Analysis Of Cohesive Errors In Chinese College Students' English Writing

Writing is regarded as a difficult one among the four basic skills-listening, speaking, reading and writing. Many students can not pass CET-4 just because of their failure in writing. Among many factors which may result in their failure in writing, the cohesive error is an important factor. According to Halliday and Hasan, cohesion is a necessary though not a sufficient condition for the creation of a text. "The text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in these two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself and therefore cohesive" (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 23).The thesis, based on the theories of cohesion and error analysis, focuses on the analysis of cohesion errors in Chinese college students' English writing. A quantitative analysis of cohesive devices is conducted in 50 Chinese non-English major college students' English writing in CET-4, June, 1997. The sample writings are taken from students of University of Science and Technology of China and Zhejiang University. Both the number of cohesive devices and cohesion errors are calculated, meanwhile the possible causes leading to some of the cohesion errors Chinese students committed in their English writings are provided. The analysis of cohesion errors are conducted on the discourse level. It is expected that the analysis of cohesion errors in Chinese students' English writing may strengthen the awareness of both teachers and students in using the cohesive devices, and may have some pedagogical implications in the teaching of English in China.The result of the analysis shows that overuse, misuse, and underuse of cohesive devices are very common in Chinese college students' writing. In this light, relevant teaching implications are also ventured.