大学生英语写作中的衔接错误分析.docx

Analysis of Cohesion Errors in College Students1 English WritingAbstractEnglish writing has always been considered as the most difficult one among the fivebasicskills-listening^speaking,reading,writingandtranslating.FormostEnglishlearnersjtisagreatchallengetowriteafully-developedandwell-organizedpieceof work.ManycollegestudentshavealreadymasteredseveralbasicEnglishwritingskills, suchastofinishsomesimplewritingtaskswithvocabulariesandgrammartheyhave learned. Although they can write with little lexical and grammatical errors, some common problemsstillexistintermsofcohesivedevicesandcoherence.ltisataskforEnglish teachers to help college students solve those problems and improve their writing.The present thesis, based on Halliday's cohesion theory, lays stress on the analysisofcohesionandcoherenceerrorsincollegestudents'Englishwriting.Thesamplewritings aretakenfromlOOcollegestudentswhoarestudyingEnglishasadualdegreein HuazhongUniversityofScienceandTechnology.Boththenumberofcohesivedevices and cohesion errors are calculated, meanwhile the possible causes leading to some of the cohesion errors are provided and analyzed. It is expected that the analysis of cohesionandcoherenceerrorsincollegestudents,Englishwritingcouldstrengthentheawarenessof students and teachers in using the cohesive devices and achieving the text coherence, and could offer some pedagogical implications in English teaching.Key Words: CohesionEnglish Writingcollege Students' relationshipbetweenthem,anyinstanceofreiterationmaybe(l)thewordofsame meaning, (2) a word of the synonym or near synonym, (3) a word of a super-ordinate, or (4) a general word. All lexical cohesion which is not covered by 'reiteration' will be handled underthegeneralheadingofcollocation.Collocationitemshavethesamelexical environment and will generate a cohesive force according to Halliday and Hasan.In a word, this thesis mainly will use the systematic classification of cohesive devices byHalliday.Thecohesioncanbedividedintothreegroups.Thefirstoneisgrammatical cohesivedevices,andthesecondislexicalcohesivedevices.Thethirdislogical conjunction cohesive devices. Basing on Halliday and Hasan/s cohesion theory, the author analyzes the errors of the students/ writings, which will discuss in detail in the next chapter.Chapter ThreeAnalysis of Cohesion Errors3.1 Definition of ErrorTherehavedifferentdefinitionsgiventodescribezerrorz.Corder(1967:43)gives definition to an error as a deviation in learner language that because lack of knowledge.Anerrorcanovertorcovert.Corder(1967)alsogivesadistinctionbetweenerrorszmistakes andlapses.Errorsarenotrecognizabletothelearnerandsoarenotamenableto self-correction, but lapses are recognizable, being those slips of tongue or pen, false starts and confusions of structure or 'syntactic blends', typical of NS or learners alike. MistakeinCorder'sschemearewhathecallsinappropriateutterances^wherethereisafailureto makethelanguagesuitabletothesituation.MoredistinctionisofferedbyEdge(1989), who subdivides Corder's category into two. He retains the terms 'error' for term 'attempts/ fordeviationsinareasoflanguagestilluntaught.Coder,s(1981:10)distinctionbetween mistake and error in another book is easier to be understood. There he defines mistake as the error of performance made by a learner in the process of speaking or writing caused by lacking attention, fatigue, carelessness, etc.However, it is sometimes hard to identify whether the learners' incorrect use resulting fromthelackofknowledgeorthefailureinperformancesinceitispossiblethatthelearners'k nowledgeofthetargetformisonlyapartoftheprocess.What^more^hedistinctionbetweenerrorsandmistakesisnotclearinsomecases.Forthesereasonszthe present thesis will discuss errors mistakes in the process of analyzing the writing included.3.2 Definition of Error AnalysisError Analysis (EA) is the study and analysis of the errors which is made by second language learners. Error analysis may be aimed to:I identify strategies which learners use in language learning.II try to identify the reasons of learners' errorslllobtaininformationoncommondifficultiesinlanguagelearning^sanaidto teaching or preparing teaching materials (Richards, Jack C et al,1992:127).Error analysis has long been used as a method of identifying disadvantages in secondlanguagelearning.Itisconceptualizedandappliedbasedonthebehavioristtheoryof languagelearningwhichsuggeststhaterrorsaresignsthatalanguagelearnersimply doesn't learn the rules of the target language effectively. In the early 1950s, the notion of language as a system, and what is more, the notion of second language acquisitionasthemeetingoftwolanguagesystemsobtainedmoreacceptanceandlinguistsstartedtosee errors as evidence of language transfer, or as inter-systematic interference (Richards, 1984： 4). With that conceptualization, errors are seen as the manifestation of ineffective language learning and are focused upon by linguists and teachers intentontheireliminatio。