A Study Of Cohesion In Chinese EFL Learners' Writing

"Listening,speaking,reading,writing" have been the focus of English teaching in China and they are the four basic skills for English learners to master. Among them, writing may be the most difficult one, for it requires students to write coherent compositions with appropriate wording and correct grammar. Thus, besides sound language skills, thinking ability is also a must to produce a sound piece of writing.Being one of the basic skills students have to master does not necessarily mean writing has received enough attention in the classroom. What the teachers care about more in the teaching process and in marking compositions is the correctness of language. Their main point is to help students to generate compositions without grammar mistakes. As to the texture of compositions, it's more or less neglected. However, a composition with no coherence and texture can not be counted as a sound piece of writing and it can not meet the requirement of CET-4 or CET-6.According to Halliday and Hasan, cohesion is of great importance in coherence and is critical for the creation of texture. Halliday and Hasan (1976) point out that cohesion is the foundation of coherence which is the most important prerequisite for the text. This thesis studies cohesive devices used in 30 compositions written by the freshmen of Suzhou Vocational University with the aim to find out the features of cohesive devices used and the relationship between cohesive devices and the quality of compositions. And at the end of this thesis, several pedagogical implications are offered.The study shows that all kinds of cohesive devices are common in compositions, among which reference is the most frequently used. However, errors are also easily found. And there is a close relationship between the quality of compositions and the frequency and the correctness of the cohesive devices used.This is only a tentative study and due to the limited knowledge and field experience of the writer, there are still many defects and much room for further explanation of the issues in relevance to practice in cohesion.