Abstract:
In
recent years, writing, as one of the most important communicative skills, has
been drawing increasing attention in English language teaching in China. This
paper presents an investigation into the use of decomposition in Latent Semantic
Analysis (LSA) to analyze textual coherence. Based on LSA and Halliday and Hasan's
(1976) concepts of cohesion and their categorization of cohesive devices, this
study reports on the analysis of the writing of 70 Chinese students. The results
are consistent and indicate that LSA is an objective and appropriate method in
measuring textual coherence. Therefore, it is argued that close attention should
be paid to the cultivation of textual coherence in the teaching of English writing.
Key
words:
LSA (Latent Semantic Analysis), coherence, cohesion, English writing
