A Study On Cohesive Devices In Argumentative Essays By Learners Of Different English Proficiency Levels

Argumentative writing is characterized by its logic and coherence and plays a very important role in improving students’language expressing ability. Cohesion in argumentative writing is a criterion to evaluate logic and coherent writings and can also reflect one’s writing ability. So it is very necessary to investigate the use of cohesive devices in argumentative writings.The participants were 119 second-year undergraduate non-English majors, studying in Hunan University. They were divided into two different English proficiency levels (H-group and L-group) according to their CET-4 scores. High-level learners are the top 30 students and low-level learners were the bottom 30 in all the participants. All the participants were asked to compose an argumentative essay and these compositions were evaluated according to writing range-finders for CET-4. Using Halliday and Hasan’s taxonomy of cohesive devices and their framework for analysis, this study mainly explores the general distribution of cohesive devices, investigates the differences in the application and inadequate use of cohesive devices between two groups and the relationship between writing quality and the frequency of cohesive device. After collecting and analyzing data, the main findings are obtained and presented as follows:1) Judging from the general distribution of cohesive devices in argumentative writings, reference was the most frequently used, followed by conjunction and lexical devices, while substitution and ellipsis in sample writings were rarely employed.2) There was a significant difference in the use of reference, conjunction and lexical devices between two groups. It was found that a positive relation existed between English proficiency level and the number of cohesive devices.3) The inadequate uses of reference occupied the highest percentage, followed by lexical devices. Inadequate uses in H-group samples are generally fewer than that in L-group which could deduce that learners in H-group are better users of cohesive devices than those in L-group.4) The frequency of cohesive devices used in students’compositions was correlated significantly with writing quality. Cohesion is a significant factor for good writings. The results showed that conjunction devices were the most closely related with writing quality, followed by lexical devices. However, reference, substitution and ellipsis have no evident relations with writing quality.Although only 119 argumentative compositions written by college students seem small in size, it can still provide some pedagogical implications for writing teaching according to the findings of the study. Teachers should emphasize the instruction of cohesion in class and draw college students’attention to the proper use of different cohesive device types. Students need to extend their vocabulary in order to produce more vivid and effective compositions by applying more lexical devices.