Thematic Theory And The Teaching Of College English Writing

A text is defined as a sequence of sentences or paragraphs that display some kind of mutual dependence instead of piling up randomly. Thematic analysis, one important aspects of textual function in functional grammar, is a way of examining whether a sequence of sentences or paragraphs could constitute a text. However, little work has been published to date, which specially study the Chinese students' English writings in terms of thematic structures. So this thesis is intended to explore the feasibility of thematic analysis to English writing by describing the thematic theory and by analyzing the sample compositions in CET4 examinations. And the thesis also elucidates the effect on teaching practice produced by the mode of theme and rheme.This thesis is composed of four chapters:Chapter one presents a brief review of the literature on the studies of thematic theory and English writing. Main perspectives concerning theme and thematic progression at home and abroad are presented in this chapter. As to the English writing, the author firstly views the methods used now in writing class, then discusses some features of English writing research in China.Chapter two deals with the theoretical foundation for this work. The discussion of theme is largely based on the work of Halliday (1994). A detailed description is devoted to the manifestations of the theme in moodsystem i.e. declarative, interrogative and imperative moods and the classification of theme. Then the interaction of thematic structure and information structure is explored. Thirdly, the concept of thematic progression (TP) and its four basic patterns, based on Danes' model in 1974, is expounded.Chapter three is devoted to a tentative study on the thematic structure of eighty compositions produced by some Chinese non-English majors in CET4 examinations. The results show that different scored compositions can be presented in the different uses of theme types and TP patterns: high-score achievers are more skilful in organizing their compositions through the reasonable choices of themes and TP patterns; the choices of themes and TP patterns may reveal certain stylistic features of a text; clear and reasonable choices of themes and TP patterns can ensure the unity and coherence of a text.Chapter four puts forward some strategies for the integration of thematic theory into English writing teaching. Synthesizing the merits of the two approaches now used in present writing classrooms, the author proposes an integrated approach. This approach intends to commit three systematically developmental stages: the reading-based stage, the exercise-based stage and the writing stage.Trough the introduction of the thematic theory and the analysis of sample compositions, we can say that the integration of this theory intoEnglish writing is both theoretically sound and practically feasible. However, this is just a tentative study and the small sample size limits to some extent the generalization of the findings made in this study, so further study is needed in the future.