抄録
This paper tries to investigate the relationships among several factors such as composition score, English ability, cohesion and coherence in free English compositions by high school students (n=37; 17 and 20 for the upper and lower groups respectively) using analytical methods in the sentence-based approach. First, four analyses from Miyasako (1999a, 1999b & 1999c) are reported: (a) syntactic count at the sentence level; (b) cohesion analysis (Halliday & Hasan, 1976); (c) cohesive harmony analysis (Hasan, 1984 & 1989); and (d) topical structure analysis (TSA; Lautamatti, 1978). One main finding was that there were significant differences in the means of composition length, the frequency of cohesion, and coherence as measured in TSA between the two groups. Second, based on the results, determining factors of the composition score are sought out by multiple regression analyses. The score seems to be mainly contributed to by composition length, English ability or the frequency of cohesion depending upon the group.
