A Study Of Text Features In English Argumentative Writing For Chinese English Majors

Since 1970s, as the distinguished advocator of the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), Halliday matured the theory gradually in his long-term study. SFG has increasingly been viewed as not only laying a solid foundation but providing a forceful framework for text analysis, among which thematic structure, information structure and cohesion are three major approaches to realize the text metafunction. A text is a semantic unit, i.e. a unit of meaning, which may carry some distinctive features. This thesis intends to figure out the text features of Chinese English major's English argumentative writing by analyzing abundant corpora. Based on the theories advocated by Halliday (1994) and Danes (1974), enlightened by the empirical studies conducted by Ma (2001; 2002) etc., the researcher adopted six practical patterns of thematic progression suggested by Huang (1988) to conduct text analyses of collected corpora. Two sets of corpora are composed of 48 and 5 argumentative essays written by Chinese English major and American students respectively, which are sifted out from SWECCL (Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners) and American College Compositions according to specific parameters and variables. After elaborate analyses and statistics of their global structure, cohesive devices and patterns of thematic progression, the researcher not only depicted the text features of Chinese English major's English argumentative writing from both macro and micro perspectives but identified many typical problems at text level. Furthermore, some diagnostical analyses were made to illustrate these problems with the theory of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and Contrastive Rhetoric (CR).The thesis consists of five major parts. Chapter One introduces the history and significance of the present study and gives an outline of the whole thesis. Chapter Two lays a solid foundation for the study. Firstly, structural and cohesive devices are discussed as those which combine to make up the "textual" component in the grammar of English. Secondly, the relationship between cohesion and coherence are covered in the study to verify the significance of the study. There is a close interrelationship between thematic progression and different genres. As one of the most tested genre in English writing, argumentation is involved in the study to make out the distinctive text features of Chinese English majors. Meanwhile the concept of formal schema is adopted to help the analysis of paragraph division and thesis development in students' writing. Chapter Three gives a description of the research design. The following elements in the study are presented: the research question and hypotheses, the principle and parameters for the choice of corpora in the study, the procedure of data analysis and the criteria for the identification of Theme and Rheme. Chapter Four analyzes the data from both macro and micro perspectives. As far as macro structure is concerned, the researcher probed the text features from paragraphs division, thesis statement, topic sentence, concluding paragraph, the consistency of macro-theme and hyper-theme. In terms of micro structure, the researcher investigated cohesive devices and patterns of thematic progression. Chapter Five summarizes the findings of the study. The English argumentative writing by Chinese English majors do present the following text features:①There are no thesis statements in some essays (10%);②There are topic sentences in all the body paragraphs;③Small part of the essays (12%) are divided arbitrarily rather than logically;④The macro-Theme and hyper-Theme in a few essays (3%) are not consistent;⑤Underuse and monotony of cohesive devices are identified within some paragraphs and between some paragraphs;⑥No pattern of thematic progression are used in some paragraphs or they are used improperly;⑦Compared to the compositions written by the students in lower grade, the compositions written by the students in higher grade are in better quality. The above-mentioned text features caused by negative language transfer do occur less in compositions written by higher grade. Finally, pedagogical implications are put forward as well as the limitations of the study. The study of Chinese English major's text features of argumentative writing can reflect the current level and situation of their English argumentative writing and pinpoint those symptoms originated from different thinking patterns and cultural backgrounds as well. It is self-evident that English habitual ways of global arrangement, cohesion and thematic progression play significant roles in the construction and the development of English text. As a relatively new branch of study on language, text analysis has given us a new insight into writing instruction and the improvement of students' writing competence.