On The Application Of Cohesion Theory To The Interpretation Of NMET Cloze Tests

As the saying goes, “In English learning, if you have mastered efficient reading skills, you have got the key to success.” This clearly shows the importance of reading in English teaching and learning. Along with the reform and development of Senior High School English teaching, English reading teaching has become an important topic of concern. However, the focus of high school English reading teaching today is still on the explanation of language points and grammatical knowledge. Discourse comprehension and interpretation in reading teaching does not yet receive due attention. Therefore, based on the theory of cohesion, the present study attempts to analyze and interpret the cohesive phenomenon in the cloze discourse of National Matriculation English Test. The research intends to explore how to help high school students analyze NMET cloze text from the perspective of language cohesion and coherence. Further, it tries to guide the students to understand the cloze text by the application of cohesive devices and methods so as to improve the correct rate of the exercise. And then the research is committed to exploring how to effectively apply the theory of cohesion to senior high school English reading teaching and improve students' comprehensive language competence.Halliday, the founder of systemic functional linguistics, originated the concept of cohesion in 1962. He holds that cohesion is a semantic concept, which aims to analyze the meaning relations among discourse factors. According to his theory, in the discourse, when the meaning of one component needs to be explained by another, cohesion takes place. While the concept of textual coherence is derived from the deep analysis of semantic relations and discourse structures by Crystal in 1985. For him, coherence is not only a semantic realization of discourse cohesion, but also the interpretation and effect of cohesion and context interaction.In this research, the interview method, the test paper data analysis method and the case tracking survey method are adopted. 120 students are chosen as the subjects of the study, who are from Grade 2 of No.1 Senior High School of Heze,There are several steps for the research process. In the first step, the students who participate in the research are taught the basic knowledge of cohesion theory and are introduced with the method of cloze interpretation. The subjects are interviewed in this step and then are given the pre-experiment test. The second step is to analyze the NMET cloze discourse by the application of cohesion theory.Through analysis and discussion, it is found out that in the grammatical cohesion, there is no omission; while grammatical cohesion accounts for 13.9% in the statistical data; lexical cohesion takes the largest proportion, accounts for about 42.2%; as for coherence, it brings out the best in each other with cohesion. In the third step, the students are given some cloze tests, which are designed with the guidance of language testing theory. And after each test, instruction and guiding teaching are provided based on the theory of cohesion. After collecting, sorting, and analyzing the relevant data by using SPSS, the analysis shows that the reading ability of the students from the experimental class is significantly higher than that of the control class. The results show that the application of cohesion and coherence in the teaching and interpretation of the NMET cloze discourse is conducive to the improvement of students' reading ability. In the fourth step, another interview is conducted. The result of the interview shows that the majority of the students can psychologically identify the discourse interpretation under the guidance of cohesion theory. So they actively cooperate with the research and teaching. Thus the students' positive attitude is helpful for the implementation of the research as well as the realization of the expected goal. The fifth step is to expound the enlightenment and suggestions for the teaching and learning of English reading in senior high schools.The significance of exploring the effective application of cohesion theory to senior high school English reading teaching is evident. For one thing, cohesion and coherence can play the function of semantic interpretation. For another, textual cohesion as well as cohesive links between paragraphs can be perceived by the micro analysis of specific sentence arrangements in cloze test. From the perspective of coherence, the semantic pattern of discourse can help to promote the students' deep understanding of meanings and implications in cloze text. Through this instruction and practice, the students' analyzing and reasoning abilities are improved to such a degree that both their English reading abilities and their efficiency and accuracy of doing cloze test are improved. And from the angle of English reading teaching, it has been proved that the research on the interpretation of NMET cloze questions under the guidance of cohesion theory can effectively achieve its positive backwash effect.