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Chapter One   Introduction  

1.1   Research Background 
Undoubtedly,  English,  as  a  language  used  most  widely  around  the  world,  has  been wielded  in  the  international  trade,  transportation  system,  radio  broadcasting,  traveling,  mail service,  the  cooperation  of  international  science  and  technology  and  other  fields.  With  the pace of reform and opening-up speeding up and international exchange growing increasingly, English, as a kind of communicative tool, plays an extremely crucial role in different sectors of  the  society.  English  writing  is  considered  as  a  vital  communicative  means  in  language communication and is of vital importance in English learning.  However,  as  one  of  four  basic  skills  acquired  in  English  learning,  English  writing competence is deemed as the most difficult aspect to master and thus, it has been a hot issue many linguists and educators begin to attach importance to. Walter (1983) claims that writing is  the  last  and  perhaps  the  most  difficult  skill  students  learn.  Albeit  English  major  students have learned English for six or more years, they still consider writing as the most difficult part in  English  learning.  In  accordance  with  the  study  done  by  Cai  Huiping  (2006),  students’ average  writing  scores  in  Test  for  English  Majors  Grade  4  (TEM-4)  in  2004  and  2005  are 65.40  and  61.88  respectively  and  those  in  TEM-8  are  60.05  and  58.05,  which  suggest  that writing is the weak aspect in English learning, even for English majors and the problems and reasons  remain  to  be  discussed  and  elaborated.  Huang  Xiaoyu  (2005)  makes  an  analysis  of Chinese  English  learners’  errors  in  English  writing  and  claims  that  the  most  common problems in writing are grammar, the use of vocabulary and textual cohesion. Consequently, incoherence is a crucial problem in students’ compositions. Halliday  and  Hasan  (2001)  claim  that  readers  could  not  understand  or  translate  the discourse accurately without cohesion and lexical cohesion accounts for about fifty percent in various discourse patterns. Many scholars abroad (Witte and Faigley, 1981; Mc Culley, 1985; Spiegel and Fitzgerald, 1990) find that there is a certain correlation between lexical cohesion and  the  quality  of  discourse.  Moreover,  many  Chinese  scholars  (Xu  Yucheng,  2000;  Fang Cheng,  2000;  Jiang  Jing,  2005)  are  firmly  in  favor  of  the  inevitable  connections  between cohesive devices and writing quality.  T本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。