Thematic structures and cohesive features of problem statement section in English studies Doctoral Dissertations in a university in Malaysia

Doctoral writing inevitably needs appropriate cohesion as an essential textual component to appear as an organized, comprehensive, and readable texts and to be accepted as academic writing. However, one of the difficulties that doctoral students demonstrated remarkably in their writing, in particular, in Problem statement (PS) section in doctoral dissertations is how to achieve cohesion. The present research examined the written discourse of problem statements in doctoral dissertations adopting Hallidayan Systemic Functional Grammar (1994, 2004, & 2013) as its theoretical framework. This study explores the cohesive features namely, conjunctions and references and their role in Problem statement section. In addition, it also studied thematic feature and their discourse functions in the PS across English Language discipline. The present study adopted discourse analysis method, using descriptive interpretive approach to analyse the written discourse of problem statement section in doctoral dissertations. This study was carried out on a corpus of 60 Problem statement (PS). The dissertations were sourced from 60 online UPM thesis (English Language discipline) published from 2010 to 2022. The corpus analyses were based on both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis. TagAnt 2.0.5 software application was used to examine the occurrences and frequency of cohesive devices (conjunctions and references) in the PSs of doctoral dissertations. For thematic features of the PS corpus, the research adopted qualitative textual analysis. The results revealed the additive conjunctions, and the demonstrative references as the most significant cohesive features in Problem statement. In addition, the role of cohesive devices in PS is discussed in detail. Regarding thematic features of the PSs section, the most significant theme in the corpus of the current study is topical unmarked theme in general, and Research-related object theme, contrast, causal, and additive themes in particular. Discourse functions in relation to theme types were discussed in detail. The study contributes by providing framework for PS writing for supervisors, mentors and advisors to assist and guide their students in writing their problem statement. In addition, the study has significant practical, and pedagogical implications. Finally, the current study proposes recommendation for further research.

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