A Comparative Study of Lexical Cohesive Devices Used by L1 and L2 Urdu Speakers.

The study reports a comparative study of use of lexical cohesive devices by L1 (Urdu as a first language) and L2 (Urdu as a second language) speakers through detailed analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data. The data is obtained from 11 Urdu television programmes based on current affairs. The duration of the conversations is 120 minutes per conversation. The study reveals the differences between the use of cohesive devices in terms of type and degree by L1 and L2 speakers of the Urdu language. Results show that L1 speaker is a proficient user of cohesive devices such as, collocation and synonym to build up the conversation in an effective way while repetition is the most utilized category by L2 speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]