An Analysis of the Cohesive Devices of Internet Spoken Chat Discourse

This research is an investigation of the cohesive devices of synchronous private Internet spoken chatroom discourse on Yahoo! in same- sex dyadic interaction, viz. male-male and female-female. Based on Halliday and Hasan's (1976) model, it tries to test whether or not this type of text is cohesive. Thus, it aims at presenting the various grammatical and lexical cohesive devices adopted by interactants as a way for showing connectivity within this type of text and to create a coherent structure, as a result.The study is led by some hypotheses out of which Internet spoken chat discourse is cohesive. Besides, reference is expected to be the most frequent device among the other used devices. In addition, males are expected to utilize the cohesive devices more frequently than females.The study has shown, among its concluding remarks, that Internet spoken chat discourse is cohesive. This is due to the frequent use of certain cohesive devices, such as reference which is in both types of interactions the most utilized device. Though ellipsis is rare in our study, a new form emergrd which is not realized in the model adopted.