Study On The Interaction In The Language And Thinking Structure Between The English And Chinese Languages In College Students' English Writing Process

Since the majority of Chinese college students'foreign language learning is conducted in the native language environment, there always exists the interaction in the language and thinking structure between the English and Chinese languages in their foreign language learning information processing. In other words, knowledge and cognitive structures and the corresponding language and thinking structures of both Chinese and English languages coexist in college students' brain and influence their foreign language learning. This is known as the theory of"Bilingual Double Structures (BDS)", which is put forward by professor Yin Demo in Xihua University.On the other hand, it is evident that foreign language writing is essential to the college students as it is considered as one of the most important mental skills in foreign language teaching and the significant issue in the field of second language acquisition research. Combining with"BDS"hypothesis, this thesis, therefore, examines the interaction in the language and thinking structure between the English and Chinese languages in students' English writing process with the help of SPSS 17.0 and a combination of research techniques including think-aloud protocols, questionnaire as well as retrospective interview and fifteen English major juniors and fifteen freshmen in Art school as participants who are labeled as "low" and "high" groups are investigated in the experimental study. This paper is composed of seven chapters and the main contents of each chapter are as follows:Chapter 1 introduces the relevant background, the research questions and methods as well as the significance of this research.Chapter 2 outlines the previous studies on second language writing process and English writing process conducted under Chinese environment, pointing out their defects and putting forward the starting point of this thesis.Chapter 3 mainly illustrates the theoretical basis, including the discussion on the relationship between language and thinking, the definitions of second language, foreign language, learning and acquisition, language transfer theory as well as the foreign language writing process model.Chapter 4 elaborates the source and core contents of "BDS" theory and the relationship between language and thinking under the framework of this hypothesis.Chapter 5 demonstrates "BDS" hypothesis and explores the differences on the amount of Chinese thinking and English thinking use in English writing information processing of college students with different English levels and the effect of Chinese thinking in English writing process through empirical research.In Chapter 6, based on the theoretical analysis and experimental research of previous chapters, the author proposes the model of Chinese college students' English writing mental mechanism and prescribes the differences on the amount of Chinese thinking and English thinking use in English writing information processing and the multi-role of Chinese thinking in English writing process.Chapter 7 is the conclusion of this research and generalizes teaching implications, limitations of this paper as well as the research questions in the future.On the basis of theoretical analysis and empirical research, this thesis obtains conclusions as follows:1) In Chinese college students' English writing process, there always exists the interaction in the language and thinking structure between English and Chinese languages, which is consistent with "BDS" hypothesis and further demonstrates it.2) Students'Chinese thinking use mainly focuses on theme level and content level while that on linguistic level is relatively less and individual differences are large.3) The effect of Chinese thinking in English writing information processing is not static, not merely positive or negative but dynamic and multi-level and varies with different composing activities.4) The proportion of Chinese thinking used by students of Art School is 26% higher than that used by students in Foreign Language School. The results of independent sample T-test show significant statistical differences on the amount of Chinese thinking use on linguistic level exit between students of two groups, in other words, the students of Art School rely on more Chinese thinking when wording and phrasing. On the other hand, there is no relationship between the amount of Chinese thinking use on theme level and content level and students' English proficiency.5) The results of correlation analysis indicate students' English vocabulary has a positive correlation with their English writing scores while has a negative correlation with the amount of Chinese thinking use on linguistic level and there is no relation between the amount of Chinese thinking use on theme level and content level and their vocabulary.