An Analysis Of The Application Of Cohesion Theory To The Teaching Of English Writing In Senior High School

English writing can reflect students’ comprehensive ability of using language, it puts forward a highdemand for them to learn English. For many years it is one of the focal points about how to improvestudents’ ability of English writing. Halliday and Hasan point out in their book Cohesion in English (1976),cohesion plays a vital role in the process of creating textual coherence. They think coherent discourse iscohesive, cohesion promotes discourse coherence. Many researches have proved the application ofcohesive devices directly relates to the quality of a composition.For now, many researchers have made an empirical application to cohesion theory in the field ofEnglish teaching. Thus, on the basis of cohesion theory of Halliday and Hasan (1976) the study investigatesand analyzes the application of cohesion theory in the teaching of English writing in Senior High School.This study is designed to explore:(1) What is the present situation in the application of cohesion theory toEnglish writing in senior high school?(2) What are the problems in the application of cohesion theory toEnglish writing in senior high school?(3) What are the causes for the application of cohesion theory toEnglish writing teaching in senior high school?The methods that this research adopts include two questionnaires, classroom observation and analysisof students’ compositions. The results show:(1) Teachers have realized the importance of cohesion theoryand applied it in writing teaching.(2) Most teachers always put emphasis on the conjunctions and neglectto introduce the other four cohesive devices (reference, substitution, ellipsis and lexical cohesion).(3) Mostteachers do not pay attention to develop students’ ability on writing, they do not systematically introducecohesive devices.The thesis is composed of five chapters．Chapter One is a brief introduction, including the researchbackground of cohesion theory, the research objectives and the organization of this thesis. Chapter Two isthe literature review, which introduces cohesion theory, especially the five cohesive devices of Hallidayand Hasan (1976). Chapter Three is the research design, which includes research questions, researchsubjects, research methods and research procedure. Chapter Four is the results and discussion, which is thecentral part of the thesis. This chapter presents the result of questionnaires, classroom observations and students’ writing samples. Chapter Five is the conclusive part, which summarizes the major findings of thestudy and offers further implications for language teaching. Besides, the limitations and suggestions forfurther research are pointed out at the end of this chapter.