A Study Of Cohesive Devices In English Abstract Writings

The abstract, which summarizes the research question, research method and research results and conclusion of a thesis, is an essential part in a thesis. However, to some extent, it is difficult for Chinese non-English master degree candidates to write cohesive English abstracts successfully. In this paper, the author aims to use Halliday and Hassan’s Cohesive Theory to evaluate the Chinese students’English abstract writings in terms of the cohesive devices of reference and conjunction.Halliday and Hassan point out that cohesion is the basis of coherence and plays an important role in coherence of a discourse. The cohesive device of reference can be classified into personal, demonstrative and comparative references and that of conjunction includes additive, adversative, causal and temporal conjunctions.In this dissertation, the analysis is focused on the use of reference and conjunction in 40 English abstracts of non-English master degree candidates’theses of a university in Zhejiang province. It mainly tries to discuss the following three research questions:(1) what are the general distribution of the use and errors of reference and conjunction? (2) What types of errors does the use of the cohesive devices fall into? (3) What measures should be taken to rectify these cohesive errors?In the English abstracts, the students tend to use more conjunctions and have a better command of them than references. There are such mistakes in the use of reference as inconsistency, normalization, grammar and semantics. Regarding conjunction, the errors can also be found including omission, redundancy, semantics and inconsistency of the usage of conjunctions. The students commit these errors due to negative transfer of Chinese and for lack of the knowledge of Cohesive Theory of English. Corresponding suggestions are enhancing students’ English cohesive thinking pattern and cohesive knowledge by providing them with the exercises of rewriting and cohesive error correction and by involving them in peer’s reviews of abstracts of reference and conjunction so as to improve the quality of their abstracts.