Research On The Development Of Academic Chinese Writing Competence Of International Students In China: From General To Academic

The international development of Chinese education has attracted more and more foreign students to study in China.The overall number of students coming to China for academic qualifications is increasing year by year,the age level is gradually decreasing,and their Chinese proficiency has been significantly improved.The school's normative requirements for international students' academic Chinese writing,the problems exposed by international students' academic papers,the learners' internal demands,and the need for high-level talents at the national level make it necessary for researchers to study the academic writing competence of Chinese learners.At present,the research on the development process of Academic Chinese Writing Competence(ACWC)of foreign students in China is still in its infancy.There are very few researches in this area.Therefore,we hope to create a new research space by studying the development process of Chinese as a Second Language(CSL)academic writing competence.To know how to cultivate the ACWC of second language learners,it is necessary to start with their General Chinese Writing Competence(GCWC)and analyze the development process from the GCWC to the ACWC.This study uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to investigate the factors that constitute the GCWC and the ACWC,and establishes a constructive model of GCWC and ACWC respectively.Based on the models,we describe the development process of CSL academic writing competence(from GCWC to ACWC),and explore the influencing factors of the development process,hoping to provide theoretical basis and teaching suggestions for improving international students' ACWC.The research questions are as follows:(1)What are the factors that constitute the GCWC?(2)What are the factors that constitute the ACWC?(3)How is the development process of CSL academic writing competence(from GCWC to ACWC)?(4)What are the factors that affect the development process of CSL academic writing competence?In terms of the model of GCWC,research has found that general grammatical competence,general pragmatic competence,general sociolinguistic competence and general genre competence can explain the GCWC.With regard to the model of ACWC,research has found that academic grammatical competence,academic pragmatic competence,academic sociolinguistic competence and academic genre competence can explain the ACWC.In terms of the development process of CSL academic writing competence,the following conclusions have been drawn:(1)Initial stage.In terms of grammar,the primary words are mainly used,there are lots of semantic errors(mainly are confusable words)and collocation errors(mainly are verb-object collocation errors);in terms of text,the proportion of full sentences is higher than that of minor sentences,and the accurate rates of full sentences and minor sentences are low.There are many illegal full sentences and unsuitable full sentences;in terms of pragmatics,the number of authorial stance markers is relatively small,learners prefer to use epistemic stance markers and attitudinal stance markers,the use rate of self-mention markers is relatively low,and the singular first person pronouns are often used;in terms of move structure,learners lack knowledge of argumentative genres,and there are errors in the configuration of move structures,such as separate moves and irregular moves.(2)Promotion stage.In terms of grammar,the intermediate words are mainly used,the semantic errors(mainly are confusable words)and collocation errors(mainly are verb-object collocation errors)are reduced;in terms of text,the proportion of full sentences is lower than that of minor sentences,the accuracies of full sentences and minor sentences are increased,the number of illegal full sentences is reduced,and the number of unsuitable full sentences is increased.The errors of minor sentences in context and independent of context are increased;in terms of pragmatics,the numbers of authorial stance markers first increase and then decrease.Learners focus on the use of epistemic stance markers,attitudinal stance markers and self-mention markers are less frequently used,singular first person pronouns and plural first person pronouns are often used;in terms of move structure,learners have a certain knowledge of the genre of argumentation and academic papers,and the move structure is more complete,but there are still misconfigurations in the move structure.(3)Optimization stage.In terms of grammar,the growth of learners' lexical complexity has slowed down,and they have encountered a "platform period" in the expansion of advanced words and advanced appendix words.Semantic errors are mainly the same morpheme word errors,collocation errors are mainly the prepositional collocation errors,and the amount of academic words has increased;in terms of text,the proportions of full sentences and minor sentences tend to be balanced.The accuracies of full sentences and minor sentences have been further improved.The errors of minor sentences in context and independent of context are reduced,and stack errors still exist;in terms of pragmatics,the overall number of stance markers has declined.Similar to the promotion phase,epistemic stance markers are more often used than attitudinal stance markers and self-mention markers,the plural first person pronouns and self-mention markers are often used;in terms of move structure,the learner's genre knowledge has further enhanced.The structure of the moves is more complete,and the main problem lies in the order of the moves.(4)Expansion stage.In terms of grammar,learners' words are infinitely close to that of native Chinese speakers,with occasional semantic errors(mainly are monosyllabic and disyllabic words)and collocation errors(mainly are the prepositional collocation errors),they can use academic words proficiently;in terms of text,unsuitable full sentences disappear,and the numbers of stack errors and errors of minor sentences independent of context have further decreased.The text system of CSL learners has become more mature;in terms of pragmatics,the overall number of stance markers has further declined,self-mention markers are often used;in terms of move structure,the completeness of the move structure has improved,but the number of irregular move structure has increased.There is still a problem with the move sequence.There are common foundations and connections for GCWC and ACWC.In terms of grammar,primary words are both used as the core words for general Chinese writing and academic Chinese writing.Intermediate words and advanced words(HSK level 4and above)are the criteria to distinguish general writing from academic writing.In terms of text,both general writing and academic writing are based on correct full sentences.At the undergraduate level,the output rates of full sentences and minor sentences,the accurate rates of full sentences and minor sentences are the criteria to distinguish general writing from academic writing.In the master and doctoral stage,the accurate rates of full sentences and minor sentences are the criteria.In terms of pragmatics,hedges,negatives,affective markers,evaluation markers,and first person pronouns are the common basis for general writing and academic writing.The reporting verbs in the booster,the reporting verbs in the evidential stance markers,and selfmention markers are the criteria to distinguish general writing from academic writing.In terms of structure,statistic data is the criteria to distinguish general writing from academic writing.In terms of influencing factors,the study found that the six major factors of the activity theory jointly act on the development progress of ACWC;the degree of influence of different factors at each stage is different;the factors that affect subsystems of ACWC are different.