A Study Of English Writing Of Chinese English Majors: A Perspective Of Cohesion Theory

Cohesion in English, written by Halliday and Hasan, published in1976, systematically analyzes cohesion and its taxonomy, which has made the term of cohesion one of the most important aspects in discourse analysis. This term has become the focus of many linguists at home and abroad. This research shows that there is a positive correlation between the quality of writing and the cohesive devices used; and there are still many problems in using cohesive devices for Chinese learners. However, this research is short in systematical analysis of the actual use of cohesive devices in Chinese English learners’writing. In order to solve these problems, in this paper the author gives an empirical study and puts forward some suggestions to improve the use of cohesive devices in argumentative writing for English majors. And the features and problems are deeply discussed and summed up to attach the importance in teaching cohesion knowledge in writing of Chinese English majors. The following questions are discussed in this study:(1) How do college English majors use cohesive devices in their writings?(2) Is there any inappropriate use of cohesive devices in college English majors’writing? How does such use distribute?(3) What is the weakest part in using cohesive devices of college English majors? And how to improve it?The focuses of this study are quantity, quality, feature and problems of cohesive device used in college English majors. The theory in this study is the cohesion theory of Halliday and Hasan with the taxonomy of cohesion-reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.61argumentations of Chinese English majors from all grades are selected from the written corpus of Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners2.0to be analyzed by using coding method of Halliday and Hasan combined with retrieving analysis by the corpus software Sub-corpus Generator and Colligator. After the analysis, the problems are summed as the inconsistent use of personal reference, inappropriate use of conjunction and the overuse of the same words. And then the causes are identified as different expressive patterns, different thinking modes of Chinese and English people, negative transfer of native language. Some suggestions are put forward, such as to cultivate the awareness of cohesion knowledge and to combine reading with writing teaching to name but a few, in order to improve the uses of cohesion devices in the writing of Chinese English majors and their ability of writing.