| For the past decades, Cohesion Theory (Halliday and Hasan,2001) has beenstudied from different perspectives by many scholars such as Cook (1989), Hoey(2000), etc.. Cook conducts an analysis which distinguishes text from discourse, andHoey establishes his own understanding on Lexical Cohesion Theory, and Martin(1992) explains the difference between lexical chain and lexical string. Domesticscholars, like Hu Zhuanglin (1994), Zhang Delu (2001), also made achievements inthe development of Cohesion Theory’s theoretical studies and applied studies.As one of the most important part of systemic functional linguistics, cohesiontheory should be paid much attention to. Since the establishment of cohesion theory,linguists have defined cohesion in many different ways. In this thesis, the author firstintroduces some linguists’ definition of cohesion and its classifications. Then,Halliday’s cohesion theory will be applied, which lies the foundation the theoreticalbasis of the thesis.The author’s research aims at the English corporate social responsibility reports. Itis well known that the English corporate social responsibility reports are typicalbusiness texts. Since cohesion is one of the most important topics in discourseanalysis, it is of great significance to make further study on cohesion theory andcohesive features. The author carries out an investigation based on the randomlyselected language materials and focuses on the features of five devices of cohesion:reference, ellipsis, substitution, conjunction and lexical cohesion.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter1introduces the research topic, thesignificance and layout of the thesis. In chapter2, previous studies of text cohesionand English corporate reports in China and other countries are carried out. Chapter3demonstrates the theoretical framework, including the main functions of the fivecohesive devices introduced in the thesis. In Chapter4, which is the body of the thesis,the author employs qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze a corpus of30 English corporate social responsibility reports covering well-known technologycompanies in English-speaking countries. The study reveals that the lexical cohesionis preferred in the corporate social responsibility reports, followed in order ofoccurrence by reference, conjunction and ellipsis. And the last chapter, Chapter5,concludes with the findings, suggestions for further study and limitations of the thesis.By conducting such a research, the author of the thesis draws the followingconclusion. First, among the five types of cohesive devices, the most frequently usedone is lexical cohesion, followed by order of occurrences are reference, conjunction,ellipsis and substitution. The research may presumably contribute to the knowledge ofthe linguistic features and, especially, those of cohesion of corporate socialresponsibility reports. What is more, the study may be expected to shed light on thetranslating and even the writing of the corporate social responsibility reports ofChinese technology companies, especially those which want to compete ininternational market. |
