Use Of Cohesive Devices In English Argumentative Compositions By Chinese College Non-English Majors

To EFL learners, writing is the most difficult among the four basic skills. Writing in English is a complicated process of thinking, which involves various factors, such as learners' foreign language writing abilities, foreign language competence and their first language (Du Jinbang, 2001). In all levels of English proficiency tests, writing is an important part. However, EFL learners are weak in this aspect, which causes great concern among researchers and teachers.It is found that grammatical errors consist of a large proportion of the errors in EFL learners' compositions. However, even if all the grammatical errors are corrected, the meaning of the compositions is still fragmentary and sentences disconnect with each other. To read such compositions, readers often feel frustrated (Wang Yuwen & Zhang Peng, 2003). How to write grammatically-correct and coherent compositions has been a focal point of English language teaching, especially in writing courses. As Halliday and Hasan point out, "cohesion is the foundation of coherence" (1976: 13). Therefore, to explore the use of cohesive devices in students' compositions will be of great help to improve their writing abilities.Researchers have done a lot in the field of coherence and cohesion in students' compositions. Du Jinbang (2001)-has found that Chinese students are relatively poor in organizing the text and seldom use cohesive devices in their compositions. Yu Lianjiang and Zhang Zuogong (2001), through statistical analysis of students' sample compositions, have discovered a frequency distribution rank of five categories of cohesive devices and classified the errors in using conjunctions. Students are inclined to omit necessary conjuncts, improperly use conjuncts or incorrectly use conjuncts.Through an extensive survey of the existing literature, we find it limited in some aspects. First, most researches fail to provide a complete theoretical framework for analysis of cohesive devices. Second, most researches only lay emphasis on the errors of cohesive devices without explaining how cohesive devices are correctly used. Third, criteria for judging whether cohesive devices are used correctly are subjective and without solid theoretical foundation. Therefore, this study starts with a relatively...