The Use And Development Of Cohesive Devices In Argumentative Writing By Chinese EFL Learners

Cohesive devices are regarded as crucial factors that indicate argumentative essay quality.Prior research on cohesive devices mainly focuses on the following three aspects: feature of cohesive devices used by English learners,English learners' inappropriate use of cohesive devices,and the relationship between cohesive devices and essay quality.However,little attention has been paid to English learners' development of cohesive devices.On the basis of cohesion theory proposed by Halliday & Hasan(1976),this study examines the use and development of cohesive devices produced by Chinese EFL students in their argumentative essays.The present study was conducted with forty-two second-year English majors enrolled in an English writing course at a comprehensive university in China.126 essays,including participants' first and final drafts of argumentative essays written at the beginning of the semester and final research papers written at the end of the semester,were collected.All cohesive devices in the essays were coded and categorized into four types: reference,conjunction,substitution and lexical cohesion.Furthermore,semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten selected participants to further explore factors influencing students' use and development of cohesive devices over one semester.Results of the study show that students tend to use references and conjunctions more than ellipsis,substitution and lexical cohesion in their essays.In the meantime,more errors were found in learners' use of references and conjunctions,whilst fewer errors had been found in ellipsis and lexical cohesion.Comparison of student's use of cohesive devices between first argumentative essays and final research papers indicates that learners made fewer mistakes in every category of cohesive devices in the end of the semester.Furthermore,improvement on the frequency and type of cohesive devices can be seen among a small number of students,while the majority of the students remained unchanged in their use of cohesive devices in argumentative writing.Factors influencing students' development of cohesive devices can be learners' prior knowledge and self-assessment,motivation,and the impact brought by different source of feedback.Findings of the present study reveal that Chinese EFL learners' use of cohesive devices in writing was lack of diversity.Moreover,they tend to be influenced by their L1 thinking pattern during writing process,which has a negative impact on their use of cohesive devices.The current study has its own pedagogical implications on the teaching and learning of cohesive devices in writing.