also and Additive another form of even and but for instance furthermore especially even furthermore in addition furthermore furthermore moreover in fact moreover moreover adversative but but however — — causal because due to this so due to this so so therefore so temporal first and first finally finally foremost first of all first of all first and first of all foremost firstly firstly firstly first of all in conclusion lastly lastly firstly second thirdly secondly lastly secondly thirdly thirdly secondly third to conclude to begin with thirdly thirdly to begin with These frequently used conjunctions are among a set of additive conjunctions described by Halliday and Hasan (1976) as expressions of ‗there is something more to be added in 69 connection with the previous information.‘ Meanwhile, there are many other conjunctive expressions that have just this same sense. These include: further, again, moreover, what is more, besides, in addition (to this), etc. These are alternatives that could be used in some other instances in place of also, and, and furthermore, etc. which are used every now and then. Though some of these alternatives appeared once or twice in some sets, others did not feature at all in any of the four sets of essays. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), as noted previously, there are many other additive functions with specific conjunctions. These include alternative (or); similarity (similarly, likewise, in the same way, etc.); contrast or negative comparison (on the other hand, by contrast, as opposed to this, etc.), exemplification (for example, for instance, example, etc.). A lot of these were either minimally used or not used at all. This means that in expressing the additive relation, students in these schools hardly exemplify and hardly show relations of similarity or opposition in the issues that they discuss in their essays. None of the conjunctions used for the adversative relation occurred across all the four schools as frequently used, though but was highly used in two schools. In this regard, however, on the other hand, although/though, conversely, notwithstanding, nevertheless, unlike, on the contrary, yet, while this is true, in contrast, nonetheless, etc. were all expected to be used alongside but in expressing this relation. For the causal relation, so was used very frequently in all the four sets of data. Other conjunctive expressions which were expected in expressing this relation include, hence, as a consequence, for this reason, accordingly, owing to this/these, as a result, consequently, etc. This seeming inability to express both the adversative and causal relations could be attributed to a developmental issue: that students at this level do not normally think of adversatives and cause and effects in their lines of argument. It could as well be surmised that in their local languages, Dangme and Twi, adversatives and causals are less used in the expression of ideas, and this could be a case of 70 L1 influence. This agrees with findings made by Cho (1998) who reported that students‘ length of study was related to the overall occurrence of the range of connectives produced. It however disagrees with Mudhi and Hussein (2014) who reported that Kuwaiti EFL learners overuse causals. In this current study, the subjects rather underused causals. Similarly, throughout all the four schools, the temporal relation also shows an overwhelming preference for a few particular conjunctions: first of all, firstly/first, secondly/second, and thirdly/third, to others. These temporal conjunctions have one/two thing(s) in common: they express a cataphoric/sequential order (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). However, just like any other relation, Halliday and Hasan (1976) state in their classifications that there are different shades of the temporal relation. Some temporal conjunctions such as earlier, before (that), previously, etc. may relate the current information to a previous one; some (currently, simultaneously, at the same time, meanwhile, etc.) may relate the current information to another one as happening concurrently. Conjunctions in these categories were hardly used across all the four sets of corpora. Other temporal conjunctive expressions may also indicate a conclusion of the current discussion. These include, in conclusion, to conclude, at last, as a final point, etc. In this category, only two schools recorded finally as part of the most frequently used. The rest of the conjunctions in this category were either not used at all or minimally used. It therefore suggests that these students‘ use of the temporal relation is very often for the expression of such cataphoric indicators or sequential order. Time relations are hardly presented in anaphoric terms and conclusions are also hardly drawn. This could mean that the students are not familiar with such conclusive and anaphoric conjunctions or those conjunctions are not in their local languages. From the discussion above, the results show that the students use some conjunctions very frequently than others and for that matter, the answer to the research question above is, no; the subjects seem to be rather familiar with only a few conjunctive expressions. This 71 indicates that the observation discussed in section 1.3 exists in some other schools in addition to AMEST and MAKROSEC where the pattern of usage that motivated this study was observed. It could then be speculated that SHS students in many other schools are likely to show similar tendencies in their use of conjunctions for cohesion. 4.4. Answering the Research Question Three: What could account for the problem/patterns shown? The study was also designed to find out some plausible causes of the problem and of the patterns that may be revealed. From the analysis and the discussion above, it is obvious that certain commonalities exist across all the four sampled schools and the subjects exhibit a few challenges with their use of conjunctions. What could be the possible causes then? It became apparent from the analysis that certain semantic relations were used more often than others. It was also revealed that a few conjunctions recorded very high frequencies of occurrence, while a large chunk were minimally used. As it were, the adversative and causal relations as well as conjunctive expressions relating to these two semantic relations were the least used across all the four schools. The implications then are that: (a) The students appear to be familiar with very few particular conjunctions for the semantic relations and that those conjunctions which are most often used are possibly the only ones in the repertoire of the students. Particularly, they seem not to be familiar with the semantic functions of the adversative and causal relations. It may thus be speculated that these two relations are difficult for the students to comprehend and this could account for reasons why they seem to avoid using them. (b) It can also be speculated that the students are yet to be exposed to the importance of varying their conjunctive expressions in relation to various themes being expressed in their essays. 72 (c) Part of the problem could be as a result of transfer of spoken strategies from their indigenous language into the written genre of the English language. For example, the excerpt below smacks of this possible transfer. 12 Finally, any student found drinking alcohol, smoking or performing abortion and 13 these are all form of indiscipline acts so far as is against the rules of the school. And I think this can be solved by making the victim sign a bond of good behaviour and if the person continues to be in that act the student should be dismissed from the school… (AMEST, 5.12, 13). Obviously, from this excerpt, the use of and at the beginning of clause (13) is either redundant or wrongly used. However, this is a manifestation of how the students speak; and this usage is an indication of transfer of spoken strategies into the written genre. This style is pervasive across all the four schools and appears to be responsible for the high frequencies of conjunctions such as also, and, firstly, secondly, etc. This finding is in tandem with Schleppegrell (1996) who compares strategies for conjunction in spoken English and ESL writings and reports that the subjects sometimes draw on registers that are more appropriate for genres of interactional speech. In addition, discussing the subjects‘ predisposition towards certain semantic relations than others (in section 4.3.1.1), it was revealed in Table 5 that AKWAMUMAN showed divergence from the patterns shown by the Dangme schools. It was found that while the Dangme schools showed preference for the temporal relation more than the others, AKWAMUMAN, on the other hand, showed preference for the additive more than the other relations. This difference shown by AKWAMUMAN may be attributable to the linguistic background which is different from the students of the other three schools. This is because AKWAMUMAN is located in a Twi-speaking community and that may account for the 73 observed pattern which is different from the other three schools that are in the Dangme- speaking communities. Could it then be that the different cultural background/ethnicity may influence learners‘ use of conjunctions? In that case, this will agree with the findings of McClure and Steffensen (1980) who also compared the use of conjunctions among Anglo, Black, and Hispanic children in third, sixth, and ninth grades and reported that the Anglos, whose first language is English, acquire the use of conjunctions at an earlier stage than their Black and Hispanic counterparts. In this current study, this revelation appears to support the suggestion that the L1 of the learner may influence their use of conjunctions because of the differences in cultural settings. Since Ghana is multilingual, it is highly probable that learners with different linguistic/cultural backgrounds will show different patterns in their use of these conjunctive relations. This is apparently confirmed by the tendency of the students in the school located in the Twi community being different from the schools located in the Dangme communities in terms of their most preferred choices of conjunctive expressions and their patterns of usage. The divergence showed by AKWAMUMAN in addition to some other patterns revealed in the students‘ of conjunctions may as well be attributed to the students‘ in-group language. As an academic institution, the possibility of the existence of a speech community cannot be ruled out and this is likely to have an influence on the students‘ use of conjunctions in a particular school. Labov (1989) in Hudson (1996) suggests that any description of a language must take the speech community into account. Ghana as a country forms an English language speech community. This speech community is made up of a nest of sub-speech communities of which there is no doubt that the Senior High institutions, just like the tertiary institutions, are members of this larger speech community. The patterns showed across all the four sampled schools in this study can also be understood as a reflection of the vocabulary of 74 conjunctive expressions of their institutions as smaller speech communities. According to Labov (1989) in Hudson (1996:30), ―a representative sample of speakers of a speech community hardly varies at all, even on the finest details.‖ In general, the commonalities shown from the data in this current study seems to confirm this assertion of Labov‘s. Finally, due to the patterns that emerged: the preference for some conjunctions to others, so pervasive across all the four schools; the inability to express both the adversative and causal relations in all the four schools; the high proclivity of connecting paragraphs than clauses, etc. suggest that the preferred usage patterns may be related to the students‘ stage of proficiency in the acquisition of the target language. This supports similar findings made by McClure and Steffensen‘s (1980) that there is an improvement in the use of conjunctions as the learner progresses through the grades. It then means that most students at this level of education in Ghana will probably show similar traits in their use of conjunctions. 4.5. Summary The chapter presented, analysed, and discussed the results. From the discussion, answers to the research questions were provided. Some common patterns of the students‘ use of conjunctions as well as some plausible reasons for the observed patterns that were revealed were also outlined. The next chapter presents a summary of the study, a summary of the findings, conclusions, and recommendations. 75 CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARY OF THE STUDY, SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1. Introduction The corpora obtained from the four schools were analyzed and processed into quantitative data, mainly, frequencies and percentages and the results were compared. The research findings were presented and discussed and answers to the research questions were also provided in chapter four. In this final chapter, the entire study and findings are summarised, as well as conclusions and recommendations are made. Suggestions for further studies are also presented. 5.2. Summary of the Study This study was designed to find out some common patterns in the SHS students‘ use of conjunctions. It was also to find out if SHS students in other schools also use conjunctions in a similar fashion as AMEST and MAKROSEC students who tend to use the same conjunctions more frequently than others. Finally, the study was meant to find out some plausible reasons of the patterns that were expected to be found. In chapter one, the background of the study was presented. The chapter also presented the problem that motivated this study, the objectives of the study, and the questions that the study sought to provide answers to. It also outlined the scope of the study. Finally, the chapter also provided operational definitions of major terminologies as they are used in this study. In chapter two, some earlier studies which are relevant to this study were reviewed. In addition to this, the chapter also presented the theoretical framework on which this study hinges. Chapter three outlined the methodology of the study. To achieve the research objectives reiterated above, essays were collected from four SHSs selected from three municipalities/districts. Conjunctive expressions used in the essays were captured with 76 Microsoft Access and analysed with the use of the SPSS software. In chapter four, the results of the SPSS software were presented and discussed and some findings were made. Implications of the findings were also outlined. This chapter will summarise the findings and draw conclusions. It will also make recommendations for further studies. The following section presents a summary of the research findings. 5.3. Summary of the Findings The analysis provides evidence that the subjects from all the four schools sampled for this study showed certain commonalities, which can be described as characteristic of their use of conjunctions. 1. It became apparent that the subjects across all the four schools use a few conjunctions highly frequently than many others, with each school having its own set of these conjunctions that they frequently use. 2. It was also found that these students use more additive and temporal conjunctions than the adversative and causal conjunctions. 3. Again, it was found that in all the four sets of essays gathered for the study, paragraphs were more frequently linked than clauses were. 4. Lastly, it also became manifest that paragraphs were more frequently linked with the temporal conjunctions, while clauses were more frequently linked with the additive, adversative and causal conjunctions than the temporal conjunctions. 5.4. Conclusions Based on the evidence gathered on which the above findings were made, this study can conclude that students of AKWAMUMAN, AMEST, MAKROSEC and YIKROSEC have limited repertoire of conjunctive expressions and for that matter, they are not able to express the adversative and causal relations satisfactorily. This seems to make them use additive and 77 temporal conjunctions more frequently than adversative and causal conjunctions. This appears to show their inability to present a balance in the semantic relations in their essays. Such inabilities tend to make a writer to write badly as the lack of balance renders such arguments narrow and shallow. A fair balance of the semantic relations is however expected to open various dimensions of the subject matter and liven up the discussion. Meanwhile, because the study is oriented for exploratory and descriptive purposes, the evidence gathered for the causes of the patterns in the students‘ use of conjunctive expressions is rather inadequate to draw any authentic conclusions about the reasons for the patterns. However, the patterns that emerged suggest that the problem with the students‘ use of conjunctions as found in this study could be a developmental issue because it is envisaged that mature or advanced learners may be able to vary their conjunctive expressions much better than the subjects of this study did. In other words, the study therefore attributes the phenomenon to, possibly, the students‘ level of proficiency in the target language. In addition, it is conjectured that the problem could as well be as a result of the transfer of spoken strategies into the written genre of English. Furthermore, though the use of conjunctions is expected to be idiolectal, evidence from this study suggests patterns close to dialectal, making the problem partly attributable to the students‘ social networks, for which the larger community in which they live and/or their academic institutions as a speech community may be partly responsible. As academic institutions, the students may have their in-group languages, which is likely to interfere with their choice of conjunctions. 5.5. Recommendations for Teachers, Examiners, and the English Language Curriculum Developers This study could be said to have a major significance for education, most especially, for the teachers, examiners, and the English Language curriculum developers. It provides 78 information for teachers of English Language at the SHS or pre-tertiary levels to strive to place more emphasis on the teaching of conjunctions so that the students can acquire appreciable mastery of their usages. The evidence that the students are familiar with a few conjunctions provides a feedback for the English Language curriculum developers to provide a bit more details and copious examples in the syllabus for the teaching of conjunctions at the pre-tertiary levels of education in Ghana. As it stands now, the provisions in the syllabus are only for grammatical purposes with very scanty examples. It is also important to incorporate the semantic functions of the conjunctions in the SHS English Language syllabus. These recommendations will make the students aware of more conjunctive expressions and their usages and will be able to vary their conjunctive expressions in their writings. This will foreground the different themes in their essays, thereby helping the students to become better writers. It will also break the monotony in their use of conjunctive expressions in their essays and make reading of their essays interesting. Moreover, the students should be encouraged to read extensively. This will also help them to acquire more conjunctive expressions and their usages; it will enrich their overall language use and in turn enhance their discourse. Teachers should constantly monitor the students‘ use of these linguistic items throughout their SHS programme. The teachers can do this by paying particular attention to the conjunctions in the students‘ essays. By engaging in this monitoring style, the teachers will identify the students‘ weaknesses/difficulties and strategise for corrections. This is crucial because conjunctions are important linguistic items that are indispensable in writing for any purpose and at any level. In a nutshell, the findings made in this study will apprise teachers and examiners of the fact that learners go through a number of stages on their way to attaining proficiency in the target language; and with this awareness, together with an idea of some typical patterns in students‘ use of conjunctions, teachers and examiners will know what to expect at what time from the students. 79 5.6. Suggestions for Further Studies Considering the large number of SHSs in Ghana, both public and private schools, the sample size of this study is rather small for any generalizations to be made in respect of the SHS students‘ use of conjunctive expressions throughout the country. This study being an exploratory one; the researcher therefore recommends that further and wider excursions made into SHS students‘ use of conjunctions will be worthwhile. The following are a few suggestions for further studies which can be carried out. 1. To be able to propound a model that is authentic enough to describe a general pattern of the SHS students‘ use of conjunctions across all the regions of Ghana, it is recommended that a similar study be carried out throughout the country and the results compared. 2. To be able to fully account for the causes of the students‘ difficulties in their use of some conjunctions, it is recommended that another study which will take the linguistic backgrounds, including bilingual issues of the subjects, into account will be worthwhile. 3. A comparative study of the use of conjunctions by students at the SHS and university levels is also essential. This will unravel developmental differences in the use of conjunctions as the learner glides towards achieving proficiency of the target language. 4. A comparative study of conjunctions in students‘ L1 and English language conjunctions to investigate the effect of the use of conjunctions in the L1 on the use of the English language conjunctive expressions will also be rewarding. 80 EFERENCES Aidinlou, N. A. & Reshadi E. (2014). A Comparative Study of the Use of Conjunctions and References in Electronic Mails vs. Paper-based Letters. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 5 (3): 611- 615. Bloor, T. & Bloor, M. (2004). The functional analysis of English: A Hallidayan approach (2nd Ed). London: Arnold Cho, Y. (1998). Use of Connectives in writings by Korean Learners of English. Teachers College, Columbia University. Retrieved 8 November 2015, from www: http://ericfac.piccard.csc.com Crewe, W. J. (1990). The illogic of logical connectives. Retrieved 5 January 2016, from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ Eggins, S. (2004). An introduction to systemic functional linguistics (2nd Ed). London: Continuum International. Halliday, M.A.K & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Halliday, M.A.K. & Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th Ed). Birmingham: Routledge. Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold. nd Hudson, R. A. (1996). Sociolinguistics (2 Ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Kum, L. L. (1993). A study of the use of connectives in the writing of AL classes: a dissertation submitted to the faculty of education in candidacy for the degree of Master of Education, Department of Curriculum Studies, University Of Hong Kong 81 Larson, P. (2011). Characteristics of junior high school students’ writing in English. Uppsala University: Sweden Martin, J.R. (1992). English text: system and structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins. McClure, E and Steffensen, S. M. (1980). A study of the use of conjunctions across grades and ethnic groups. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign University. Retrieved 29 October 2015, from https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/17948/ctrstreadtechrepv01980i 00158_opt.pdf?sequence=1 Mudhhi, S. K. & Hussein, R. F. (2014). A corpus–based study of conjunctive adjuncts in the writings of native and non-native speakers of English. English Linguistics Research Vol. 3 (2): 18 — 32 Sciedu Press: ISSN 1927-6028 E-ISSN 1927-6036. Retrieved 10 January 2016, from http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/elr.v3n2p18 Nemser, W. (1969). Approximative systems of foreign language learners. Retrieved 8th November 2015, from www: http://ericfac.piccard.csc.com. Regulations and Draft Syllabuses for West African Senior School Certificate Examinations, (2011). Accra: The West African Examinations Council Schleppegrell, M. J. (1996). Conjunction in Spoken English and ESL Writing. Oxford Journals, Arts & Humanities, Applied Linguistics. Volume 17 (3): 271-285. 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Accra: Academic publications 82 Appendix One: The results from the analysis of the SPSS software AKWAMUMAN — ADDITIVE Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid again 2 .8 1.8 1.8 also 42 17.3 38.2 40.0 and also 3 1.2 2.7 42.7 another form of 11 4.5 10.0 52.7 especially 2 .8 1.8 54.5 for instance 5 2.1 4.5 59.1 furthermore 8 3.3 7.3 66.4 in addition 2 .8 1.8 68.2 moreover 5 2.1 4.5 72.7 most especially 1 .4 .9 73.6 thus 2 .8 1.8 75.5 and 15 6.2 13.6 89.1 too 1 .4 .9 90.0 one of 1 .4 .9 90.9 likewise 1 .4 .9 91.8 equally 1 .4 .9 92.7 the other one 1 .4 .9 93.6 another 1 .4 .9 94.5 in addition to 1 .4 .9 95.5 to add to 1 .4 .9 96.4 one form of 1 .4 .9 97.3 also another 1 .4 .9 98.2 another suggestion 1 .4 .9 99.1 even 1 .4 .9 100.0 Total 110 45.3 100.0 Missing System 133 54.7 Total 243 100.0 [ 83 AKWAMUMAN — ADVERSATIVE Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid but 7 2.9 35.0 35.0 on the other hand 1 .4 5.0 40.0 nevertheless 1 .4 5.0 45.0 rather 2 .8 10.0 55.0 however 6 2.5 30.0 85.0 instead of 2 .8 10.0 95.0 as a matter of 1 .4 5.0 100.0 fact Total 20 8.2 100.0 Missing System 223 91.8 Total 243 100.0 AKWAMUMAN — CAUSAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid as a result 3 1.2 10.3 10.3 as a result of 1 .4 3.4 13.8 that because 6 2.5 20.7 34.5 due to this 2 .8 6.9 41.4 in order to 1 .4 3.4 44.8 so 7 2.9 24.1 69.0 so that 1 .4 3.4 72.4 therefore 2 .8 6.9 79.3 thus 1 .4 3.4 82.8 since 3 1.2 10.3 93.1 this is because 1 .4 3.4 96.6 because of 1 .4 3.4 100.0 Total 29 11.9 100.0 Missing System 214 88.1 Total 243 100.0 84 AKWAMUMAN — TEMPORAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid finally 3 1.2 3.6 3.6 first 1 .4 1.2 4.8 first and foremost 4 1.6 4.8 9.5 first of all 6 2.5 7.1 16.7 firstly 12 4.9 14.3 31.0 in conclusion 1 .4 1.2 32.1 last but not the least 1 .4 1.2 33.3 lastly 9 3.7 10.7 44.0 one 3 1.2 3.6 47.6 secondly 16 6.6 19.0 66.7 the last form of 1 .4 1.2 67.9 thirdly 8 3.3 9.5 77.4 to begin with 5 2.1 6.0 83.3 to commence with 1 .4 1.2 84.5 to conclude 3 1.2 3.6 88.1 to conclude with 1 .4 1.2 89.3 to end with 1 .4 1.2 90.5 two 1 .4 1.2 91.7 the second form of 1 .4 1.2 92.9 the first form of 1 .4 1.2 94.0 the last 1 .4 1.2 95.2 in the nutshell 1 .4 1.2 96.4 the last but not the 1 .4 1.2 97.6 least second 1 .4 1.2 98.8 the first of all 1 .4 1.2 100.0 Total 84 34.6 100.0 Missing System 159 65.4 Total 243 100.0 85 AKWAMUMAN — RELATIONS Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid ADDITIVE 111 45.7 45.7 45.7 ADVERSATI 19 7.8 7.8 53.5 VE CAUSAL 29 11.9 11.9 65.4 TEMPORAL 84 34.6 34.6 100.0 Total 243 100.0 100.0 AKWAMUMAN — THE SYNTACTIC POSITIONS Valid Frequency Percent Percent Cumulative Percent Valid p ini 118 48.6 48.6 48.6 c ini 80 32.9 32.9 81.5 c med 45 18.5 18.5 100.0 Total 243 100.0 100.0 AKWAMUMAN — RELATION * SYNTACTIC POSITION Cross tabulation SYNTACTIC POSITION p ini c ini c med Total RELATIO ADDITIVE Count 35 48 28 111 N % within 31.5% 43.2% 25.2% 100.0% RELATION ADVERSATI Count 3 10 6 19 VE % within 15.8% 52.6% 31.6% 100.0% RELATION CAUSAL Count 1 22 6 29 % within 3.4% 75.9% 20.7% 100.0% RELATION TEMPORAL Count 79 0 5 84 % within 94.0% .0% 6.0% 100.0% RELATION Total Count 118 80 45 243 % within 48.6% 32.9% 18.5% 100.0% RELATION 86 AMEST — ADDITIVE Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid again 2 .8 2.0 2.0 also 18 7.6 18.2 20.2 and also 1 .4 1.0 21.2 another form of 2 .8 2.0 23.2 especially 2 .8 2.0 25.3 for instance 2 .8 2.0 27.3 furthermore 16 6.8 16.2 43.4 in addition 8 3.4 8.1 51.5 in fact 5 2.1 5.1 56.6 in this case 3 1.3 3.0 59.6 moreover 6 2.5 6.1 65.7 thus 1 .4 1.0 66.7 to continue with 1 .4 1.0 67.7 and 13 5.5 13.1 80.8 as matter of fact 1 .4 1.0 81.8 even 4 1.7 4.0 85.9 all this 1 .4 1.0 86.9 to hit the nail right in 1 .4 1.0 87.9 the head additionally 1 .4 1.0 88.9 in addition to the above 1 .4 1.0 89.9 to continue 1 .4 1.0 90.9 in this way 1 .4 1.0 91.9 another act 1 .4 1.0 92.9 all these acts 1 .4 1.0 93.9 another cause of 1 .4 1.0 94.9 for example 2 .8 2.0 97.0 in all this 2 .8 2.0 99.0 these is 1 .4 1.0 100.0 Total 99 41.9 100.0 Missing System 137 58.1 Total 236 100.0 87 AMEST — ADVERSATIVE Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid but 3 1.3 42.9 42.9 rather 2 .8 28.6 71.4 however 1 .4 14.3 85.7 at the other 1 .4 14.3 100.0 hand Total 7 3.0 100.0 Missing System 229 97.0 Total 236 100.0 AMEST — CAUSAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid because 2 .8 10.0 10.0 due to this 5 2.1 25.0 35.0 for this reason 1 .4 5.0 40.0 in order to 1 .4 5.0 45.0 so 6 2.5 30.0 75.0 therefore 2 .8 10.0 85.0 because of 1 .4 5.0 90.0 hence 1 .4 5.0 95.0 through this 1 .4 5.0 100.0 Total 20 8.5 100.0 Missing System 216 91.5 Total 236 100.0 88 AMEST — TEMPORAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid before 1 .4 .9 .9 finally 3 1.3 2.7 3.6 first 6 2.5 5.5 9.1 first and foremost 3 1.3 2.7 11.8 first of all 10 4.2 9.1 20.9 firstly 8 3.4 7.3 28.2 in a nutshell 2 .8 1.8 30.0 in conclusion 5 2.1 4.5 34.5 last but not the least 3 1.3 2.7 37.3 lastly 3 1.3 2.7 40.0 secondly 11 4.7 10.0 50.0 thirdly 4 1.7 3.6 53.6 to begin with 7 3.0 6.4 60.0 to conclude 3 1.3 2.7 62.7 to set the ball rolling 2 .8 1.8 64.5 to start with 2 .8 1.8 66.4 the first form of 3 1.3 2.7 69.1 in the nutshell 1 .4 .9 70.0 the last but not the 2 .8 1.8 71.8 least second 7 3.0 6.4 78.2 on the first place 1 .4 .9 79.1 until 1 .4 .9 80.0 my first suggestion 1 .4 .9 80.9 my second suggestion 1 .4 .9 81.8 first of foremost 1 .4 .9 82.7 third 4 1.7 3.6 86.4 fourth 2 .8 1.8 88.2 in the first place 2 .8 1.8 90.0 in the last place 1 .4 .9 90.9 last 2 .8 1.8 92.7 after 1 .4 .9 93.6 the second form 1 .4 .9 94.5 then 1 .4 .9 95.5 89 in the third place 1 .4 .9 96.4 in the first point 1 .4 .9 97.3 in my second point 1 .4 .9 98.2 in my third point 1 .4 .9 99.1 in a first place 1 .4 .9 100.0 Total 110 46.6 100.0 Missing System 126 53.4 Total 236 100.0 AMEST — RELATION Valid Frequency Percent Percent Cumulative Percent Valid additive 99 41.9 41.9 41.9 adversative 7 3.0 3.0 44.9 causal 20 8.5 8.5 53.4 temporal 110 46.6 46.6 100.0 Total 236 100.0 100.0 AMEST — SYNTACTIC POSITION Valid Frequency Percent Percent Cumulative Percent Valid p ini 150 63.6 63.6 63.6 c ini 76 32.2 32.2 95.8 c med 10 4.2 4.2 100.0 Total 236 100.0 100.0 90 AMEST — RELATION * SYNTACTIC POSITION Cross tabulation SYNTACTIC POSITION p ini c ini c med Total RELATIO additive Count 49 47 3 99 N % within 49.5% 47.5% 3.0% 100.0% RELATION adversative Count 2 2 3 7 % within 28.6% 28.6% 42.9% 100.0% RELATION causal Count 3 16 1 20 % within 15.0% 80.0% 5.0% 100.0% RELATION temporal Count 96 11 3 110 % within 87.3% 10.0% 2.7% 100.0% RELATION Total Count 150 76 10 236 % within 63.6% 32.2% 4.2% 100.0% RELATION . 91 MAKROSEC — ADDITIVE Cumulative Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent Valid above all 1 .5 1.6 1.6 again 7 3.7 10.9 12.5 also 10 5.3 15.6 28.1 and also 1 .5 1.6 29.7 especially 4 2.1 6.2 35.9 example 1 .5 1.6 37.5 for instance 2 1.1 3.1 40.6 furthermore 7 3.7 10.9 51.6 in actual fact 1 .5 1.6 53.1 in addition 1 .5 1.6 54.7 in fact 1 .5 1.6 56.2 in this case 1 .5 1.6 57.8 moreover 4 2.1 6.2 64.1 to add up 1 .5 1.6 65.6 to add with 1 .5 1.6 67.2 and 17 9.0 26.6 93.8 even 1 .5 1.6 95.3 another way 2 1.1 3.1 98.4 other measure 1 .5 1.6 100.0 Total 64 34.0 100.0 Missing System 124 66.0 Total 188 100.0 92 MAKROSEC — ADVERSATIVE Frequenc Valid Cumulative y Percent Percent Percent Valid but 2 1.1 33.3 33.3 but still 1 .5 16.7 50.0 but then 1 .5 16.7 66.7 notwithstanding 2 1.1 33.3 100.0 Total 6 3.2 100.0 Missing System 182 96.8 Total 188 100.0 MAKROSEC — CAUSAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid as a result 1 .5 3.4 3.4 because 3 1.6 10.3 13.8 because of that 3 1.6 10.3 24.1 because of this 1 .5 3.4 27.6 due to this 1 .5 3.4 31.0 for this reason 1 .5 3.4 34.5 so 13 6.9 44.8 79.3 so therefore 1 .5 3.4 82.8 therefore 4 2.1 13.8 96.6 as a result of 1 .5 3.4 100.0 Total 29 15.4 100.0 Missing System 159 84.6 Total 188 100.0 93 MAKROSEC — TEMPORAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid at this time 1 .5 1.1 1.1 before 1 .5 1.1 2.2 finally 8 4.3 9.0 11.2 first and foremost 3 1.6 3.4 14.6 first of all 10 5.3 11.2 25.8 firstly 8 4.3 9.0 34.8 in a nut shell 1 .5 1.1 36.0 in conclusion 2 1.1 2.2 38.2 last but not the 2 1.1 2.2 40.4 least lastly 5 2.7 5.6 46.1 meanwhile 1 .5 1.1 47.2 one 2 1.1 2.2 49.4 secondly 19 10.1 21.3 70.8 the first problem 1 .5 1.1 71.9 the last point 1 .5 1.1 73.0 thirdly 6 3.2 6.7 79.8 to begin with 3 1.6 3.4 83.1 to conclude 4 2.1 4.5 87.6 to continue with 1 .5 1.1 88.8 to end 1 .5 1.1 89.9 to set the ball 1 .5 1.1 91.0 rolling to start with 2 1.1 2.2 93.3 one of 2 1.1 2.2 95.5 second 1 .5 1.1 96.6 to wrap up 1 .5 1.1 97.8 now 1 .5 1.1 98.9 after this 1 .5 1.1 100.0 Total 89 47.3 100.0 Missing System 99 52.7 Total 188 100.0 94 MAKROSEC — RELATION Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid additive 64 34.0 34.0 34.0 adversative 6 3.2 3.2 37.2 causal 29 15.4 15.4 52.7 temporal 89 47.3 47.3 100.0 Total 188 100.0 100.0 MAKROSEC — SYNTACTIC POSITION Valid Frequency Percent Percent Cumulative Percent Valid p ini 107 56.9 56.9 56.9 c ini 64 34.0 34.0 91.0 c med 17 9.0 9.0 100.0 Total 188 100.0 100.0 MAKROSEC — RELATION * SYNTACTIC POSITION Cross tabulation SYNTACTIC POSITION p ini c ini c med Total RELATIO additive Count 31 29 4 64 N % within 48.4% 45.3% 6.2% 100.0% RELATION adversative Count 4 1 1 6 % within 66.7% 16.7% 16.7% 100.0% RELATION causal Count 5 20 4 29 % within 17.2% 69.0% 13.8% 100.0% RELATION temporal Count 67 14 8 89 % within 75.3% 15.7% 9.0% 100.0% RELATION Total Count 107 64 17 188 % within 56.9% 34.0% 9.0% 100.0% RELATION 95 YIKROSEC — ADDITIVE Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid again 3 1.5 5.1 5.1 also 7 3.6 11.9 16.9 and also 1 .5 1.7 18.6 especially 1 .5 1.7 20.3 furthermore 8 4.1 13.6 33.9 in addition 1 .5 1.7 35.6 in this case 1 .5 1.7 37.3 moreover 2 1.0 3.4 40.7 and 10 5.1 16.9 57.6 too 1 .5 1.7 59.3 in addition to 1 .5 1.7 61.0 to add to 1 .5 1.7 62.7 even 5 2.6 8.5 71.2 all these 2 1.0 3.4 74.6 all this act 1 .5 1.7 76.3 this is 1 .5 1.7 78.0 besides 1 .5 1.7 79.7 that is 1 .5 1.7 81.4 to the above 1 .5 1.7 83.1 list with all these 1 .5 1.7 84.7 to add more to 1 .5 1.7 86.4 another 1 .5 1.7 88.1 then also 1 .5 1.7 89.8 worst of all 1 .5 1.7 91.5 evermore 1 .5 1.7 93.2 example of this 1 .5 1.7 94.9 by the way 1 .5 1.7 96.6 for this point 1 .5 1.7 98.3 some of these 1 .5 1.7 100.0 Total 59 30.1 100.0 Missing System 137 69.9 Total 196 100.0 96 YIKROSEC — ADVERSATIVE Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid but 14 7.1 82.4 82.4 instead of 1 .5 5.9 88.2 besides 1 .5 5.9 94.1 but rather 1 .5 5.9 100.0 unfortunate Total 17 8.7 100.0 Missing System 179 91.3 Total 196 100.0 YIKROSEC — CAUSAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid as a result 1 .5 3.7 3.7 as a result of 1 .5 3.7 7.4 that because 1 .5 3.7 11.1 because of that 1 .5 3.7 14.8 because of this 1 .5 3.7 18.5 due to this 4 2.0 14.8 33.3 so 13 6.6 48.1 81.5 so that 1 .5 3.7 85.2 therefore 2 1.0 7.4 92.6 this is so 1 .5 3.7 96.3 for that matter 1 .5 3.7 100.0 Total 27 13.8 100.0 Missing System 169 86.2 Total 196 100.0 97 YIKROSEC — TEMPORAL Valid Cumulative Frequency Percent Percent Percent Valid before 1 .5 1.1 1.1 finally 6 3.1 6.5 7.5 first 1 .5 1.1 8.6 first and foremost 4 2.0 4.3 12.9 first of all 10 5.1 10.8 23.7 firstly 11 5.6 11.8 35.5 last but not the least 1 .5 1.1 36.6 lastly 8 4.1 8.6 45.2 secondly 27 13.8 29.0 74.2 thirdly 4 2.0 4.3 78.5 to begin 3 1.5 3.2 81.7 to start with 2 1.0 2.2 83.9 my first suggestion 1 .5 1.1 84.9 my second suggestion 1 .5 1.1 86.0 in the first place 1 .5 1.1 87.1 first of almost 2 1.0 2.2 89.2 after 3 1.5 3.2 92.5 the last thing 1 .5 1.1 93.5 my third suggestion 1 .5 1.1 94.6 but now 1 .5 1.1 95.7 last on my list 1 .5 1.1 96.8 to drop the curtains 1 .5 1.1 97.8 down the first lesson 1 .5 1.1 98.9 to end everything 1 .5 1.1 100.0 Total 93 47.4 100.0 Missing System 103 52.6 Total 196 100.0 98 YIKROSEC — RELATION Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid additive 59 30.1 30.1 30.1 adversative 17 8.7 8.7 38.8 causal 27 13.8 13.8 52.6 temporal 93 47.4 47.4 100.0 Total 196 100.0 100.0 YIKROSEC — SYNTACTIC POSITION Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid p ini 111 56.6 56.6 56.6 c ini 66 33.7 33.7 90.3 c med 19 9.7 9.7 100.0 Total 196 100.0 100.0 YIKROSEC — RELATION * SYNTACTIC POSITION Cross tabulation SYNTACTIC POSITION p ini c ini c med Total RELATIO additive Count 21 30 8 59 N % within 35.6% 50.8% 13.6% 100.0% RELATION adversative Count 3 14 0 17 % within 17.6% 82.4% .0% 100.0% RELATION causal Count 3 15 9 27 % within 11.1% 55.6% 33.3% 100.0% RELATION temporal Count 84 7 2 93 % within 90.3% 7.5% 2.2% 100.0% RELATION Total Count 111 66 19 196 % within 56.6% 33.7% 9.7% 100.0% RELATION 99 Appendix Two: Sample Clauses AKWAMUMAN 1. 1.3. To commence with the forms of indiscipline is the act of stealing. 1.7. Another form of indiscipline is the improper way of using or handling of school‘s property. 1.9. For instance, if you are a science student, it is your duty to make sure that learning materials are being kept intact after being used. 1.10. But when the materials are kept anywhere without the learning materials being arranged at their correct places, some items may get missing the following day and this would reduce the slow pace of learning and would also lead to the low development of the school. 1.11. Academics would also be a problem since learning materials are missing. 1.13. The right to ensure that our work or our various assignments are being done on time. Disrespect also displays the act of indiscipline. 1.15. The administration together with the Headmaster should punish students severely. Infact, students who are no willing to be corrected. 1.16. The last form of indiscipline is absenting yourself from class. The absent students who do not want to make it up to class should be punished. 1.18. The names should be given to the teacher of that lesson inorder to punish he students who did not attend class. 1.19. Also, during preping periods, roll call should be conducted and students must be punished the following day. 2. 2.4. First and foremost, one major indiscipline act is absenteeism by some students and some teachers in the school. 2.5. Thus, some students are very truants in class especially the boys. 2.8. Also, some teachers do not come to class early or at all. 2.10. Some also sent notes and exercises for the students to do. 2.14. Also every class should be given an attendance books for teachers to sign when he/she comes to class, the class prefect should record the time he/she leaves the class and also their remark about the teaching. 2.16. Secondly, most students engages themselves into an occultism. 2.23. As a result of this, most students who are part of these groups a failing and this is not taking the school to the standard we have to get to. 2.25. Also, every students should be well counscelled when they come to form one, some may be as a result of peer pressure. 2.26. Lastly, most students in the boarding house have rented houses outside the school and run out from the boarding house and stay there to do all kinds of acts in that place. 2.30. Also I will suggest that the school will be walled and there will be some cameras around to regulate the coming in and out of the students. 100 2.31. To conclude I will suggest that you will take proper measures to curb this problems or else the standard of education in the school will dwindle. 3. 3.4. Firstly, one form of indiscipline in the school is being truant in class. 3.8. For instance, students who live in the boarding house exhibit these characters. 3.10. But, when you come to school especially being a boarder, you can adopt the mode of truancy by following bad peers. 3.13. So that, they can be punished thoroughly or de-boardnised thus becoming a day student. 3.15. Another form of indiscipline in the school is corruption and bribery. 3.19. Most especially, this happens during class test, examination. 3.21. And this can not be done just for fun. 3.24. And this leads to a retardation of development. 3.26. And definitly, this conditions are fulfilled because they want to be at the top. 3.30. Lastly, students now a days engage themselves into immoral activities such as armed robbery, prostitution and being in ocult groups. 4. 4.4. On the other hand, when these rules and regulations are being disregarded by students can be seen to be a form of indiscipline. 4.6. First of all, poor parental control and guidens. 4.8. Secondly, poor supervision from authorities in the school. It is the duty of the authorities in the school to ensure and make a very good supervision of all the students in the school. 4.9. Because most at times, the authorities fail to do this work better, some students take advantage over that and misbehave. 4.10. Moreover, peer pressure is also the means by which indiscipline in our school occur. 4.15. Finally, indiscipline in our school may also be due to entertainment. 4.16. For instance when a student goes for entertainment and the programme is kissing or may be, having sex, he or she may have the students get to practice immorality which is also a form of indiscipline. 4.18. Firstly, parents should know that they hold the needed responsibilities in child up bringing and for that reason, they should do it with interest. 4.20. Secondly, authorities in the school should take a good monitory of the students. 4.22. Also, students should try as much as possible to make and take good friends in order to learn good characters and not to be influenced. 4.23. Finally, the entertainment committee should know and rate all their programmes in order not to expose negative ideas to students. 101 5. 5.2. First of all, I would like to talk about the improper dressing of most students in the school. 5.6. Also, I have observed that lateness to class has being another indiscipline behaviour of students. 5.7. Since serious studies began this term, I always see most of the students outside the class, especially the boys in the hostil, I do see most of the boys sitting down charting and doing useless thing whiles they are supposed to go to class as at that time. I am not sure that the time for class to begin is 10:00am because I learnt from the prospectus that class is suppose to begain at 7:00am so I don‘t understand why students do not go to class early and nothing is being do about it. 5.8. In addition, the most indiscipline behaviour I have seen is about the teachers not going to class. For the past two months now, most of the teachers have refused to come to class to teach we the students. 5.14. To begin with, I would like to talk about some measures so as to make the teachers come to class. 5.17. Furthermore, I would plead with the disciplinary committee to go according to the purnishment assigned to each fault made by a student in order to keep the students on their toes. If this is to happen, I believe students will begin to dress properly and also go to class on time so as to ensure the success of these great noble institution. 6. 6.3. To begin with, not obeying school rules and regulations is one of the main indiscipline act in my school, many students do not go according to the regulations governing us students. 6.4. Thus, the students do not come to class early but rather leave the school early. 6.5. As a result, roll should be taken in every class so as to prevent this act. 6.7. Also, most of the teachers refuse to go according to their teachings well. 6.12. Nevertheless, entertainment must be bound in the school, if not then it should be rather in the afternoon than in the evening during Saturdays. 6.14. Some go out as a result of entertainment, others also invites foreigners to the school during entertainment. 6.15. This is because it is performed in the evening and as a result, there will not be any identification among the students and also the people outside the school. st 6.16. For instance, during entertainment on the 21 of September, 2015, eleven students were court just because do were not students of this school. 6.17. As a result, they are even in the police station still investigating the issue on what they came to do in our school premises during entertainment. 6.19. So please, I think entertainment should be rather in the afternoon than in the evening every Saturdays. 6.20. In conclusion, I hope the above measures of the indiscipline with their suggestion is going to be taken into consideration. 102 7. 7.3. Firstly, disrespect to teachers is a form of indiscipline in the school. 7.5. So disrespect to teachers is a form of indiscipline in the school. 7.6. Secondly, the use of unprescribed items in school is a form of indiscipline in the school. 7.8. Thirdly, flauting school rules and regulations is a form of indiscipline in the school. 7.11. However, some ways of dealing with them is by giving punishment and internal suspension to students who disrespect the teachers and the authorities of the school. 7.12. And this can bring about discipline to the school. 7.13. Furthermore, conducting inspection in a blue moon can also bring about discipline in the school because, students who bring unprescribed items would be punished and the items would be taken away from them without returning it back in this cause students will be prescribed. 7.14. Lastly, giving appropriate punishments to offenders who flaut the school‘s rules and regulation will bring about discipline in the school because offenders will no more run to town, destroy school property, steal from friends and go home without exeat. 7.15. To end with, these are some forms of indicipline in the school and some ways to deal with them. 8. 8.2. This is because, there is an act of indiscipline in the school, and as a student of a school, I can see this act going on and on. 8.8. Others who attend preps also talk during this hours instead of reading or learning something beneficial. 8.12. Also student break bounds by not signing exeat but rather take different route to town to do whatever they like without the notice of any teacher expecially the senior house master and mistress. 8.13. This is also an act of indiscipline. 8.16. Moreover, students fails to attend classes and even fails to do assignment given by the teachers. 8.18. Others too will be seen at the cateen eaten during this hours. 9. 9.5. Firstly, Akwamuman Senior High School is one of the best Senior High School I have even heard. 9.6. But now Akwamusec is the most indiscipline school in Eastern Region. 9.10. Secondly, going out without exact is another major problem Akwamuman is facing. 9.16. Thirdly, respect and obedience is also one major problem we facing here. 9.22. In addition, laboratory and facilities are what we are lacking, because without good laboratories and facilities how can we make our practical, especially the Science and Home Economic Science. 9.25. To conclude, the school at sit and read their rules and regulation very well before they can change. 103 9.27. And everyone who refuse abide by the rules and regulation should be punished very well. 10. 10.1. One of the major form of indiscipline in the school is the fact that students do not attend classes. 10.6. Also first offenders of this crime should be given punishment such that if they should try to commit that same crime, they would remember the punishment they had the last time and would deter from it. 10.7. It would also serve as a form of warning to those who are planning on joining in that habit. 10.8. The second form of indiscipline which is worrying most of the students and teachers is the lateness of the day students to school and the refusal to participate in the activities of the school like clean up exercise and sports activities. 10.12. This will cause some who are serious to come to school early and also participate in school activities. AMEST 1. 1.2. On the first place, students involve themselves in going out without permission note of a teacher. Students normally snitch out of the school to town to involve in some bad activities such as prostitution, parties etc. which are not part of the school authorities. 1.4. Further more, students also engage themselves in stealing which is a bad behaviour not to practice. 1.7. To conclude with, students are in the habit of wearing short dresses, especially the girls. 2. 2.3. First and foremost, The unbearable things students have adopted is going out off campus without permission and these have always result of problem between members of the town and the school. 2.6. Furthermore, some students make it as a habit of absenting themselves from social- gathering. 2.7. As a matter of fact they stay in the domertary and steal their friend item during social- gathering and this behaviour always create misunderstanding in the dom. I suggest that any student that will absent him/herself from social-gathering should be given external suspension of three weeks to change for good behaviour. 2.8. In addition, the rate at which student are indulge is occultism is high. 2.11. To conclude, students are in the act of flouting the rules and regulation of the school which is bad and this can be prevent by discipline student to change from that behaviour. 104 3. 3.3. First of all, I would like to talk about how students dress on school compound when school is in progress. 3.4. This is the most unbearable situation in the school, student brings some of their house atire to the school in which they dress any how in the school forgetting that school regulation and rules are in action. 3.7. Secondly, student going out permission from any of the authorities. 3.9. Therefore they put on certain behavious which they teachers have not been there before. 3.10. With this students go out deceiving the securities that they just going to buy food at just here. 3.11. Before the securities will realise they have gone to somewhere else. 3.12. This also bring a big problem on the teachers when the student get into trouble when in town without the teachers notice. 3.13. Therefore with this I would like the authorities should very tight so that any student found in that act should be sacked from the school. 3.14. With these I would be most grateful if the school authority are tight and deal with anybody found misbehaving I think indiscipline will reduce. 4. 4.3. First and foremost, I would like to talk about examination malpractice among students. 4.5. Secondly, absenteeism and truancy among students nowadays is becoming rampant that my heart can not stand it until I report to you. 4.6. Sir, until I tell you, you will never know that some of students jump the schools wall and run away to town without permission 4.7. Infact some even pass bush way to town which is very jeopardistic since something can attack them on their way to town in the bush. 4.8. Furthermore indesent and the use of profane language on campus is also a problem at hand which is nothing to write home about. 4.10. However some of them also use profane languages on campus ―vernacular‖ which end them up smoking which is very bad and also destroying the image of the school. 4.11. In the nutshell I will like to suggest that the school administration caution smokers and wall jumpers and if they breach the law they should be dismiss to prevent them from inculcating such a bad habbit into the other students. 5. 5.4. To begin with, now students of AMEST engage themselves in quarrelling which they use sharp objects to stab themselves. 5.6. And this form of act can be dealt with by dismissing the suspects from the boarding house to become day students. 5.7. And I think it can help minimize some acts of indiscipline in the school which may serve as a lesson to the other students in the school. 105 5.8. Second, some students also have form the habit of not going to social gatherings and they either be in the dormitory or town to do whatever they want to do. 5.10. And this can be solve by giving the students three weeks internal suspension with hard labour. 5.11. And with this I think the students will desisting from going to town. 5.12. Finally, any student found drinking alcohol, smoking or performing abortion and these are all forms of indiscipline acts so far as is against the rules of the school. 5.13. And I think this can be solved by making the victim sign a bond of good behaviour and if the person continues to be in that act the student should be dismiss from the school so that it will not influence the other students in the school. 5.14. In a nutshell, I think if you (headmaster) takes these things into consideration the school will move in. 6. 6.2. First of all some of the acts of these are lateness to school, not abiding the school rules and regulation, stealing, insulting teachers etc. 6.3. Firstly one of the act of these is student coming to school late expercially the day students. 6.6. Secondly, stealing is also the one of the act in my school which is going. 6.7. Infact this act if you do not take care may end up somewhere which may end your life because as a young person when you started these is not a good habit and also so far as we the students are in your hand you need to take care of them because our future starting from senior high. 6.9. Thirdly, students insulting teachers and seniors in the school. 6.11. Even the bible also said it obey elders, parents as you are in the school the teachers are your parents so students must obey them. 7. 7.5. Firstly, disobeying teachers and releasing insults on them when ever they tried to correct students when ever they went wrong. 7.6. In this case, I suggest that students who are involved in this act should be given a large portion of land to weed with even more hard labour. 7.7. In addition, jumping of fence of wall by students in the night to go out to clubs and other occasion while they are still in school. 7.9. In these case, I suggest that students who are involved in these act should and must be deboardnised and should be sack from the boarding house if not such people may influence others. 7.10. Finally, refuser to do assignment given to student by their teachers and also late submitting of assignment to teachers by student. 7.11. In these case, I suggest that student who refuse to do assignment should be asked to do the work again or assignment and offer that, the particular student should be given a portion of land to weed for three days. 106 8. 8.4. To hit the nail right in the head in my school many of the student are indiciplined and the practices are: stealing, jumping school walls to town, bullying new student to cut the long story short. 8.5. First, majority of the student take home what does not belong to them like, fresses, monies, items, footwares and others. 8.8. Secondly, jumping school walls to town, the student in the school same times jump school walls unnoticed to town to watch football match or to drink alcohol. 8.10. Even same of the student go home without any body‘s permission. Recently a student girl went home without any others notice for inconviniece uncle came to ask of her during prep and he was a teacher in the school. 8.11. So he found out that the girl was not in school so he decided to call home when he called home he was told the student was not at home. 8.15. Additionally, seniors in the school asking juniors to do unwanted job in the school like a senior asking a junior to use seassors to weed the senior does this usually just to satisfy his her self. 8.16. And I think this is bad. 8.17. All this indicipline acts affects the school as a whole not the student individually. 8.20. And also student who go out of the school should be dismissed to avoid any clash. 8.21. And when all this is done there will be a great change in the student and student life. 9. 9.2. The first form of indiscipline that has been observed is the lateness of students especially boarders to social gatherings. 9.6. So if the students are late for a particular agenda, it eats into the time of the following one. 9.7. Due to this, the agenda of the school is not followed as it should be. 9.9. Also, teachers on duty house mistresses, house masters among other staff including prefects should put pressure on students and to make sure that all dormitories are locked at the exact time they are to be. 9.11. Another form of indiscipline is skipping of class by boys not for a tangible reason. 9.19. It should also be announced that any student found at the ―Backyard‖ during school hours will be sent home that is dismissed. 9.20. In addition to the above an indiscipline act which is a threat to the lives of most students is the attitude of cursing. 9.23. Yes, this is the threat cursing brings to this noble institution. 9.26. Also, anyone caught should be punished severely. This will go a long way to protect the student body and also this noble institution from a big disgrace that can emerge due to this indiscipline act. 10. 10.2. To begin with, I will like to make known to you the rate at which students donot obey school rules and regulations. 10.5. Also, when some of them are coming knowing that they are late but walk so slow like people who are going to a wedding feast. 107 10.6. Furthermore, some students are so indiscipline that they brought mobile phones to school even though it is not allowed. 10.8. So it has led to the disrespect of teachers on campus because, some will say that ―if I am date one teacher on campus what difference does it make between them two‖ so they donot obey anyone so they can bring anything they want provided it is okay with them. 10.9. Moreover, students have develop the habit of stealing other students items. 10.11. So when their friends are gone to class they come back to the dormitaries and break into peoples bags and trunks and steal they items and go away with them leaving those victims without anything for themselves. 10.12. To continue, I will like to elaborate on the ways or solutions to solving these indiscipline acts in my school. MAKROSEC 1.2 And one of this behaviour is truancy. 1.2b And its than expecially by the day student in the school. 1.4 One of the behaviour is jumping of exert in school. 1.11 And how to solve this problem is, the school authoritities have to punish those who refuses to school during school hours or teacher on duties must check this. 1.12 Secondly the school must provide school wall around. 2.4 First of all, students always jump exeat to town without the knowledge of the house parents. 2.7 meanwhile there will not like to sign just becaus authority will not allow them to go out of the school. 2.10 Secondly, students noise making during preps time. 2.13 Finally, failure of student to do their homeworks. 3.2 Firstly, noice making in class. 3.4 Secondly, jumping of exeat in the school also cause indiscipline. 3.5 Finally, lateness to school. 4.3 First and foremost, Jumping of exact have became the most indiscipline act of all student both day and boarders, 4.6 Secondly, smogling food from the dianing hall, student who bring food from the dinning hall to eat in the dometary will sometimes eat on their bed and some on the 108 floor and these may bring about Pest and insect and even rodent into our dometaries and they will be scaring us and beating us to cause infection to our health. 5.5 Notwithstanding, student also show the actitude of irresponsible behaviours on school compus. 5.7 Some subject teacher are also playing the part of indicipline in the schoo by not going to Classroom regular to teach the Student since the student no tha there would be no teacher she or he may also be copare not to come to the classroom with this behavior of both teachers and student is bring the grade of the schoo down. 5.11 Student who also dress improperly should be Punish either by caning are sucking than to go hom and put on the correct wear to school. 6.2 Firstly, breaking of the school rules and regulations is one of major problem in the school. 6.4 For instance, the school authorities as us to sign before going home and before you sign, you have a tangieable reasons before she or he will sign for but some student refuse to do so. 6.7 Moreover, some of the male teachers in the school befriend some of the female student in the school. 6.8 So becausethis act, students lose respect for the teachers. 6.10 So I suggest that, any teacher who will enage himself into act and also a student who will also enage herself in act, the teacher should be suspended and the students should be sacked home and bring her parent to solve that problem. 6.11 Furthermore, The impolite way of talking to teachers is also mojar way of indiscipline in the school. 7.2 To start with, truancy is one of the serious indiscipline act which I would like to look at, especially the day students. 7.6 Again inproper way of dressing, students a found of not dressing properly on compus, 7.7 example boys are normaly found of not putting on their shorts on their waist but rather below and that is on their bocttus. 7.9 To start with the first point, when a student has been recognized by the school that he or she is a truant, that student should be given a punishment, such as weeding and if he or she is still found in that act he or she should be sacked. 7.10 Secondly, about jumping of exeat, when a student is found in that act he or should be made to sign a bond and if it happens the next time he or she must sacked or debordinized. 109 7.11 And to conclude inproper way of dressing must check upon at any time if found, that attair or foot wear should be seized and never to be returned to and through this means the school will be a desciplined organization to dwell in. 8.4 First of all, improper dressing is one of the forms of indiscipline in the school. 8.7 Moreover, lateness is also a form of indiscipline in the school. 8.9 At this time the first lesson has pass and everything that was taught at that moment those who are late to school will not benefit and at the end of the day such student will fail in their exam which bring a disgrace to the school. 8.10 The boarders also do not come to prep early as the school demands instead of coming at the right time, they come late and the things that could be learnt at that time they are unable and this brings the academic perfomance of the school down. 8.11 Furthermore, Laziness is another form of indiscipline in the school. 8.14 So, when they go to preps they do not learn their books they talk, sleep and do thing which will not benefit them. 8.17 In addition, punishment is also a way of dealing with the act mentioned above. 8.20 Finally, I hope these are the three forms of indiscipline in the school and ways to deal with them. 92 This issue has become a challenge in various schools in Ghana, whereby students especially exhibit non-concern about rules and regulations in schools. 9.4 First of all, I would like to show emphasize on how students tend to litter the compund without being ashamed. 9.7 First of all, the name of the school would be tarnished and may not be attractive for outsiders. 9.11 Secondly is the unlawful behaviours students exhibit by eating and drinking in places of study (classrooms) students are ment to eat either in the canteen or the dinning hall. 9.17 Lastly, I would like to talk about exeat jumping. 9.21 As a result of unappropriate attire, some are beaten by angry mobs who thinks they are thieves or robbers, some are even killed to death because they look like a murder they know. 10.2 And is when an Individual or person Conforns or go by the lay down rules and regulations of any institution or organisation. 110 10.6 All these indiscipline acts of students are in actual fact affecting them and therefore needs urgent attention. 10.8 To set the ball rolling, the possession of mobile phones is one major indiscipline act the school is battling with on how to curb the menance. 10.10 But still students of Manya Krobo Senior High School refuse to heed to this rule. 10.11 And very surprising to, the parents of these students themselves buy these gadgets for them to use in school. 10.12 As a result, students prefer being on the phones to rather studying their books which is profusely affecting academic peformance. 10.14 Further more, students going outside the school without obtaining proper permission which among students Cycle is refered to as jumping exert. 10.15 This is again another very serious problem the school is facing. 10.20 Last but not the least, the failure of some students to write exams. 10.22 But then examination is one way of assessing ones intellectual capacity and understanding of a concept. 10.24 I will therefore entreat parents to make sure they pay their wards fees on time to avert this problem and for those who will delibrately not write should be made to repeat their classe serve as deterance. 11.3 First and foremost, the entire student body including the first years that are greenhorn in the system are putting up dullard behaviours like dressing indecently, by which I mean they put on unprescribed attairs which are not recognised or accepted by the school authorities and sometimes put on a prescribed attair by the school but not at the right time, cutting unapproved haircuts that makes them not to be recognised as students at school and even extended to their various localities. 11.5 Also the boarders who are fond of juming exeat should also be made day students for those willing to be boarders who are day students to also get space in the boarding house. 11.6 Futhermore, another indiscipline act exhibited by the students in the school is seniors bullying the first years by taking their items from them with force without the approval of the juniors for the seniors to do so, punishing the juniors without them being at fault. 11.8 To conclude with, another indiscipline acts in my school are student not going to class and others reporting to class late, boarders sending food out of the dining hall to eat in front of their colleagues and also students moving on the compound to the canteen 111 during lesson hours when they are expected to be seated in their classrooms for lessons and to mention a few. 11.10 And also, I suggest that boarders who send food out of the hall should be punished in the hall and if possible made to wash the pans or carry the pans whilst others eat for them not to commit such act again. 12.4 Firstly; the use of mobile phone on campus, student use mobile phone that destracts them from learning, with all this acts student do not have time with their book that can help them make their life success. 12.8 Secondly: living compound without permission, student live compus without permission to the nearby town around the school, with this, student go to town to join bad friends and do bad things and if problem arise teachers to be held without mercy, to my suggestion of dealing with these act, there must construct a wall around the compound that can prevent students from jumping to town to do bad that will bring negative view of teacher's of not training the student to do the right thing. 12.9 Thirdly: depending on linking questings from friends, student depend on their friends for linking questing which is one of the examination malpractices, that do not help student to do well because if there are found with foriegn materials on them, there may be sent out from the examination hall which may bring about failue in their examination, also student do all this without learning hoping to pass their examination. 13.5 First of all, most students have no respect for the school authorities as well as the teachers. 13.14 Again, indecent dressing has also taken ravage of the school. 13.23 Last but not the least, boy-girl relationship has become the new style of living on campus. 13.33 Again, the school authorities must be very vigilant. 13.40 Also, there should be strict rules or there should be a strict decree on the school's dressing code. 13.43 For instance, internal or external susension would do. 13.45 Furthermore students who indulge in boy-girl relationship and other immoral acts must be dealt with drastically. 14.2 First of all, most student espercially, the boarder boys and girls, running to town to have leisure for themselves has become very, unbearable to the house parents and some house captains of the various dorms form which such students take advantage. 112 14.6 Another way to tackle this is that, the house parent should always expescially before and after prep time conduct a rowcall which would defend students from run out of the school boarders. 14.7 Secondly, some students who are addicted to the use of mobile phone and for that reason end up bringing phone to school should be acidously punished when caught with those phone and the phones should be ceased from them because as the oprate the phone they end up distracting other students from studying. 14.8 Notwithstanding this some students who also bring portable devices such as ipod, MP3's and some headsets should also be check on and prevented as soon as possible. 14.9 Thirdly, The act of student not going for lecturing and roaming about the whole school tro and fro, most students do not attend classes because they claim some subjects are not their favourite and some teachers are disliking to them with their own reasons. 14.12 Other measures is that very class should have students register, which should be called and mark after very single class lesson. 14.16 For this reason the authorities should have a laudable time to brief the students about their courses and not just leave them on their own because they choose then to study. 14.17 To rap up with my appeal, the school authorities should organise a scholarship giving scheme which would one way or the other inculcate a serious displine attitudes in the students. 15.2 To begin with, student jump exert during school hours, some of them do not asks permission fom their various housemistress and housemasters before going out, these sometimes bring problem to the school authority and do not take care to affect the WASSCE result when they do not go to class and affect the percentage of the result in the WASSCE. 15.3 Secondly, some student sit in the the canteen eating when lesson are been held by teachers in the class, some do not do exercise in class, those student do not care when you tell them. 15.6 Thirdly, most student make noise during preps hours some do not know the reason why they are in school other joins some bad friends who influence them and therefore end up with an immoral behaviour such as stealing, substance abuse, juvenile deliquency etc. 15.11 Finally, housemasters and housemistress should ensure that should who do not take exert should be dismiss or suspend. 113 YIKROSEC 1.2 To begin with Indiscipline are things that are not acceptable in the school and some of this things are coming to school late, Improper dressing to school and also Student Insulting teachers. 1.3 First of all I will like to talk about studiant coming to school late. 1.5 "In addtition to that studiant Insulting teacher's on campus to is is one of the Indiscipline behavour in the school. " 1.6 Furthermore Improper dressing is also one of the Indiscipline in maine school studiant will not dress well to school 2.4 Firstly, Examination mulpractice. Students do not learn hard to pass their examinations and at the end they fail. 2.6 So this is bringing students down accademically because if they talk during preps hours and they are punished they do not correct their mistakes but reather ther continue it so during examination times they carry some foreign materials to the hall and if you are not lucky and you are cut, you have already fail your examination. 2.7 So I think you should advice the studentand check on them always so that they will put a stop to that. 2.8 Secondly, The use of mobile phones in school, It was said that students are not to use mobile phones in school but they use it in their dometries and during the night for students to sleep they use it for chating and making calls. 2.9 So this do not help the students and some sleep during classes hour's whiles the teacher is teaching because they did not sleep in the night and this is not helping the accadamic work of the school. 3.3 Furthermore, rough style dressing (adopting others culture) expercially the boys need to be stop. 3.11 Besides, All this act can be stop or avoid if firstly, teachers are provided with bungalows on campus in order to check student when they go wrong. 4.3 First of all, I will like to talk about improper dressing. 4.5 Due to this the best way is to make rules and regulation and if you cannot go by it, they should punish the students who involve in it and refusal to do that the person must be sacked. 4.6 Secondly, I will like to talk about students running to town. 4.10 Last but not the least, I will like to talk about students not going to social gathering. 114 5.3 Firstly Sir, I would like to hypertise the way students dress. 5.7 Secondly, It is about the way students comes to school late, especially the day student. 5.12 Thirdly, It is about "noise making". 5.13 When there is no teacher in the class, students will be found making noise, valaganting around aimlessly, and playing, shouting on top of their voices. 6.5 But I will like to talk about (3) three forms. 6.6 Firstly I will talk about how student bring illegal items. 6.12 Secondly lack of respect for teachers 6.17 The last thing I will say some student run to twon without exact 6.18 Due to this they go to clubs etc. 7.2 First of foremost, I will like to speak about the dressing of some students to school. 7.3 It has come to my notice that some students especially the boy dressed to school anyhow, that is they untacked their uniform and come to school. 7.5 Secondly, the habit of being late to school is another major indiscipline to be talked about. 7.8 Finally, punctuality and regularity of some teachers are abnormal. 7.9 Most teachers do not come to school at all, even those who do come, comes very late and misse their lesson with the students. 7.12 First, I will like to say that, there must be some disciplinary committee in the school to be checking those things. 7.14 Secondly, the lateness and the absenteeism of the teachers should be address by writing their names and giving them to the Headmaster. 8.3 First and foremost, Student nowadays retaliate and exchange words with masters whenever they are corrected. 8.5 And this have been happening for somtime now. 8.6 Secondly, student use all forms of drugs on campus now. 8.9 There are at times after using these drugs they come out to do on necessary things which are not morally upright. 8.10 Finally; Student use classrooms are a place to have sexual intercourse. 8.12 After doing their on thing, they come out to spill out the beans. 115 8.14 So I think we can take the following sanctions or measures to eliminate all these behaviours. 8.16 And also victims should be either be sack from the school all given the appropraite punishment. 9.3 First of all, Lateness to school is one of the indiscipline. 9.11 Secondly, some students talk to teachers as if they are their mates. 914 They even want to crack jokes with them. 9.19 Lastly, some students do refuse to attend class lessons. 10.2 First of all, In my own point of view indiscipline is the way in which people depart from doing the right thing. 10.5 Secondly, Lack of moral education: Nowadays a lot of senior High schools, on their timetable there is not subject on the religious and moral education which Yilo Krobo Senior High is one of them. 10.7 because of that they do what please them. 10.8 Thirdly, Influence from bad peers: Some of the students follow bad friends in the school. 10.12 I therefore appeal to you to include the religious and moral education as a subject to study in the school to improval discipline and also ther punishment to students who bings electronic device to school. 11.2 Firstly, the teachers in my noble institution do not report to school on time, and the few who do come early do not come to class at all to teach. 11.3 As a result of this students do not perform well academically. 11.5 And also so that when a teacher violates the rules and regulations he/she wyould be dealt by the school authority. 11.7 Secondly, my school is not walled 11.8 because of this students run to town in the night to engage themselves in all sorts of acts. 11.9 Due to this behaviour of students the come to class and doze off whiles the teacher is teaching and at the end of the day they do not take in anything the teacher had taught in class. 11.12 Lastly, students of my school especially girls dresses anyhow by exposing thir private bodies to the opposite sex and teachers. 116 12.2 To begin with, I would like to explain the meaning of indiscipline. 12.4 To the above listed I would like to talk about four of this it. 12.8 So I suggest that every dawn a roll call shold be check so that teachres will be able to identify the students who are not in the dometory. 12.9 Again student taking in bad drugs such as cocain, smoke in 'wee', etc. which are very bad. 12.13 Furthermore students disobeying teachers. 12.17 Finally students beating up their teachers. 13.3 First and foremost, I would like to talk about is dressing. 13.7 And the boys also bring their belts below their waist they say its called "saging". 13.10 Secondly, the rate at which student break bounds is a bedding on this noble institution. 13.14 Thirdly, Speaking of English has become very difficult for student because seniors and jouniors are victims of it. 13.15 Because the school is located in a krobo land, the majority are all krobos and find it difficult ot speak it on campus. 13.17 Due to this students are always found wanting when their asked to write or speak English Language. 13.19 My first suggestion to the problem of dressing is that the protocol prefects and teachers should work hand in hand and collect all short dresses and nikers from students. 13.20 My second suggestion to the problem of breaking of bounds is that the school should have walls around it and good securitymen who will prevent students from breaking bounds. 13.21 My third suggestion is that the English department of the school should help to get those who do not like speaking English on campus and get them punished to serve as an example to others. 13.22 With all these suggestion I think if we put them into practice indiscipline will be at thing of the past in my school. 14.2 This is so because in 17 april 200 the school was ranked the most discipline school in the country and this has raised the image of the school to the highest point. 14.3 But rather unfortunate, the school is now adays facing some challenges of indiscipline. 117 14.5 First of all, the school is facing an act of indiscipline in terms of time management. 14.8 But now the authority responsible for that is not willing to do the work again. 14.9 Secondly, Some of the teachers especialy the male teachers, force the female students to have sex with them. 14.11 Most atimes even if they accept and because they all now co-equals, the student do not respect the teacher when he says something because they have something in common. 14.13 Last on my list is that, the disciplinary committee inthe school is not effective. 14.15 And the committee responsible is not doing anything about it. 15.5 To begin with, immoral acts has become vert high in this school. 15.6 Instead of students to sit down and learn especially during preps, they would rather be seen chatting with the opposite sex and also engage in kissing and caressing which they refer to as 'teaving'. 15.7 To add more to this, some student claim to sick and sign exeat to go and see the doctor in town. 15.11 Another immoral act to talk about is drug abuse and smoking. 15.14 Also student who loitter around when it is preps to engage in these things should be punished when caught. 15.15 Then also, with the students on the exeat case, I thnk all student who sign exeat to go home should give their parent's contact to the house master/mistress, so that when their gone they would call their parent to find out whether they truly came. 15.17 Furthermore, there is an act of disrespectf ulness among students in the school. 15.22 To drop the curtains down, I will say that students who indiscipline themselves and are caught should not be pardoned for even a penny but should be dealt with as it demands. 16.2 First of all most, the first indiscipline in our scholl thatI have notice is Examination Mulpractice. 16.7 But some of the students have made up their made not to learn. 16.7b Some even Send the text books to the hall. 16.10 Secondly, another indiscipline behaviour of the students in this noble institutis is the act of stealing espercially the boaders. 118 17.2 To start with, indiscipline is any form of act that is contrary to the laws of a particular place examples are stealing, smoking, disrespectfulness just mention a few. 17.11 Finally, I will talk aboutabsentees. 18.3 Firstof all, stealing is the main indicipline act in my school. 18.5 Students who claim they are seniors, have been stealing people's items such as money, school uniform, shoes and buckets of their friends especially the new students who have been admited in the school and this affect them so much that they have to borrow money from their friends before they can feed themselves. 18.6 Again, Immorality, students have engaged themselves in immoral act which is not accepted in the school. 18.9 Furthermore, drug abuse, some of the students have engaged themselves in drug. 18.11 Finaly, the best way to solve all this problem is to educate the whole school on that and also those who refuses to change from that character should be dismissed in the school so that the school will have a good name. 119 Appendix Three: Sample Essays AKWAMUMAN 120 121 122 123 124 AMEST 125 126 127 128 MAKROSEC 129 130 131 132 YIKROSEC 133 134 135 136 Appendix Four: Consent Forms 137 138 139 140