A Study On Application Of Text Cohesion And Coherence Theory To Senior High School English Writing

Cohesion and coherence are two important concepts in the study of text linguistics.The English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School(2017)points out that students are required to use cohesive and coherent devices in discourse to achieve cohesive relations,improve text structures,and develop language proficiency.Rating Criteria of College Entrance Examination in writings requires students not only to select proper vocabulary and correct grammatical structures,but also to use cohesive devices as many as possible to make compositions semantically coherent.This study combed the important concepts of text cohesion and coherence and related researches at home and abroad,understood the present situation of text cohesion and coherence in English writing,and tried to combine cohesion and coherence theory with English writing teaching in high school so as to explore whether cohesion and coherence can improve English writing proficiency.Two research questions are addressed: 1)What are the changes in students' writing attitude,the application of cohesion and coherence under the instruction of text cohesion and coherence theory? 2)What are the effects of text cohesion and coherence theory on students' English writing achievement? In this study,ninety-four participants of Grade Two were selected as research subjects from two parallel classes in a senior high school in Hebei Province.An experiment was conducted under the instruction of text cohesion and coherence theory in the experimental class for 16 weeks.The research process includes the pre-test,pre-questionnaire,teachers' interview,the experiment,the post-test,post-questionnaire and students' interview.All the collected data were input into SPSS 24.0 for quantitative analysis.The research results showed that the writing attitude of the students in the experimental class was improved significantly,and vocabulary,grammar and logical cohesion and coherence were able to be used to enhance the expressiveness of the article during the writing.After 16-week research,students in the experimental class were more interested in English writing and the using frequencies and correction rates of text cohesion and coherence significantly improved.Compared with the control class,students' English writingachievement in the experimental class improved greatly,especially in the use of cohesion and coherence,which showed that teachers' instruction had a positive impact on students' English writing.The implications of this research are: 1)Teachers should consciously cultivate students' English logical thinking ability,distinguish the similarities and differences between English and Chinese language expression,and reduce the negative transfer of language.2)Teachers should pay attention to the cultivation of students' text cohesion and coherence thinking and the input of the knowledge.3)Teachers should seek effective writing teaching models to improve students' text cohesion and coherence.