Lexical Cohesion Analysis in the English Majors’ Argumentative Compositions

【Abstract】As an important communicating tool， writing used to exchange information， maintain financial accounts and express thoughts and ideas in everyday life. Argumentative writing as one of the writing genre is the most frequently adopted one in many test and examination. This thesis takes 25 argumentative writings to analyze the usage of the lexical cohesive devices.

【Key words】Lexical Cohesion; Lexical Cohesive Device; Argumentative Writing; Correlation

【作者簡介】崔蔚（1990-），女，汉族，陕西西安人，西安财经大学外国语学院，助教，文学硕士，研究方向：应用语言学，英语教学，翻译。

1. Introduction

Listening， speaking， reading and writing are four basic skills to be learned during language learning. Each of them is of equal importance in language teaching and learning. Argumentative writing as one of the writing genre is the most frequently adopted one in many test and examination. That is to say， it is important for students to practice and improve the skills in argumentative writing such as thesis， research papers even doctoral dissertations.

Cohesive devices are the important elements in writing need to be highlighted in writing course. It has been studied by several scholars both abroad （Halliday & Hasan etc.） and at home. （Xu Yuchen， Chen Peng etc.）. Nowadays， Chinese teachers mainly focus on grammar， vocabulary and structure in writing. The importance of cohesive devices has seldom been mentioned in the writing class. Chinese students seldom know about the cohesion in the text， not to say to use it to make their writing more cohesive and coherent.

Through the analysis of the relationship between the lexical cohesion and the compositions grading score， this thesis tries to arouse the attention of both the teachers and the students of how important the lexical cohesive devices are.

2. Literature Review

The concept cohesion was first proposed by M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan in the book Cohesion in English in 1976. According to Halliday and Hasan， “The concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text…” （Halliday & Hasan， 2001，） While the “text” can be used to refer to any kind of passage， spoken or written， of whatever length. Language was explained as a multiple coding system comprising three levels （the semantic， lexicogrammatical and the phonological and orthographic） of coding according to Halliday and Hasan. “Cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary.” （Halliday & Hasan， 2001，）That is to say there are basic two kinds of cohesion known as Grammatical Cohesion and Lexical Cohesion. The Grammatical Cohesion mainly falls on reference， substitution and ellipsis， while the Lexical Cohesion refers to the reiteration and collocation with the conjunction （mainly grammatical but with a lexical element in it） on the borderline of the two. That is to say the cohesion is realized within both forms， with some through grammar and others through vocabulary.

Suggested by Halliday in 2000， “Continuity may be established in a text by the choice of words. This may take the form of word repetition; or the choice of a word that is related in some way to a previous one – either semantically or collocationally.” （Halliday， 2000， p310） Lexical cohesion is the cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary， which has two forms： Reiteration and Collocation.

2.1 Reiteration

“Reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion which involves the repetition of a lexical item， at one end of the scale; the use of the general word to refer back to a lexical item， at the other end of the scale; and a number of things in between—the use of a synonym， near-synonym， or superordinate.” （Halliday & Hasan， 2001， p278） Therefore， reiteration can be （a） the same word， （b） a synonym or near-synonym， （c） a superordinate or （d） a general word.

2.2 Collocation

Different from reiteration， indicated by Halliday （2000）， collocation do not depend on any semantic relationship， but on a particular association between the items in question – a tendency to co-occur. The “co-occurrence” is known as Collocation.  Therefore， as the most problematical part of lexical cohesion， “collocational cohesion is that achieved through the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur.” （Halliday & Hasan， 2001）

3. Methodology

Based on the theory conducted by Halliday and Hasan， this research categorized the lexical cohesive device into different types：

3.1 Repetition： （1） repetition of the same word; （2） repetition of the synonyms （words that means exactly or nearly the same in one language）; （3） repetition of the superordinate （one word whose semantic field is included within that of another word）; （4） repetition of a general word （a small set of nouns having generalized reference within the major noun classes）.

3.2 Collocation： （5） complementary （boy…girl; stand up…sit…down）; （6） antonyms （e.g. like…hate; crowded…deserted）; （7） words that share the same lexical environment （e.g. laugh…joke; ill…doctor）

The subjects of this study are 25 English-major sophomore students from Xian University of Arts and Science， Shaanxi Province. All the subjects come from the same class with similar language proficiency. The composition was written in the writing class with the teachers presence. It is written when all of them were preparing the Test for English Majors-band 4.

4. Results and Discussion

By analyzing the lexical cohesive devices in the argumentative writing， the thesis comes up with a result. 54 times of lexical cohesive devices applied in the high-score group， while in the low-score group， only 37 times of lexical cohesive devices were used. The most frequently used lexical cohesive device is the repetition in both groups. However， very few collocational devices were adopted in the writings of both groups. According to the correlation analysis， the correlation coefficient between the usage of the lexical cohesive devices and the compositions grading score is 0. 53. According to Brown， “Coefficients either positive or negative up to about +0.40， or -0.40 indicate fairly weak relationships. Relatively strong correlations would be those that range from +0.80 to +1.0 or -1.0.” （Brown， 2006） Therefore， it can be inferred that there is a fairly strong positive relationship between the usage of the lexical devices and the compositions score. The positive relationship was justified between the frequencies of the lexical cohesive devices and the grading score of the argumentative writing based on the correlation coefficient analysis. That is to say the more lexical cohesive devices are used， the higher score the compositions will be graded. Below is a figure about the correlation coefficient calculated with the Function in Excel.

5. Conclusion

Usage of cohesive devices as one kind of method to improving the writing quality needs much more attention in language teaching. Referring to the results of this thesis， it is clearly that the teaching of collocational devices in writing course needs to be strengthened. Due to the limitation of time and energy， the thesis itself has some limitations. Further analysis and researches still need to be done.

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