ABSTRAK

This research is aimed at (1) finding out the types of the cohesive devices 
in the tenth  grade students’ writing of recount texts; (2) finding out coherence
developed in the tenth  grade students’ writing of recount texts; and (3) finding
out the most dominant type of cohesive devices which is used by the students in
their recount essays.
This research uses descriptive qualitative method in the form of words so
that the data are best analyzed by describing them. The source of the data is the
students’ recount texts produced by the X grader of SMA Negeri 3 Surakarta in
the academic year of 2015/2016. After the researcher collected the data by using
secondary data technique collection,she analyzed the data. The steps of data
analysis are data reduction, data display and drawing conclusion.
The finding shows that (1) the cohesive devices applied in 7 texts are
reference, subtitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion (2) The
coherenece of the text is developed by using three thematic progressions  (3) The
dominant cohesive devices found in text are reference and  lexical cohesion,
where the cohesive devices rarely applied in the text are subtitution and ellipsis.
This research also discusses five of  cohesive devices applied in only four texts
implying most of the students have lack of knowledge about subtitutions and
ellipsis. Moreover, the analysis of thematic progression show the students’ texts
mostly are less coherence  by determining the randomly used of the ideas. It
implies the students’  low level of competence in writing recount text. It means
that the teacher should give some exercises to students about subtitution and
ellipsis related to the use of cohesive devices to develop a paragraph. Some
exercises about developing pargraph from one idea  as the main idea is also
needed because it will help them to write a recount text chronologically. 

Keywords: Discourse, Text, Cohesive devices, Coherence, Writing skill, Thematic
progression, Recount text