A Rhetorical Structure Theory Based Approach to Texture Coherence in Chinese EFL Learners' Argumentative Writing

Based on Rhetorical Structure Theory(RST),this study intends to investigate into the typical features of rhetorical relations in Chinese EFL learners’argumentative writing and their relationship with writing quality.A set of 60 essays(30 with the highest scores and another 30 with the lowest scores)were drawn from SWECCL(Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners).These essays were then cut into elementary discourse units and manually annotated with rhetorical relations.Research findings show that there is no significant difference in terms of the total numbers and types of rhetorical relations between the two proficiency groups.However,comparisons of the rhetorical relations both at the intra-paragraph and at the inter-paragraph level indicate statistical differences between the two groups.