| Since it is common for writing instructors to come across compositions with the overall effect of incoherence, though not much grammatical mistakes, the cohesion of students' writings has aroused general concern in writing teaching. Most studies abroad either concerned with the relationship between the use of cohesive devices and quality of writing or identified the differences in using those devices between speakers of different languages; while Chinese scholars' attention are mainly focused on non-English majors or one single aspect—cohesion between sentences in students' writings. This study attempted to analyze the discourse characteristics that might weaken the cohesion of students' writings from three aspects and expected that the results of the study may help Chinese students overcome defects in those aspects, so that they could improve their writings to be cohesive and coherent.The present study analyzed the overall organization, cohesive devices, and thematic progression patterns employed in 30 argumentative compositions written by second-year English majors in Dalian Maritime University. Major findings include: (1) Students tended to follow the writing convention of argumentative essays by simply dividing their compositions into three paragraphs, and the poor connection between the three parts made the compositions incoherent in overall organization; (2) Great number of inappropriately used cohesive devices seriously impeded the cohesion within paragraphs in students' writings; (3) Deficiently assembled thematic progression patterns were identified, which also proved that students" writings were incoherent in meaning.The paper suggests that though relatively competent in manipulating vocabulary and grammar, English majors still have many problems in composing cohesive and coherent English discourse; thus specially designed courses and exercises to help solve those problems are quite necessary in the teaching of writing. |
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