A Comparative Study Of Reference As A Cohesive Device In English Abstracts Of MA Theses By Chinese And British Students

The role of cohesive devices in the realization of coherence has received great attention and been widely studied since the publication of cohesion in English by M.A.K.Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan in 1976.Reference as one of the most important cohesive devices has also been attached great importance to for a long time.However,throughout previous relevant studies,few previous studies are conducted to compare the use of reference by native speakers and non-native speakers of English from the viewpoint of second language teaching and acquisition.And studies taking English abstracts of MA theses written by native speakers and non-native speakers of English as data to compare the use of reference are rarely seen,which indicates the necessity of the present thesis.This thesis takes English abstracts of MA theses written by Chinese students and British students as the data for analysis.100 English abstracts written by Chinese students come from CNKI and 100 of the English abstracts written by British students come from PQDT.This thesis adopts both qualitative and quantitative research methods.It aims at answering three questions: 1)What are the similarities and differences in the use of reference in English abstracts of MA theses by Chinese and British students? 2)What are the references misused in English abstracts by Chinese students? 3)What are the possible factors causing the similarities and differences between the two groups and the misuse by Chinese students?The findings of the study are as the following:(1)The similarities and differences are found in the use of all the three kinds of reference.The overall tendency of three kinds of reference(personal,demonstrative,comparative)used by the two groups is similar,12.2%,80.7%,6.9% for Chinese students and 16%,75.6%,8% for British students.They all use demonstrative reference most frequently and comparative reference least frequently.In personal references,the two groups use first person plurals(5.48%,7.5%),second person(0%,0.7%),some of the third person(39.78%,40.4%)and “one”/ “one's”(12.1%,10.9%)in similar ways.They are rather different in using first person singulars(0.29%,23.3%)and “it”/ “its”(41.5%,17.2%).In demonstrative references,they are similar in using “this”,“those”,“now”/ “here”,“there”/ “then”(8.22%,10.94%),different in using “these”(1.14%,4.3%)“that”(6.46%,13.8%)and “the”(84.18%,70.94%).In comparative references,both groups never use comparative references like “identical”,“identically”,“equal”,“equally”,“else”,“likewise”,“additional”.The use of “other”(9.09%,12.02%),“otherwise”(0%,0.48%)and “comparative degree”(36.36%,38.94%)is quite similar.However,British students use other comparative references like “same”,“similar” and “similarly”,“different” and “differently” more frequently than Chinese students.(2)The percentage of personal reference,demonstrative reference and comparative reference misused by Chinese students is 35.16%,19.62% and 8.08% respectively.The most often misused is personal reference and the least often misused is comparative reference.In personal references,Chinese students misuse third person references(41%),first person references(20%),“one”/ “one's”(2%).In demonstrative references,they misuse “the”(20.51%),“this”/ “these”(20%),“that”/ “those”(12.26%).In comparative references,they misuse “comparative degree”(13.89%),“so”(12.12%)and “other”(11.11%).(3)The factors leading to similarities like seldom use of second person references,vast use of third person references and frequent use of “the” may be contributed to the similar requirements for English academic papers.Different cultural backgrounds of the two groups may be regarded as one reason for the differences in using first person references especially first person singulars.Different language environment and linguistic competence may be factors causing British students as native English speakers using comparative references more diversely than Chinese students.As for the references misused by Chinese students,intra-lingual and inter-lingual transfer are considered as main possible explanations.Through analyzing the similarities and differences by the two groups and the misuse by Chinese students,the similarities,differences,and the gap in the use of reference between Chinese students and British students are found.It is hoped that the findings of the thesis can provide some implications to second language teaching and acquisition.In spite of the findings,there are inevitable limitations in this study,which include the scope of data,the process of collecting data and the process of analyzing possible factors,all of which are to be overcome in future studies.