An Applied Research of Conjunction Cohesion in EFL
Writing Teaching Based on Data Analysis
Yao Fu and Xin Chen
Foreign Languages College of Changchun University of Technology
Foreign Languages Section of Teaching Center of Basic Courses,
Jilin University Heping Campus,
No. 17 Yan’an Street, Changchun, Jilin Province, China P.R. 130012
[email protected]
Abstract. The present study investigates the use of conjunction cohesion in
writing on the basis of text analyses and global scoring of 70 compositions. It
analyzes the contrast of scores in pretest and posttest and the overall uses of
conjunction cohesion in compositions, and studies the relationship between the
frequencies of conjunction cohesion and writing quality. The research result
reveals that there is a certain correlation between English learner’s frequency of
using conjunction cohesion and his writing quality.
Keywords: cohesive device, EFL writing, conjunction, coherence.
1 Introduction
Since 1990, English writing teaching has not been paid much attention so that the
scores of writing tasks in CET-4 have been relatively low for a long time. These years,
more stresses on cohesion and text analysis were placed on EFL teaching, especially on
EFL writing teaching. It has become a focal problem in discourse analysis in the recent
two decades because discourse coherence is one of the most difficult and complicated
topics of discourse analysis, which is also vital in EFL listening, reading and speaking
teaching. However, more studies should be conducted to examine the developmental
trend in the use of cohesive devices in the context of ESL learners of China. Therefore,
this study attempts to conduct an experimental research on the usage and teaching of
conjunction cohesion in EFL writing and provide evidences for further discussion on
conjunction cohesion training.
2 Conjunction Cohesion
In 1976, Halliday and Hasan published Cohesion in English, in which they made the
definition of cohesion: “The concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations
S. Lin and X. Huang (Eds.): CSEE 2011, Part V, CCIS 218, pp. 32–37, 2011.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
An Applied Research of Conjunction Cohesion in EFL Writing Teaching
33
of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text. Cohesion occurs where
the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The
one presupposes the other, in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except by
recourse to it. When it happens, a relation of cohesion is set up, and the two elements,
the presupposing and the presupposed, are thereby at least potentially integrated into a
text” (1976: 4).
Conjunction is one of the cohesive devices. In Oxford Concise Dictionary of
Linguistics, the definition of conjunction is a word, etc. which joins two syntactic units.
And the examples are showed is “and” and “but”. For example, “He came but didn’t
stay.” The second meaning of it is logicians’ term for a proposition of the form p & q
which is true if and only if both p is true and q is true. For example: “You and your sister
in I saw you and your sister” (2000: 68). In Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching
and Applied Linguistics, conjunction is also connective. The first meaning is it is a
word which joins words, phrases, or clauses together, such as but, and when. For
example: “She sings but I don’t.” The second meaning is that it is the process by which
such joining takes place, using as coordination and subordination. For example: “It is
rained, but I went for a walk anyway.” For another example: “Unless it rains, we’ll play
tennis at 4” (2005: 137). In Halliday and Hasan’s view, conjunctions are on the
borderline of the two: mainly grammatical, but with a lexical component. In the book
Cohesion in English, Halliday and Hasan (1976) categorized conjunctions into four
types: additive, adversative, causal and temporal.
In conclusion, Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) concept of conjunction cohesion and the
well-developed taxonomy of cohesive devices should be adopted as the framework,
which may provide the objectivity and reliability of the future relevant studies. As we
can see, it was adopted by many former researchers. There is still a lot to investigate in
the teaching of English writing of Chinese college students, with the efficient
approaches teaching in class. The analysis of the organizational pattern and the use of
conjunction cohesion in the quantitative and qualitative methods might be of great
importance in the improvement of writing quality researching.
3 Research Design
3.1 Research Questions
The purpose of the case study is to summarize the frequency of conjunction cohesion in
EFL writing and explore the feasibility of applying conjunction cohesion in EFL
writing teaching which can be applicable in the current EFL writing teaching
effectively. This study is further conceptualized in terms of the following three
questions.
(1) How frequently are conjunctions used in the samples before teaching
conjunction cohesion?
34
Y. Fu and X. Chen
(2) What will be the effect on English writing quality after teaching conjunction
cohesion?
(3) What are the common features in the students’ writing in the use of conjunctions?
3.2 The Participants and the Teacher
This study investigates the use of conjunction cohesion in writing on the basis of text
analyses and global scoring for 70 compositions, 35 of which are written by the
freshmen who are majoring in Computer Science in Changchun University of
Technology, the other 35 of which are written by the freshmen who are majoring in
Agronomy in Jilin University. The 70 subjects are of a similar age, ranging from 19 to
20 years old. They are Chinese students of English as the foreign language. At the time
of the research they had been studying English for at least 6 years before entering
university including 3 years’ English education in Junior High School and the other 3
years’ in Senior High School. The English teacher is the author of this thesis, with
seven years’ experience of teaching college English. The text book which was learned
by the subjects is College English (Integrated Course Book I) published by Shanghai
Foreign Language Education Press. The subjects received a series of planned
conjunction device training and were required to write one composition in the same
limited time in the end of the semester. Finally the 70 selected written compositions can
offer the primary data to be collection work.
3.3 Research Procedure
The experiment was conducted in the first semester of the school year of 2009-2010,
lasting about 17 weeks. It consisted of three steps: the pretest, the class teaching and the
posttest. Before teaching the conjunction cohesion the subjects were asked to finish one
questionnaire. It is to investigate whether the subjects learned to use conjunction
cohesion in writing before entering into university or they have got the particular
writing training before. Also from the questionnaire it can be made clear that the
subjects are interested in improving writing.
The pretest is necessarily carried out at the very beginning of the experiment because
only if in the pretest the subjects are identified as equivalent ones which had no obvious
difference in writing proficiency before the experiment. Then the results of the
experiment can be guaranteed.
Later in this semester the various teaching approaches were adopted and different
performances are presented to teach conjunction cohesion in the EFL writing
instruction. First the researcher teaches the students to learn the usage and function of
conjunction cohesion. The conjunctions are taught in the framework and classification
of Halliday and Hasan’s. And then there are class activities to enforce the
understanding and using of conjunction cohesion.
The other writing test, that is posttest, was held at the end of the experiment, with the
purpose of testing whether this teaching model of conjunction cohesion is more
effective in improving the students' EFL writing compared with the previous condition.
An Applied Research of Conjunction Cohesion in EFL Writing Teaching
35
4 Results and Discussions
4.1 The Contrast of the Scores
The minimum score is 4 in the pretest but 6 in the posttest. And the maximum score is
10 in the pretest but 14 in the posttest. The mean score is about 7 in the pretest and
about 10 in the posttest. It is clear that it is the improvement in the scores in the pretest
and the posttest. It is shown in the following descriptive table:
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics
4.2 Overall Uses of Conjunction in Subjects’ Compositions
Then, a thorough and detailed study of the effect of the amount of conjunctions use on
the quality of compositions will be presented.
In order to have a comprehensive understanding of how conjunctions are used in
subjects’ compositions, we can analyze the following items: the total number of
conjunctions, the number of each kind of conjunctions, the kind of conjunction which is
highest frequently used and the certain conjunction which is highest frequently used.
Statistical results are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2:
VAR00005
VAR00002
VAR00004
VAR00003
Fig. 1. The Distribution of Conjunction
Var. 2 is the additive conjunction, Var. 3 is the adversative conjunction, Var. 4 is the
causal conjunction and Var. 5 is the temporal conjunction. Here from the Figure 1 it is
apparent that the additive conjunctions are most frequently used in the samples. The
causal conjunctions come the second. And the adversative ones are the least used.
36
Y. Fu and X. Chen
VAR00010
VAR00009
VAR00006
VAR00008
VAR00007
Fig. 2. Var. 6 = “and”, Var. 8= “because”, Var 10= “but”, Var. 7= “so”, Var. 9= “first…”&
“firstly…”
Among the conjunctions, “and” as an additive conjunction appears most frequently
almost in every subject’s compositions. “so” as a causal conjunction comes the second.
The number of “because” and “so” are almost the same used in the compositions. “but”
which is used as an adversative conjunction follows the “because”. Temporal
conjunction “first…” as well as “firstly…”is utilized the least frequently. The chart
shows the easiest conjunctions are of more frequency in the compositions. The causal
conjunctions are relatively easy to use in the compositions.
5 Summary
It could be obviously seen that after the conjunction cohesion training, this type of
cohesive device is more frequently used in the students’ writings. It could be apparently
seen that the students’ writing performance is improved on textual level by regarding
this increase of using of cohesive devices, because the samples with more conjunctions
gained higher scores.
The research results reveal that there is a correlation between the non-English
majors’ frequency of using conjunction cohesion and writing quality. Although the
frequency of the use of conjunction cohesion isn’t in the direct proportion to the scores
of essays written by the subjects, the compositions with the higher scores in the posttest
really contain more conjunctions, especially formal and various types of conjunctions.
From the present research, as a competent English teacher, one should be clear that it
is not enough to make grammatical analysis on the sentence level. We should extract
every useful theory from text linguistics and apply it into our teaching practice so as to
shift our focus from sentence to text.
References
1. Beaugrand, Dressler, W.U.: Introduction to Text Analysis. Longman, London (1981)
2. Brown, Y.: Discourse Analysis. Cambridge University Press, London (1983)
3. Cook, G., Seidlhofer, B.: Barbara Seidlhofer: Principles and Practice in Applied Linguistics.
Oxford University Press, Oxford (1995)
4. Hyland, K.: Teaching and Researching Writing. Foreign Language Teaching and Research
Press, Beijing (2005)
An Applied Research of Conjunction Cohesion in EFL Writing Teaching
37
5. Ede, L.: Work in Progress: A Guide to Writing and Revising. St. Martin’s Press, Inc., New
York (1989)
6. Halliday, M.A.K.: An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2nd edn. Foreign Language
Teaching and Research Press, Beijing (2000)
7. Halliday, M.A.K.: Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and
Meaning. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing (2001)
8. Halliday, M.A.K.: Ruqaiya Hasan: Cohesion in English. Foreign Language Teaching and
Research Press, Beijing (2001)
9. Fu, Y.: Application of Conjunction Cohesion in EFL Writing for College Non-English
Majors. Jilin University (2009)