Application Of Cohesion And Coherence Theory To Teaching Cloze Test In CET-4

There have been many studies on the application of cohesion theory to language teaching and language learning since it was first proposed by Halliday and Hasan in 1976. And in the meantime, the cohesion theory itself has been becoming more and more mature, though it has also encountered disputes and disagreements.After carrying out a thorough study on the application of cohesion theory to English teaching, the writer discovers that there has been no study on the application of this theory to the teaching of the cloze test in CET-4, which makes her determined to study this respect.The writer of this thesis finds that the cloze test in CET-4 is considered as one of the most difficult parts in the whole test by the test-takers.After making a careful analysis of the cloze test materials in terms of cohesion and coherence, the writer finds that most of the blanks in the test involve coherence with the other elements either within the passage or inside the related context. Therefore, she proposes two research questions on the cloze test:1. What is the main cause of the failure in dealing with the cloze test in CET-4?2. Does the knowledge of textual cohesion and coherence matter much in dealing with the cloze test in CET-4?After interviewing the test-takers on the cause of the heavy loss in the cloze test in CET-4, the writer comes to know the main factor which accounts for the students' failure in this test, that is, they merely analyze the structures of the clause complexes, or even the clauses in which the cloze lies in terms of form but can not grasp the main meaning of the test text and the integrative relationship between different categories of the text which altogether make the test text coherent in meaning and therefore meaningful in the interaction between the writer and the reader. And the problem results from the deep influence exerted by formal grammar and traditional grammar which claim that language is a set of rules and principles and it is these rules and principles that guide the process in which people make up sentences and texts. And in the formalists' eyes, language learning only involves learning the knowledge about syntax itself and nothing more.Then the writer carries out a series of experiments to apply the cohesion theory to the teaching of the cloze test in CET-4. After about one month's experiment, the subjects in EG(experiment group) make great progress in dealing with the cloze test.The result shows that the teaching of cohesion theory contributes much to the improvement of the subjects' ability to deal with the cloze test in CET-4. And the originalities of this thesis are: 1. This study is among the first to apply textual cohesion theory to the teaching of the cloze test in CET-4; 2. The writer finds that a majority of the blanks in the cloze test in CET-4 are concerned with textual coherence, and among all of the cohesive ties involved, lexical cohesive ties are dominant; 3. The study proves that it is possible to improve college students' ability to deal with the cloze test in CET-4 in a relatively short period; 4. To teach the subjects cohesion theory is an effective way to improve their textual comprehension.Further studies concerning the application of textual cohesion and coherence theory can be carried out on how the teaching of each category of cohesive ties affect the process of dealing with the cloze test, writing, reading, translating, speaking and listening in the field of EFL in China. And more studies can be carried out on how to deal with the cloze test in CET-4 in the light of other language theories, for example, psycholinguistic theory.