A Contrastive Study On Coherence In Academic Paragraphs Of English And Chinese

The present study includes the previous research on coherence by starting from studies on contrastive rhetoric and discourse analysis. Then it examines 40 paragraphs selected from articles published in academic journals in English and Chinese from within the content of cultural differences in writing. Based on the earlier findings that paragraphs composed in English and Chinese by children and adolescents are different, an analysis was conducted of 40 paragraphs written by adult academics and published in academic journals, centering on the physical structure and the topical structure. The topical structure analysis (TSA), an analysis of coherence derived by examining the internal topical structure of each paragraph as reflected by the repetition of key words and phrases, provides insights into the organizational patterns favored by professional writers in these two languages. The results of the TSA show that English paragraphs tend to have a high use of internal coherence, while Chinese paragraphs do not generally tend to use immediate progression as a device for coherence.The findings in present study have some implications for teaching of ESL/EFL writing, especially to English majors in university who are supposed to write articles consisting of comparatively long paragraphs. Parallel progression and sequential progression can be effective ways for writers to reach coherence when writing paragraphs. As for foreign learners of Chinese, they may bear in mind the comparatively more freedom for topical progressions, thus to show more flexibility and creativity in Chinese writing.