Cohesion In Msc Thesis English Abstract Writing

The English abstract is an indispensable part of a well-written academic paper due to its important role in global academic communication, and it provides convenience for information retrieval systems such as Science Citation Index (SCI) or Engineering Index (EI). Therefore, a systematic training in English abstract writing for college students can improve competitive advantages with their counterparts on international stage. This concern is especially true for non-English major postgraduate students who are either struggling for accomplishing their Master Degree theses or wishing to publish them in English-language journals. Needless to say, a sound English abstract should be meaningful, logic and compendious in textual level.According to the cohesion theory proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976:13), cohesion is the foundation of coherence and it is the most important prerequisite for a text. The proper use of cohesive devices can achieve textual coherence. A coherent text calls for skillful employment of cohesive devices in permitted register within a text. Five major cohesive devices are systematically elaborated by them including reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion. Many scholars at home and abroad have applied cohesion theory in the researches to improve the quality of English writing. However, few researches have been conducted to explore cohesion in English abstracts written by Chinese postgraduates, let alone those of the Master of Science (MSc) theses.The paper aims to explore cohesion in MSc thesis English abstract writing with consideration of the features of scientific research paper. This study randomly selects50English abstracts as data-based corpus from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The target samples, selected from the MSc theses completed from the year2005to2010, cover five disciplines including industry, agriculture, biology, physics and chemistry. Each sample is coded according to Halliday and Hasan’s taxonomy of cohesion (1976). With the assistance of computational tool Excel and Coh-metrix, quantitative analysis is conducted in frequency, percentage of each cohesion type and rate of cohesive errors. In addition, qualitative analysis of extracted samples aims to find out major cohesive errors as well as the possible causes for those errors. The research finds that:in MSc thesis English abstract writing, lexical cohesion is the most frequently used in five major cohesive devices, while substitution is the least. Errors in lexical cohesion are the most widely committed, but rate of errors in ellipsis is the highest in the target discourse. It indicates these two cohesive devices are the weakness in writing by the target group. Besides, overuse and misuse of lexical cohesion have direct impact on the quality of English abstract writing. The author hopes these findings can explore some major cohesive features in cohesive devices use in the target discourse; and provide beneficial implications to improve the foreign language teaching of academic writing.