Coherence in written discourse has been a problematic concept for many English Language Teachers when teaching to write in English. It is considered as a crucial part of academic written discourse, which students are expected to master to be able to pursue their academic studies. This study aims to examine how much the coherence-related difficulties/problems of Turkish EFL students in writing English essays are related to writing Turkish essays. The subjects for this study were chosen from the upper-intermediate level students at the Preparatory Program of Istanbul Bilgi University. For a detailed understanding of the nature of the coherence-related difficulties/problems of students&rsquo / Turkish and English essays, this study suggests a pragmatic analysis, involving the use of Grice&rsquo / s Cooperative Principle and maxims and sub-maxims of Cooperation. This study was conducted in the middle of 2005-2006 Academic Year with the participation of 20 students who were chosen randomly. Each student was asked to write an essay in English on a given topic from their weekly program. Threeweeks later, the same students were asked to write essays on the same topic in Turkish. Thus, 20 English essays and 20 Turkish essays (i.e., Total 40 essays) were collected as data for this study. The essays were rated for coherence by three different raters. All English essays were analyzed by one monolingual Americanrater and one bilingual (Turkish and English) rater. Similarly, all Turkish essays were analyzed by one monolingual Turkish rater and the same bilingual (Turkish and English) rater. The coherence ratings showed that there is a positive significant correlation between the coherence judgments of monolingual raters and the bilingual rater, which means that both monolingual raters and the bilingual rater agree on the similar coherence judgments. Next, the essays were analyzed in light of the Gricean Maxims to find the violations of each maxim in each essay by the researcher. In the comparison of maxim violations and the coherence judgments of the raters, the maxim of Relation was found to be the most significant maxim that affected the coherence judgments of the raters both for Turkish and English essays. In addition, Manner maxim was significant for Turkish essays and Quantity maxim was significant for English essays. However, in the comparison of the violation of individual maxims in Turkish and English essays, the violation of Relation maxim in English essays was found to correlate with the violation of Relation, Quality and Quantity maxims in Turkish essays. Similarly, violation of Manner maxim in English essays was also found to correlate with the violation of Quantity and Relation maxims. On the other hand, the violation of Manner maxim in Turkish essays was found to correlate with the violation of Quantity maxim in English essays. In conclusion, by looking at these relationships between Turkish essays and English essays, it may be argued that students may have inadequacies in writing skills or may lack some writing skills in Turkish, which may cause inadequacies in English academic writing skills. However, this study suggests the same study be replicated in different contexts and with larger sample sizes, similar research studies be conducted in Turkish writing instruction in the contexts of Turkish Secondary Education, and further studies be conducted on the effect of Relation and Manner maxims on other maxims.

英文作文教學在英語學習上是不可或缺的一環，而實際上在台灣，英文作文教學仍是透過分析文法和句型來進行的，但這樣的方式忽略了英文寫作能夠成功的主要關鍵——連貫性。由於連貫性的晦澀難解，教師與學生皆會認為在教授和學習寫出有連貫性的文章是很複雜的。本文藉由教導學生如何於寫作時運用連繫功能詞(cohesive devices)和主題推進(thematic progression)兩種策略來探究作文中的連貫性，以研究其增進高中生英文寫作表現的可能性。本研究在不影響正常教學進度的前提下進行，研究者的39位臺北市高二學生首先接受如何分析課本文章連貫性的指導，並接著應用和檢視連繫功能詞以及主題推進於他們的寫作中。其中有兩位低成就者進一步地被挑選出來，藉由寫作會談(writing conference)以瞭解受試者在寫作時，如何利用以上兩種連貫性的策略於其英文寫作中；同時也透過訪談和日記撰寫的方式，來探討學生的學習連貫性策略的歷程。 由相關的量化和質性資料可看出，本研究的結果顯示受試者在作文整體表現與作文連貫性上的分數明顯偏高；他們也被證明能夠和其他研究中的高成就者一般，運用相同的連繫功能詞(指稱、連接與重述)和主題推進(線性推進與主題連續推進)種類。在這歷時五個月的研究中，受試者也在連繫功能詞與主題推進的協助下，培養出更注意作文內容以及進行適當修改的能力。此外，也由於受試者對於學習連繫功能詞與主題推進抱持著正面的態度，本研究建議應結合連繫功能詞和主題推進，並將其融入台灣現存的正規作文教學之中，藉著分析作文中的連繫功能詞與主題推進，協助學生理解抽象的連貫性進而使作文表現更進步。 / As an indispensable element in English learning, writing instruction in Taiwan actually has been given through the analysis of grammar and sentence patterns. This however ignores another primary key to successful writing—coherence. Due to its obscurity, teachers and students both find it complicated to teach and acquire the ability to organize a written text logically and coherently. The current study investigated the possibility to improve the high school students’ writing by instructing them how to apply the coherence strategies to their writing—cohesive devices (CD) and thematic progression (TP). In this study, with the teaching schedule unaffected, the researcher’s 39 second-graders in one Taipei senior high school were first taught how to analyze the coherence of the reading passages in the textbooks. Then they were required to apply and examine CD and TP when writing. Two low achievers of these students were further selected to investigate their writing development by examining their written texts with CD and TP applied in writing conferences, having interviews with the researcher and keeping journals between classes and writing conferences. Concluded from the quantitative and qualitative data collected, the results revealed that the two low-proficiency students were able to get high grades in the holistic writing performance and coherence of writing. They were meanwhile found to be able to apply the same categories of CD (reference, conjunction and reiteration) and types of TP (simple linear TP type and TP with a constant theme) as the ones used by the high-proficiency learners in previous studies. During the five-month study, the participants also cultivated the ability to focus more on content level and to revise properly in their writing with the help of CD and TP. Besides, since the participants held positive attitudes toward the learning of CD and TP, the researcher recommends that the combination of CD and TP should be integrated into the writing instruction in current normal English writing class in Taiwan to help students comprehend the abstract coherence and to improve their writing by analyzing CD and TP in the written texts.

句子的主題具備了串連訊息、引導文句發展的重要功能，然而資料顯示許多外語學習者常因為使用不適當的主題而影響語句的連貫性以及文章的流暢度。本研究透過觀察台灣高中生記敘文的主題類型，分析其在高、中、低分群學生文章中的使用情形來了解主題的選用對文章連貫性以及整體作文品質的影響。 本研究分成初步試驗以及正式研究兩階段，在初步試驗階段我們建立了分析的架構。在正式研究階段，我們採集111位高三學生於課堂上完成的記敘文並交由兩位經過訓練的閱卷老師進行評分，最後結果產生高、中、低分三組學生作文，接著再從每一組的文章中各抽樣10份進行主題類型之分析研究。 分析結果顯示，三組學生作文的主題類型及出現頻率大致雷同，整體而言，學生最喜好使用非標記的名詞主題，卻最少使用標記的分詞+名詞主題。然而進一步分析三組的主題發展情形，卻發現有顯著的組別差異，以高分群為例，其主題多具備銜接上文或有利推進文意的背景資料文字，相較之下，中等或低分群的作文比較容易出現和上下文不相關或中斷文意發展的新主題。 根據本研究的發現，我們建議在英語作文課中介紹句子主題的概念，幫助學生熟悉其類型和功能，期使學生能在記敘文文章中正確使用主題來達到語句連貫，文意流暢的溝通目標。 / Theme plays a significant role in guiding the information flow in text. Nonetheless, there is evidence indicating that many EFL learners often fail to make good choices of theme to secure sentential relationship or writing coherence. Through the observation on the occurrences and distribution of theme types in three levels of student compositions: the high, the middle and the low-rated narratives, the present study aims to investigate the establishment of theme in Taiwanese senior high school students’ narratives in order to gain understanding of theme’s effect on writing coherence and writing quality. The entire study consists of a pilot study and a formal one. The pilot study helps establish the criteria for the main study. In the main study, 111 student compositions were gathered and two raters were recruited and trained for the rating. Based on the rating system, the student compositions are divided into 3 levels. 10 samples from each level were randomly selected for thematic analysis. The result shows that the occurrences and distribution of theme types in the three levels of writing are alike. In general, unmarked NP theme is the most favored by all the students and marked theme Non-fi C + NP is the least desirable. Nonetheless, in terms of the establishment of theme, there are major differences between groups. In particular, the high-rated essays tend to establish a theme that is connected to the theme or the rheme in the preceding discourse or provides background information for the development of the event. In contrast, the mid-or low-rated essays are more likely to establish a theme that is unrelated or disruptive to the progression of the current discourse. Based on the findings of the present study, it is suggested that the notion of theme including its features and functions be incorporated into the teaching of English compositions to help Taiwanese senior high school students identify the characteristics of coherent writing and facilitate coherence in their English narratives.