Lexical Cohesion And Writing Quality

Cohesion, as one of the most important components of a text, contributes tothe coherence of a text. Cohesion is divided into two general categories:grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. Grammatical cohesion is achievedby grammatical means while lexical cohesion is achieved by the selection ofvocabulary. Lexical cohesion is the only type of cohesion that regularly formsmultiple relationships and the dominant mode of creating texture. Therefore it isclosely related to writing quality.Some relevant researches have been undertaken by many scholars at homeand abroad to examine the relationship between lexical cohesion and writingquality. However, the results are too mixed to yield consistent conclusions andmoreover there is a lack of essential statistical work and sufficient casesconcerning the use of lexical cohesion in English compositions written bynon-English majors. The present research is an attempt to investigate the usingof lexical cohesion in the writings of non-English majors and to answer twospecific questions:1) What are the differences in the using of lexical cohesion between good andpoor writings?2) What is the relationship between lexical cohesion and writing quality?There are six chapters in this thesis. Chapter one first points out theimportance of lexical cohesion in writings and also the main problems in theteaching of EFL writing in China. Then it overviews the previous researches andfinally states the significance and purposes of the present research.Chapter two introduces relevant theories including discourse, discourseanalysis in general and the relationship between cohesion and coherence. It alsointerprets lexical cohesion theory in detail, including lexical cohesive ties andlexical cohesive chains. It also introduces the framework used in the presentresearch which is the schemes proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976). They are:simple repetition, complex repetition, synonym, antonym, superordinate andcollocation. Lexical cohesive chains are also examined including number ofchains, mean length of chains, word types in chains.Chapter three describes how this research is conducted and how the data iscollected. The subjects are 135 non-English majors from three universities inShandong Province. All the participants are asked to write compositions just asthey are required in CET-4 test. Four teachers are invited to evaluate thecompositions in order to get the specific information and data of lexical cohesivedevices used in each composition. Finally, 50 compositions scored more than 11(11-15) and 50 compositions scored less than 8 (5-8) are chosen to form "GoodGroup" and "Poor Group". The method of sampling used is Quasi-randomsampling. Then SPSS 12.0 is used in the present research to analyze the data.Independent Sample T-tests are conducted to get the statistical analyses of thedifferences between the two groups in using lexical cohesive ties and chains.Correlations are conducted to get the statistical analyses of the relationshipbetween lexical cohesion and writing quality.Chapter four focuses on the results and corresponding discussion of thepresent research and arrives at the following conclusion:Lexical cohesion is closely related to writing quality. "Good Group" and"Poor Group" show significant differences in terms of complex repetition,synonym, antonym, collocation, the number of chains and word types in chains.Meanwhile these items have greater influences on writing quality. As to simplerepetition, superordinate and the mean length of chains, they show no significantdifferences between two groups and are not closely related to writing quality.Chapter five puts forward suggestions and applications on how to improvethe teaching of EFL writing in China.Chapter six summarizes the present research itself and its main findings.Limitations of the present research and recommendations for future studies arealso provided.The present research is significant in two aspects. First, it is one of the fewresearches which not only examine lexical cohesive ties but also lexicalcohesive chains. Second, it investigates the using of lexical cohesion in writingsof non-English majors through quantitative analysis. It helps teachers to identifysome specific factors that influence the students' writing quality and provides anew approach to the teaching of EFL writing.