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AN ANALYSIS OF ABSTRACT USING MICRO-LEVEL COHERENCE
AND MACRO-LEVEL COHERENCE

Berikut ini adalah research-based paper yang saya presentasikan sebagai pemakalah dalam
International Seminar on English Language Teaching, Literature and Translation 2015 dan
telah dipublikasikan melalui Prosiding Seminar. Semoga bermanfaat untuk pengembangan
ilmu dan pengetahuan.

AN ANALYSIS OF ABSTRACT USING MICRO-LEVEL COHERENCE

AND MACRO-LEVEL COHERENCE
Oscar Yustino Carascalao
SMA Krista Mitra Semarang
Rifatun Hasanah
Universitas Islam Negeri Walisongo Semarang
Email: oscarcarascalao@gmail.com

Abstract
Abstract is a brief summary of the most important points in a scientific paper. Through an abstract a
writer can convey all of the information needed by the reader. This study deals with an analysis of
abstract using micro-level coherence and macro-level coherence suggested by Thornbury. This article
conveys the theoretical foundation of text, paragraph, abstract, types of abstract, coherence, micro-
level coherence and macro-level coherence. The object of the study is the abstract of Mansoor Al-
Surmi from University of Central Missouri, USA with his journal article entitled The Effect of Narrative
Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context.
The writer analyzed the abstract of that article using the theory of coherence by Thornbury (2005).
The result shows that by using the analysis of micro-level coherence and macro-level coherence the
writer found that the abstract of Mansoor Al-Surmi from University of Central Missouri, USA in his
journal article entitled The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and Aspect
in an English as a Foreign Language Context is coherent. That abstract reflects the content of the
journal article.

Key words: Abstract, micro-level coherence, macro-level coherence

INITRODUCTION
In sharing their ideas, people need to deliver the ideas well. They may deliver the ideas
in the form of both spoken and written. It is very important to make sure that our ideas make
sense. It is related to the statement that text is semantic unit. It means that text must make a
sense. Through a text people can deliver their ideas. In addition, Thornbury (2005: 19) stated
that text can be a number of sentences which are self-contained, well-formed, hang together,
make sense, have a clear communicative purpose, are recognizable text types and were
appropriate to their context of use. Therefore, in an academic writing, people may deliver
what on their mind are in the form of written text. In a journal article, people write their ideas
about something related to their idea. It means that they have to make a report about a
research on some academic fields. As we know, to tell about their report of an academic
writing briefly, they have to write an abstract at the beginning. An abstract of a journal article
is also formed in a paragraph. It means that an abstract contains relevant information about
central idea of the article. A paragraph should covers a unity and completeness. While,
another characteristic of a good paragraph is coherence. Coherence plays an important role in
delivering ideas through a written form. A coherent paragraph is made up of sentence that are
ordered according to a principle.
The role of abstract in a journal article is very important. Through the abstract the reader
will expect the content of the journal article. Usually a writer writes an abstract after he or she
has completed all of his or her writing because the content of an abstract gives the
explanation of the article in a brief explanation. Therefore, an abstract should be written in a
completed though. Moreover, abstract reflects the content of the journal article. That is why a
writer has to write a systematic abstract. It means that the abstract must be coherent and
cohesive. For example, there are so many authors of journal article wrote incoherent abstract
so that it makes the reader do not understand about their idea of writing journal article.
Therefore, it is important for authors to write a coherent abstract in a journal article which
helps the readers to expect what the idea of the article is.
In this article, the analysis of coherence, especially micro-level coherence and macro-
level coherence will be provided. The object of the study is the abstract of Mansoor Al-Surmi
from University of Central Missouri, USA with his journal article entitled The Effect of
Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and Aspect in an English as a Foreign
Language Context.
This study aimed to find out the coherence of an abstract in a journal article by Mansoor
Al-Surmi entitled The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and
 Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context. These two following questions guided
the investigation.
1. How did Mansoor Al-Surmi write his abstract coherently?
2. How is the construction of Micro-level Coherent and Micro-level Coherent of the abstract in
Mansoor Al-Surmi journal article entitled The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use
of English Tense and Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context structured?
The goal of this study is to make the readers understand about micro-level coherence and
macro-level coherence introduced by Scott Thornbury (2015). By analyzing the abstract of
the journal, the viewers can learn about coherence.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Text
Most discussions of text revolve around interpretation of texts, rather than a
definition of the term itself. But what exactly is a text? The word text comes from the
Latin texere, to weave. Deriving from the Latin, most definitions place text as a linguistic
structure woven out of words or signs. To call something a text implies that the words,
phrases, lines or sentences of which it consists have not been arranged this way by chance,
but have been produced by a person and with certain kinds of intentions. Therefore, it is
open for people to interpret the meaning of the text.
Sometimes a text can mean anything that people can read or analyse, such as notice, or
a banner. However, most times we come across the word text it has an explicitly literary
meaning.
According to Gerot and Wignel (1995) text is a semantic unit. Something is called a text
when it is meaningful. It can be spoken and written. Moreover, it is not a phonological or a
graphological unit. It occurs in a context of situation.

Abstract
According to Ebert (2012), an abstract is a brief summary of the most important points in
a scientific paper. Abstracts enable professionals to stay current with the huge volume of
scientific literature. Moreover, an abstract is a short and powerful statement that describes a
large important ideas of work. An abstract of a social science or scientific work may contain
the scope, purpose, results, and contents of the work. While, an abstract of a humanities work
may contain the thesis, background, and conclusion the article. In addition, it contains key
words found in the article.
 Coherence
Coherence in linguistics is what makes a text semantically meaningful. It is especially
dealt with in text linguistics. Coherence is achieved through syntactical features such as the
use of deictic, anaphoric and cataphoric elements or a logical tense structure, as well as
presuppositions and implications connected to general world knowledge. The purely
linguistic elements that make a text coherent are subsumed under the term cohesion
(Thornbury, 2005).
However, those text-based features which provide cohesion in a text do not
necessarily help achieve coherence, that is, they do not always contribute to the
meaningfulness of a text, be it written or spoken. It has been stated that a text coheres only if
the world around is also coherent.

Robert De Beaugrande and Wolfgang U. Dressler define coherence as a continuity of

senses and the mutual access and relevance within a configuration of concepts and
relations. Thereby a textual world is created that does not have to comply to the real world.
But within this textual world the arguments also have to be connected logically so that the
reader/hearer can produce coherence.

Thornbury (2005) divided the coherence into two, they are micro-level coherence and
macro-level coherence.

Micro-level Coherence
Logical Relationship
The complete text has a logical relation to make the text meaningful. Thornbury (2005)
explains the relation as the following:
a. Additive.
The relation is the next sentence gives detail about or specifies the previous sentence. It
means that the movement of the relation is from general to specific.
b. Adversative
The second sentence claims the problem solving toward the problem stated in the first
sentence.
c. Causal
The relation is the second sentence provides a reason for the situation or request mentioned in
the first sentence.
d. Temporal
The relation implies the chronological order of events. It is assumed that the first sentence
happened before the second.
 Theme and rheme / Topic and comment

Topic and comment here means theme and rheme. Topic is what the reader or listener need to
pay attention to. Meanwhile, the rheme is the new information to support the topic which is
stated before.

Macro-level Coherence

Macro-level coherence is related to key words, schema and script. According to Thornbury
(2005), key words are those words that occur with a frequency that is significant when
compared to the normal frequency of these same words, as determined by corpus data.
Meanwhile, the macro-scripts apply to process.

METHOD

The object of the study is the abstract of Mansoor Al-Surmi from University of Central
Missouri, USA with his journal article entitled The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner
Use of English Tense and Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context. The writer
analyzed the abstract of that article using the theory of coherence by Thornbury (2005). The
analysis are the micro-level coherence which consists of the logical relationship of sentence
and the topic and comment or theme and rheme and the macro-level coherence which
consists of the key words and the macro-script of the abstract.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSION

I. Micro-level Coherence
A. Sentence Relation
Abstract
(1) This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal
morphology in L2 learners' interlanguage temporality system. (2) The aim was to retest the
Discourse Hypothesis predictions regarding of the influence of discourse structure on verbal
morphology use in oral narrative in an English as a Foreign Language context. (3) The
discourse hypothesis predicts that L2 learners will use past forms predominantly in the
foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the background. (4) Data
obtained from 36 learners was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest productions by Thai
L2 learners of English. (5) Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking
at six pictures. (6) Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the
foreground than the background while they use more non-past forms in the background. (7)
Learners systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the results of
the present study. (8) The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is supported and that
English as a Foreign Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and aspect to English as
a Second Language learners.

Keywords: Discourse hypothesis, tense and aspect, EFL, Thai learners, temporality,
interlanguage
 Additive
In the sentence (1) and (2) we can see the additive. The second sentence gives more
detail information. The first sentence conveys the information about the paper and the second
sentence specifies the first sentence by giving the information about the aim of the paper.
(1) This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal
morphology in L2 learners' interlanguage temporality system. (2) The aim was to retest the
Discourse Hypothesis predictions regarding of the influence of discourse structure on verbal
morphology use in oral narrative in an English as a Foreign Language context.

The additive relation also can be seen from the relation between sentence (5) and
(6). Sentence (6) gives more detail information about the result of the participants did in the
analysis as stated in sentence (5).
(5) Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking at six pictures. (6)
Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the foreground than the
background while they use more non-past forms in the background.

Sentence (6) and (7) also shows the relation of additive. The results which is stated in (6)
sentence is specified by the sentence (7). It means that the result (6) can be seen from the
light of the result of the present study which is stated in the sentence (7).
(6) Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the foreground than
the background while they use more non-past forms in the background. (7) Learners
systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the results of the
present study.

Adversative
The relation between the second sentence and the third sentence is adversative. The third
sentence tries to solve the problem of discourse hypothesis by predicting that L2 leaners will
use past forms in the foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the
background.
(2) The aim was to retest the Discourse Hypothesis predictions regarding of the influence of
discourse structure on verbal morphology use in oral narrative in an English as a Foreign
Language context. (3) The discourse hypothesis predicts that L2 learners will use past forms
predominantly in the foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the
background.

In the (3) and (4) sentence we will see adversative relation. The (4) sentence offers the
problem solving of how to obtain the data by showing the participants and the method how to
obtain the data.
 (3) The discourse hypothesis predicts that L2 learners will use past forms predominantly in
the foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the background. (4) Data
obtained from 36 learners was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest productions by Thai
L2 learners of English.

Causal
The reason of the conclusion in sentence (8) is caused by the result of learners systematic
errors in the tense making which are shown in the light of the results of the present study as
stated in sentence (7).
(7) Learners systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the
results of the present study. (8) The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is
supported and that English as a Foreign Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and
aspect to English as a Second Language learners.
 Temporal
After finding the result of learners systematic errors in the tense making which are shown in
the light of the results of the present study in sentence (7), the next step is making the
conclusion as stated in sentence (8).
(7) Learners systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the
results of the present study. (8) The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is
supported and that English as a Foreign Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and
aspect to English as a Second Language learners.

By analyzing the sentence relation in the micro level coherence, we can say that the text is
coherent. We can see the relation of additive, adversative, causal and temporal exist in the
text of Al-surmis abstract.
B. Theme and Rheme / Topic and Comment
Topic and comment here means theme and rheme. Topic is what the reader or listener need to
pay attention to. Meanwhile, the rheme is the new information to support the topic which is
stated before. The text is coherent if we see that the comments are relevant to the topic stated
before. In this chapter we try to find the micro-level coherence of the text by analyzing the
topic and rheme of the text. The analysis is sentence by sentence. The coherence of the text is
found in the analysis of the micro-level coherence analysis using theme and rheme or topic
and comment. In table 1 we found that the comments support the topic which is stated
before.

Table 1
Topic (theme) Comment (rheme)
(1) This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative
structure on verbal morphology in L2 learners'
interlanguage temporality system
(2) The aim was to retest the Discourse Hypothesis predictions
regarding of the influence of discourse structure on
verbal morphology use in oral narrative in an
English as a Foreign Language context.
(3) The discourse predicts that L2 learners will use past forms
hypothesis predominantly in the foreground of the narrative
while non-past forms will be used in the
 background.
(4) Data obtained was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest
from 36 learners productions by Thai L2 learners of English.
(5) Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking
at six pictures.
(6) Results revealed that participants show more use of the past
forms in the foreground than the background while
they use more non-past forms in the background.
(7) Learners could be understood in the light of the results of the
systematic errors present study.
in tense marking
(8) The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is supported
and that English as a Foreign Language learners
exhibit similar use of tense and aspect to English as
a Second Language learners.

From the table above we can conclude that the pattern of the topic and comment can be
represented like the following chart:

Table

Topic1 comment1

Topic2 comment2

Topic3 comment3
 Topic4 comment4

Topic5 comment5

Topic6 comment6

Topic7 comment7

Topic8 comment8

Adapted from Thornbury (2005: p. 40)

By analyzing the theme and rheme / topic and comment, we can say that the text is
coherent. The coherence of the text can be seen from the topic and the comments which
support the topic with an organized structure.

II. Macro-level Coherence

A. Key Words
In the analysis of macro-level coherence, text achieves coherence because of the identifiable
topic or topics. In this part we will analyze the text of Al-surmis abstract in his journal article
entitled The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and Aspect in an
English as a Foreign Language Context. If we analyze the abstract, it has a topic which is
clearly stated in his abstract. We can see the topic from the keywords. They are discourse
hypothesis, tense and aspect, EFL, Thai learners, temporality, interlanguage. According to
Thornbury (2005), key words are those words that occur with a frequency that is significant
when compared to the normal frequency of these same words, as determined by corpus data.
Thus, by noticing the key words of Al-surmis abstract the reader will easily understand the
topic of the text.
B. Macro-scripts
According to Thornbury (2005), the macro-scripts apply to process. In the abstract of Al-
surmi, we can make the scripts of the text. The scripts can be like this:
This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal
morphology in L2 learners' interlanguage temporality system.
The paper has a goal to retest the Discourse Hypothesis predictions.
The discourse hypothesis predicts the predominant past forms in the foreground.
Data obtained from 36 learners was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest productions.
Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking at six pictures.
Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the foreground than the
background.
The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is supported and that English as a Foreign
Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and aspect to English as a Second Language
learners.
It can be conclude that the sequences of the abstract are as the following:
The investigation
The aims of the paper
The prediction of Discourse Hypothesis
The participants
The method
The results
The conclusion
Then, to answer the readers question when they read the abstract, the writer wrote the title of
the paper as clear as possible. The title provides the succinct answer to the question so that
the reader will understand the topic of the text. The first sentence also can take the role to
introduce the topic to the readers. Here, it is the analysis of the first sentence of the abstract
based on the analysis of the topic and comment:

Table 3
Topic Comment
Agent Event Affected
This paper investigates the influence of the
 discourse narrative
structure on verbal
morphology in L2
learners'
interlanguage
temporality system.

By reading the first sentence of the text, the reader will be helped to understand the topic of
the text. But, the next question of the reader is what are the aims?, what is the
hypothesis?, Who are the participants?, how is the method?, what is the result? and
what is the conclusion?. It can be answered by the next sentences which support the topic
in the first sentence:
Table 4
Topic Comment
Agent Event Affected
The aim was to retest The Discourse Hypothesis predictions
regarding of the influence of
discourse structure on verbal
morphology use in oral narrative in an
English as a Foreign Language
context.
The predicts that L2 learners will use past forms
discourse predominantly in the foreground of
hypothesis the narrative while non-past forms
will be used in the background.
Data was was randomly chosen from a pool of
obtained pretest productions by Thai L2
from 36 learners of English. Participants were
learners asked to narrate a strange dream after
looking at six pictures.
Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after
looking at six pictures.
Results revealed that participants show more use of the
past forms in the foreground than the
background while they use more non-
past forms in the background.
Learners systematic errors in tense
marking could be understood in the
light of the results of the present
study.
Learners could be in the light of the results of the
systematic understood present study.
errors in
tense
marking
 The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is
supported and that English as a
Foreign Language learners exhibit
similar use of tense and aspect to
English as a Second Language
learners.

If we see the scripts of the text and the analysis of the topic and comment divided by the
terms of agent, event and affected, the text show the coherence between the topics and the
comments. Therefore, the text flows and can be easily understood by the reader.

CONCLUSION
By using the analysis of micro-level coherence and macro-level coherence the writer
found that the abstract of Mansoor Al-Surmi from University of Central Missouri, USA in his
journal article entitled The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and
Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context is coherent. It means that the sentences
are meaning full. The comments of the topics are always relevant. Therefore, the abstract
reflects the content of the journal article.

REFERENCES

Beaty, William. 2004. Lasers: WTF is Coherent Light? A bad textbook diagram, and a widespread
misconception. http://amasci.com/miscon/coherenc.html.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2000). Research methods in education. (5th ed.). New
York: RoutledgeFalmer.
 Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods
approaches.

Ebert, James R. 2013. What is an Abstract?. Department of Earth Sciences State University of New
York, College at Oneonta Oneonta, New York 13820-4015

Eggins, Suzanne. 1994. An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London: Biddles Ltd.

Gerot, Linda & Wignel, Peter. 2005. Making Sense of Functional Grammar. Sydney: Gerd Stabler.

Halliday, M. A. K. 1990. An Introduction to Systemic functional Grammar. London: British

Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

Koopman, Philip. 1997. How to write an Abstract. Carnegie Mellon University.

Thornbury, Scott. 2005. Beyond The Sentence. London: Macmillan.

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/abstracts/

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/abstracts/
Diposkan oleh Oscar Carascalao di 20.49
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Mengenai Saya
Oscar Carascalao
Nama saya Oscar Yustino Carascalao, biasa dipanggil Oscar. Hobi saya adalah
membaca, menulis, penelitian dan bermain musik. Saya adalah orang yang suka
berbagi, berbagi ilmu melalui diskusi, seminar dan lain-lain, berbagi pengalaman,
berbagi materi (jika ada) dan berbagi semua hal yang baik.
Lihat profil lengkapku

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Tema Jendela Gambar. Diberdayakan oleh Blogger.

Additive : 1 dan 2
3 dan 4, 5

Causal :

(1)This study investigated the effects of two types of oral corrective feedback on
Iranian EFLlearners essay writing.

(2)To this end, the performance of the participants was measured based on oral
focused and oral unfocused feedback.

(3)The participants were forty-five low-intermediate learners at a language institute in

Shiraz, Iran.

(4)They were asked to write two essays as pretest and posttest based on two similar
but not identical picture stories.

(5)The participants writing was corrected in terms of the target structures, that is,
past tense, punctuation, and capitalization. Independent samples t-tests, and one-
way ANOVA were utilized.

(6)The results indicated that both types of oral feedback were effective in the
posttest.

(7) However, oral unfocused feedback was more effective.

(8) In other words, the participants showed a statistically significant difference in their
performance in the posttest as a result of receiving oral unfocused rather than
focused feedback.

(9)Since feedback provide learners an opportunity to revise their essays one can
consider its role as an effective one in learning and teaching English.