A Corpus-Based Study On The Errors Of Lexical Cohesive Devices In College English Majors' Argumentative Writings

For Chinese English learners,writing,one of four basic skills acquired in English learning,is the last and the most difficult skill students learn.Halliday and Hasan(2001)proposes that the quality of English writing is closely related to cohesion and lexical cohesion holds a pivotal position in various cohesive devices.Therefore,in accordance with Hoey's(2000)taxonomy on lexical cohesion and error analysis theory,the writer makes a study on the use and errors of lexical cohesive devices in English majors' argumentative writings.The present study attempts to probe into the following questions:1.What are the general distribution of lexical cohesive devices in English majors' argumentative writings?2.What are the types and frequency of errors in the use of lexical cohesive devices in English majors' argumentative writings?3.What are the reasons of the errors in the use of lexical cohesive devices?The writer selects thirty samples of English majors(Grade 2)at random from WECCL as the research subjects,tags and counts the lexical cohesive devices and errors in the use of them,and analyzes the reasons.The results of the study show that: 1)for the nine lexical cohesive devices,the most frequent lexical cohesive devices used in writings are simple lexical repetition,substitution,complex lexical repetition and simple mutual paraphrase respectively;while the less are,in order,simple partial paraphrase,co-reference,ellipsis,other complex paraphrase,antonymous complex repetition;2)the main types of errors are overuse and misuse of simple lexical repetition,misuse of complex lexical repetition and simple mutual paraphrase,and ambiguous reference of pronouns;3)the main reasons are the negative transfer of mother tongue,ie,the difference between Chinese and English(including writing structure,word structure,synonyms,etc),a lack of advanced vocabulary and little attention on the theory of lexical cohesion,etc.The study not only provides some pedagogical implications for English educators and teachers but also contributes to strengthening Chinese English learners' awareness of using various lexical cohesive devices felicitously.