THE USE OF CONJUNCTIONS IN TAMIL LANGUAGE ESSAYS AMONG SECONDARY STUDENTS

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Abstract

The aim of the paper was to assess learners’ knowledge of conjunctions, identify the conjunctions used by the learners in essays, and analyse the correlation between the use of conjunctions and the learners’ essay grade. This descriptive research explains the use of conjunctions in essays written by Tamil secondary school students. The researcher used a quantitative method in this research, which involved 48 students in a secondary school in Kuala Kangsar, Perak. The researcher employed two instruments: The first instrument is Multiple-choice question (MCQ) which consists of 40 objective questions in conjunctions and the second instrument is an expository essay test. All the essays were marked holistically based on the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) format by the researcher. The researcher adapted Halliday and Hasan (1976) concept of conjunctions. The findings showed that the students have a better knowledge on additive, adversative and causal conjunctions as compared to temporal conjunctions. Furthermore, additive conjunctions were frequently used 855 (59.8%) times in the students’ essays. It is followed by causal conjunctions 312 (21.8%) times and temporal conjunctions 175 (12.2%) times. Meanwhile, the use of adversative conjunctions was the least frequent at 88 (6.1%) times. Besides, the study also indicated a significant correlation between the use of conjunctions and the students’ grade at 0.01, where the value of p is ≤ 0.05. The implication of this study, Tamil language teachers were able to identify the flaws in the usage of conjunction words, particularly in students’ essay writing. Thus, teachers are made aware of the importance of conjunctions, especially in terms of meaning usage and conjunction functions.