Event-based Construal Model To College English Writing Teaching: An Empirical Study

Writing has been a significant foreign language skill so as to become a key aspect in foreign language teaching. However, writing is not simply a process of combining different expressions, but a complex psychological cognitive process. As a result, writing has become the key but difficult point in foreign language teaching.Back to the previous studies on writing teaching, it can be found that many researchers have discussed English writing mainly through transfer, writing strategies, cohesive devices, thematic progression and so on, but many a study focus on syntactical expression and discourse structure while few studies probe into English writing by treating it as a psychological cognitive process. Recent years, researchers from home and abroad have tried to study the teaching of English writing from the perspective of CL in which usually use these theories including Prototype Theory, Metaphor Theory, and Cognitive Reference Point Theory. However, Construal Theory gets ignored in the study of English writing, let alone the empirical study on English writing.Based on the shortcomings and inadequacies of the previous studies, the thesis aims to look into the application of Construal Theory into teaching of college English writing. It is a tentative study on the basis of Cognitive Linguistics and with the subjects of 30 freshmen and sophomores from Sichuan International Studies University. After the pre-test, the 30 students get writing training under the framework of Event-based Construal Model within 10 hours. After the teaching, students get post-test from CET-6 writing task. The scores will be analyzed by SPSS 16.0 and the results will be discussed to testify the assumption that EBC Model has relation with students’ writing proficiency. This assumption gets testified from three perspectives:1.Whether can EBC Model effectively improve students’ ability for linguistic expression in the teaching of English writing?1) Whether can EBC Model effectively improve students’ ability for diction?2) Whether can EBC Model effectively improve students’ ability for the choice of syntactic constructions?2.Whether can EBC Model effectively improve students’ cognitive ability in the teaching of English writing?1)Whether can EBC Model effectively improve students’ ability for topic analysis?2)Whether can EBC Model effectively improve students’ ability for discourse coherence?The study shows that writing is a complex psychological cognitive process. Construal is one of the main cognitive ways to deal with topic and the externalization of language code. Consequently, construal elements(scope, background, specificity, perspective and prominence) get embodied in writing: its influence on topic analysis, the choice of vocabulary and syntactic structures, and coherence of discourse. It gets shown that under the framework of EBC Model, the writing proficiency of students can be cultivated and improved. Consequently, the author puts forward to some pedagogical suggestions for teaching of college English writing for its higher efficiency.