Cohesion Theory and Its Implications for English Reading Teaching

摘要

According to College English Curriculum Requirements (2007), reading is the main training aim of our college English teaching. And for the college graduates, reading is the main way through which they obtain information needed in their specialty. Most often, students think their problem in reading is vocabulary, which is not necessarily true. Sometimes even the readers look up all the new words, it is still hard for them to understand the text exactly and thoroughly. Though vocabulary plays an impor⁃ tant role in reading comprehension, it may not be the biggest hindrance on our way of correct comprehending. English reading teaching shouldn’t be confined to the teaching of vocabulary or sentences but should develop students’ability to analyze text be⁃ yond sentence level. It’s impossible to cover all the aspects of discourse analysis in one article and since cohesion is important and basic knowledge of discourse analysis, we will concentrate on the cohesive functions of discourse in English reading in this article.