1.2 Purpose and Significance 

This paper intends to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze frequently employed cohesive devices, especially referential items, in L2 compositions through an empirical study. It aims to explore the correlation between cohesive devices and textual coherence and to examine those cohesive devices which may weaken textual coherence and tries to identify some potential factors behind the choice of these cohesive devices which are somewhat harmful to textual coherence through analyzing L2 compositions by some sophomore English majors. This paper also attempts to make some suggestions for English learners on how to avoid using cohesive devices which may weaken textual coherence, in this way, their consciousness of textual coherence shall be intensified and the quality of their L2 compositions and their ability to express themselves in L2 writing shall be improved.

1.3 Organization of this Paper

This paper is comprised of five major chapters. Chapter One constitutes an introduction to the study, in which the research background, purpose and significance of the study, and organization of this paper are stated briefly. Chapter Two is a literature review which elaborates the theoretical framework of this study, including the cohesion theory, previous studies on cohesion and coherence and the concept of reference and so forth. In Chapter Three, the research design and the procedure of data collecting are presented respectively. Besides, the cohesive devices which may weaken textual coherence are to be examined and the potential factors behind the choice of these cohesive devices are explored. In Chapter Four, suggestions on how to intensify the consciousness of textual coherence are made. A chief conclusion is given in the fifth chapter, with major results of the research and limitations of this study demonstrated.

2 Textual Cohesion and Coherence

2.1 Textual Cohesion Theory

In the field of language teaching and acquisition, it is Halliday and Hasan who have carried out a series of systematic studies of various cohesive devices as special language phenomena. The publishing of Cohesion in English (1976) coauthored by them marks the establishment of the textual cohesion theory and has been a milestone in the evolution of textual analysis.

Halliday and Hasan explicitly defined cohesion as “non-structural relations” (1976: 36) which “form texts”, they assumed that the concept of cohesion is “semantic” which refers to “relations of meaning existing within the text” (1976: 4) and “where the interpretation of any item in the discourse requires making reference to some other item in the same discourse, there is cohesion”. Hence, when discussing cohesion, we usually judge the existence of cohesive relations by the presence of formal features. Halliday and Hasan discussed cohesion with various formal features. But these features are used to “represent cohesive mechanism”, “they are not cohesive relations in themselves” (Hu, 1994: 57). Therefore, two layers in which cohesion is involved should be taken into account when discussing textual cohesion: on the semantic layer, cohesion is a concept of meaning and on the formal layer, or in terms of speech sound, intonation, lexis and grammar, cohesive relations in a text are represented and symbolized by language forms.

2.2 Cohesion within the Sentence

Considering “cohesive relations are not concerned with structure” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 36), they must exist “within a sentence as well as between sentences”. Because the sentence already sticks together due to the “cohesive strengths of grammatical structure”, cohesion is not necessary to make it stick together. However, the cohesive relations still exists there. For instance:

Despite the meeting started ahead of schedule, he did not miss it.