| On the basis of the taxonomy of cohesive devices by Halliday and Hasan (1976), the present study aims to investigate the relationship between Chinese non-English majors' quality of English writings and their use of English cohesive devices in such compositions. The common features and the most salient problems in their using of English cohesive devices, together with the possible causes for those problems, are also discussed.For the research project, fifty compositions are randomly chosen from 280 pieces of writing composed by non-English major students in Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. Meanwhile, a questionnaire has also been distributed among the～se students, with a view to finding out their general knowledge about cohesion and coherence in English writing. According to the analyses that follow, there exists no correlation between the total number of cohesive devices used in students' writings and their writing quality, but conjunction cohesion and lexical cohesion are significantly correlated with the writing scores. Additionally, the study identifies the common features and problems of these students' way of using cohesive devices. Major problems found in the study include inconsistent use of personal reference, misuse of "the", inappropriate use of conjunctions and overuse of repetition, etc. A careful examination of these problems shows that the possible causes are due to students' lack of general knowledge of cohesion, the interference from their mother language, and their limited vocabulary.By identifying the common features and the major problems of Chinese learners' use of cohesive devices in their English writings, this paper might have some significant pedagogical implications for the teaching of English writing in China. |
