Characteristics of Children's Oral Texts in terms of Coherence and Cohesion

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of coherence and cohesion in the oral texts of children between the ages of 60 to 72 months. In the study, a survey method in a quantitative research approach was adopted, and a total of 110 preschoolers were included as participants. The data of the study were obtained from the oral texts taken from the conversations during the interviews with the children. Oral texts consisting of at least eight sentences were analyzed by using the Text Evaluation Form and a rubric. The coherence- and cohesion-related qualities of the spoken texts were evaluated by two experts. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics were calculated as frequencies and percentages to present the levels of the oral texts in terms of cohesion and coherence. In addition, independent sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance were computed as inferential statistics to determine whether scores for cohesion and coherence differed significantly based on the child's gender, socioeconomic status, and the duration of the early childhood education. First, the results of the analyses revealed that the oral texts were acceptable and sufficient with respect to the means of cohesion, whereas they were inadequate and unacceptable in terms of coherence. Second, it was found that the cohesion device that children were the most successful was the ellipsis. Third, the results also indicated that the levels of cohesion of the oral texts displayed a significant difference regarding gender and SES, while they did not differ depending on the duration of preschool education. Moreover, the levels of coherence showed no significant difference in terms of gender, SES, and the duration of early childhood education. In conclusion, in the study, it was determined that the oral texts of the children were more appropriate to the standard language in terms of cohesion compared to coherence.