An Experimental Study On The Effects Of Textual Cohesion Of English Writing Based On The Cultivation Of Metonymic Competence In Senior High School Students

Numerous researches have been conducted on cohesion from various linguistic schools,but relatively few researches started from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,especially the conceptual metonymy theory.Al-sharafi who is the first forerunner to combine these two concepts together and propose the textual model of metonymy to illustrate the metonymic mechanism of six kinds of cohesive devices.As for the mainstream views,which were adopted by most modern cognitive linguists,conceptual metonymy is a cognitive code as well as a thinking pattern in human's mind.That is,the metonymy as a conceptual process is closely associated with language development,human cognition and thinking pattern.Thus,the author attempts to illustrate an assumption that there could exit some eloquent relationships between such kind of cognitive competence and textual cohesion in English writing.Therefore,based on the concept of metonymic competence as well as the textual model of metonymy proposed by Al-sharafi,the present study attempts to explore the feasibility of the cultivation of metonymic competence on textual cohesion in seniors' English writing.Based on this assumption,two objectives are specified as follows:1)To explore whether the application of textual cohesion model of metonymy in writing can improve senior high students' metonymic competence.And to explore the specific aspects in which the metonymic competence can be improved.2)To explore the effect of students' textual cohesion in writing based on the cultivation of metonymic competence.71 students in Grade two from a Senior High school in Baiyun distinct of Guangzhou were selected randomly as the subjects to participate the experimental research lasted for 12 weeks.The subjects came from class 3 and class 4 were divided into two groups of 35 in experimental group(EG)and 36 in control group(CG).All the subjects in EG are trained to improve their metonymic competence and textual cohesion in writing through the application of textual cohesion model of metonymy while the CG is instructed with the conventional teaching approach.In addition,the metonymic competence tests and the tests of textual cohesion in writing were used as experimental instruments in this study.In the preliminary stage,two tests were administrated prior to evaluate these subjects' original achievement of metonymic competence and textual cohesion in English writing.Through the results displayed by SPSS 22.0,it is shown that there is no remarkable divergence between the two groups in their metonymic competence and textual cohesion of English writing,thus the validity of later experimental result was guaranteed.After the experiment teaching period,post-tests respectively for measuring metonymic competence and textual cohesion in English writing were given to the two groups accordingly.The results indicate that the EG considerably outperformed CG in the metonymic competence,in terms of metonymy identification,metonymy interpretation and metonymy creation as well as the achievement of textual cohesion in writing.From the experimental results,it is concluded that: 1)The application of textual cohesion model of metonymy in writing can improve senior high students' metonymic competence.Especially in three aspects of identifying,interpreting and creating metonymies.2)The cultivation of metonymic competence also can achieve a positive effect on the textual cohesion of senior high school students in their English writing.This thesis explores the inter-relationship between metonymic competence and textual cohesion.So it is hoped that in the EFL teaching practice of textual cohesion on English writing,EFL learners should be encouraged to build their metonymic consciousness so as to improve their metonymic competence,the textual cohesion in writing,and even the acquisition competence as well as the comprehension proficiency level.