留学考试准备：（十五）Coherence ——句子之间的衔接

句子之间的自然衔接，主要手段就是使用“返指”：使用代词、或者名词。

中国 学生最常犯的错误之一就是用“it”这个代词返指之前的篇章。“it”在英文中有这样几种常见用法：

• 指 代之前的一个单数名词（非人）
• 作为形式主语
  • 指代一个that引导的名词性从句
  • 指代一个 动词不定式

但是，“it”不能返指前文的篇章。返指前文的篇章应该用“this”或者“that”。然而，即便是用“this”和“that”也经常出现含混的情 况，所以，还不如直接使用名词指代。

My best friend is using an irrational and ineffective learning model, which let her stumble from time to time, and she is completely unaware of the negative impact of her choice. It’s hard for me to watch this.

这句话里面，this指的究竟是什么呢？其实，换成一个名词就可能非常清楚了：

My best friend is using an irrational land ineffective learning model, which let her stumble from time to time, and she is completely unaware of the negative impact of her choice. It’s hard for me to watch her suffer.

一个简单而又实用的建议是，尽量只用代词返指前文的名词，而返 指篇章的时候，尽量使用名词，或者“代词+名词”的形式。

根据我个人的教学经验，我发现大多数学生在英语学习过程中就好象没有人曾经提醒过他们“返指”手段在写作中的重要性。其实，补一课也并不麻烦，只不过是把 一系列的常用做返指手段的名词强化记忆一番：

nouns which refer back to texts, classing them as types of verbal action:

account, accusation, acknowledgement, admission, advice, allegation, announcement, answer, apology, appeal, argument, assertion, assurance, boast, charge, claim, comment, complaint, compliment, concession, condemnation, confession, contention, correction, criticism, declaration, defence, definition, demand, denial, denunciation, description, digression, disclosure, discussion, endorsement, excuse, explanation, exposition, gossip, information, judgement, lie, message, narrative, objection, observation, plea, point, prediction, promise, pronouncement, prophecy, proposal, proposition, protest, question, reference, refusal, remark, reminder, reply, report, request, response, retort, revelation, rumour, statement, stipulation, story, suggestion, summary, tale, threat, verdict, warning

nouns which refer to ideas and show your feelings about the ideas:

analysis, assessment, assumption, attitude, belief, conclusion, conjecture, concept, deduction, delusion, diagnosis, doctrine, doubt, estimate, evaluation, fear, finding, guess, hope, idea, illusion, inference, insight, interpretation, misinterpretation, notion, opinion, picture, plan, position, reasoning, supposition, theory, thinking, view, viewpoint, vision, wish

nouns which refer to events and are neutral:

act, action, affair, aspect, case, circumstances, context, development, effect, episode, event, experience, fact, factor, feature, incident, issue, matter, method, move, phenomenon, position, possibility, practice, process, reason, respect, result, situation, state, state of affairs, subject, system, thing, topic, way

nouns which refer to events and show your feelings about them:

achievement, advantage, answer, crisis, difficulty, disadvantage, disaster, exploit, feat, nightmare, plight, predicament, problem, solution, tragedy

nouns used to refer to a piece of writing:

chapter, example, excerpt, extract, instalment, item, letter, paragraph, passage, phrase, quotation, section, sentence, statement, summary, table, text, words

– quoted from Egnlish Grammar, Cobuild HarperCollins Publishers

用这些词造句稍微有点麻烦，因为，为了完成“返指”的功用，只造一个句子恐怕不够；用这之中的某一个名词造上一个句子之后，用脑子想象一下这个名词返指前 文的究竟是什么……