| Acknowledgements | 第1-7页 |
| 摘要 | 第7-8页 |
| Abstract | 第8-9页 |
| 前言 | 第9-12页 |
| Chapter One Introduction | 第12-15页 |
| ·Motivation | 第12-13页 |
| ·Research questions | 第13-14页 |
| ·Structure of the thesis | 第14-15页 |
| Chapter Two Literature Review | 第15-30页 |
| ·Definition and development of discourse analysis | 第15-17页 |
| ·Coherence and cohesion | 第17-22页 |
| ·Coherence | 第17-19页 |
| ·Cohesion | 第19页 |
| ·Different opinions about relationship between coherence and cohesion | 第19-21页 |
| ·Halliday and Hason's taxonomy of cohesive devices | 第21-22页 |
| ·A brief introduction to Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) | 第22-27页 |
| ·Relations | 第23-26页 |
| ·The procedure of RST | 第26-27页 |
| ·RST, coherence and cohesion | 第27-28页 |
| ·Relevant researches | 第28-30页 |
| Chapter Three Methodology | 第30-37页 |
| ·Research design | 第30-33页 |
| ·The subjects | 第30页 |
| ·Writing task | 第30-31页 |
| ·Data collection | 第31-33页 |
| ·Annotation tool — RST Tool | 第33页 |
| ·Data analysis | 第33-35页 |
| ·Quality assurance | 第35-37页 |
| Chapter Four Results and Discussion | 第37-53页 |
| ·Students' general preference for discourse relations | 第37-40页 |
| ·Rhetorical relations and textual coherence | 第40-42页 |
| ·Relationship between grade level and wrong relations | 第40-41页 |
| ·Relationship between grade level and proper use of rhetorical relations | 第41-42页 |
| ·Macro analysis: comparison of the overall top-level rhetorical structure | 第42-44页 |
| ·Micro analysis: comparison of discourse markers | 第44-49页 |
| ·Students' discourse markers preference | 第45-47页 |
| 4:4.3 Students' use of discourse markers to trigger relations across groups | 第47页 |
| ·Case study of students' discourse markers preference | 第47-49页 |
| 4. 5 Discussion of major findings | 第49-53页 |
| ·Major findings | 第49-50页 |
| ·Discussion in general | 第50-53页 |
| Chapter Five Conclusion | 第53-56页 |
| ·Conclusion | 第53页 |
| ·Implications of this study | 第53-55页 |
| ·Limitations of the Study | 第55-56页 |
| References | 第56-61页 |
| Appendix 1 Definition of Rhetorical Relations | 第61-64页 |
| Appendix 2 the Students' Compositions | 第64-73页 |
