A Contrastive Analysis Between Chinese And English Textual Cohesions

Cohesion theory, is an important part in text linguistics. Cohesion as the main means of connecting sentences into a text is a significant feature of text. It contributes much to the coherence of a text, and plays a crucial role in writing. The thesis begins with the rationale of textual cohesion theory, the relationship between language, culture, and the relationship between oriental and occidental cultural thought patterns. Subsequently, the thesis makes a contrastive analysis between Chinese and English textual cohesions from the perspective of oriental and occidental cultural thought patterns.The discrepancies between Chinese and English textual cohesions caused by various reasons. The thesis tries to work out those differences from the aspect of cultural thought patterns. Many scholars hold that Chinese thought pattern is holistic, while English thought pattern is analytic. As Nelson states, Chinese students are global learners, their thought pattern is holistic; English students are analytic learners, their thought pattern is analytic. The discrepancies of oriental and occidental cultures are various; this thesis only pays attention to holistic and analytic. In general, the Language and culture are interconnected and interwoven together. This thesis makes a systematic analysis between Chinese and English textual cohesion at culture level than pure linguistic level. On the other hand, what the thesis discovered is beneficial to EFL teaching of writing.Textual cohesion influences writing greatly. This thesis focuses on the theoretical exploration into the cohesion theory, and makes a deep contrast between English and Chinese. The thesis further, describes the problems in the use of cohesive devices in writing by Chinese learners and then sheds some light on the teaching and learning of English writing at college level in China. Thus, college English teaching should introduce the discrepancies between Chinese and English textual cohesion from the perspective of cultural thought patterns, and a better understanding of different cultural thought patterns would facilitate students' writing proficiency. Moreover, in order to cultivate and improve students' awareness of textual cohesion, and let them know how to employ cohesion to help work out coherence in English writing; it's necessary to integrate textual cohesion into the teaching.The thesis points out the limitations of this study and provides suggestions for future study in the last part.