Cross-Linguistic Influence On Discourse Level In College Non-English Majors' Writing

English writing is one of the four basic skills that an English learner should have and that is indispensable link to the process of teaching English as a foreign language. Being the most difficult one among the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, it has attracted the attention of many English teachers at home or aboard. This paper aims at exploring the cross-linguistic influence on discourse level in Chinese college students'ESL writings. Referring to the language transfer theory and contrastive rhetoric approach, the present study tries to integrate the ESL writing study in such a way to reflect that L1 cultural habits or writing convention exerts influence on SLA. Or put it in more cognitive terms that the procedure transfer takes place when the characteristics of L1 writing convention or rhetoric affect L2 writing production.Having compared the Chinese and English languages on discourse level focusing on three dimensions (thesis statement, discourse pattern and discourse cohesion), the author puts forward five specific research questions with the extent of cross-linguistic influence into consideration (variance between students of different English proficiency). Question 1:In Chinese non-English major students'English writings, what is their more favorable discourse pattern, the linear pattern of general-particular or the mixed or implicit pattern? Question2:Whether is there a thesis statement or not in Chinese non-English major students'English writing? Questions:If there is a thesis statement, where is it? Or does it belong to deductive or inductive? Question4:In students' writings, are there reference, conjunction and lexical devices used to make the writing coherent? If students use them, are they used properly? Question5:Does it show improvement from sophomore's compositions to freshmen's on the previous three aspects? The present study is based on the textual analysis of 64 sample essays written by non-English majors (freshmen to sophomores) from Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology with distinct sampling criteria to reflect the complex nature of L2 writing. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted in this study, and reliable results are obtained. In the quantitative study, SPSS is employed to conduct the data collected from students' compositions. In the qualitative study, the author conducts an interview to the students with different writing levels. The purpose of this study is to make a further and deeper evidence for the quantitative study.By examining the non-English-like features caused by cross-linguistic differences on discourse level in students'ESL writings, the author argues that cross-linguistic influence is a nonnegligible factor in the teaching and learning of L2 writing. Writing is not just the issue concerning vocabulary and grammar nor is simply the issue on discourse pattern, while it is a language thought activity combined with strong cultural perception. Resorting to Chinese thinking pattern in English writing, no matter to high proficiency students or lower ones it is undeniable fact. The pedagogical implication of the study is that English teachers should try to arouse students' awareness of social cultural aspects of English language and pay special attention to instill a thorough understanding of western writing conventions into language learners so as to improve their writing competence.