Proceedings of The 2nd International Conference on Future of Teaching and Education

Year: 2019

DOI:

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Discourse Analysis for EFL Academic Writing: University Students’ Problems with Cohesion and Coherence

Anna Wing-bo TSO
ABSTRACT: 

This paper aims
to highlight the common cohesion and coherence mistakes made in Hong Kong students’ English academic writing. According to research, one of the biggest challenges that
most Chinese university students face is the difficulty in mastering coherence and cohes ion in English written texts. Constructing fluent, effective and meaningful English written texts that hang together appropriately is a hard task for them. The main reason of the difficulty, as Ren (2013) suggests, is due to the widely varied thought patte rns in English and Chinese, which are “rooted in different culture, or different philosophy, word system, and history in specific” (523).
Influenced by the Chinese norm of social interaction, Chinese students learning English as a second or foreign languag e (ESL/EFL) tend to convey their arguments in an indirect and circular pattern. Out of courtesy, the real intention of writing is often held back, and the thesis statement is inferred implicitly towards the end of the essay, rather than stated straightforw ardly right at the beginning in the introduction. To improve Chinese students’ English academic writing ability, it is imperative that ESL/EFL teachers raise their students’ awareness towards the different
understanding of coherence and cohesion in Chinese and English rhetorical patterns respectively.

Keywords: Discourse analysis, coherence, cohesion, academic writing, EFL