An Analysis of the Grammatical Features and Lexical Features that the Hearing-Impaired Learners Use in Writing to Achieve Cohesion

Competence in both spoken and written English is very important for all learners regardless of their hearing ability. Previous studies reveal that hearing-impaired learners face several challenges in their written English. These challenges affect their communication, which is likely to affect their education and career aspirations. The thrust of this paper, therefore, was to identify the grammatical features and lexical features that the hearing-impaired learners use in writing to achieve cohesion. The study confined its investigation to the nature of cohesion in the hearing-impaired learners’ English written texts. The data for the study was collected from the written texts of Form Three hearing impaired students sampled from three secondary schools located in Nyeri County, Nakuru County, and Machakos County in Kenya. The written texts were picked from written assignments from different subjects as well as from one free composition. The study was guided by Halliday and Hasan’s theory of Cohesion to identify, describe and categorize cohesive devices in the texts. In the final analysis, this paper found out that all the cohesive devices posited by Halliday and Hasan were present, but at varying frequency. Reference had the highest frequency of occurrence and ellipsis the least. The hearing-impaired learners had challenges in writing cohesively.