A Contrastive Functional Study On Argumentative Essays By English Natives And Chinese College Students

In this study thirty argumentative essays written by Chinese college students and English natives are contrasted and compared within the framework of Functional Grammar in order to find the major differences and similarities in Theme structure and thematic progression and thus provide some useful information for the teaching of English writing. Through the data analysis, it is found that there are some significant differences between the argumentative essays by English natives and Chinese college students. First, English natives use more topical Themes in their argumentative essays than Chinese college students do and the length of their argumentative essays are longer than that of Chinese college students'. Secondly, English natives make use of more textual Themes than Chinese college students. In addition, English natives arrange Themes and Rhemes in a proper way leading to the coherence in the textual meaning. Thirdly, Chinese college students employ more interpersonal Themes than English natives, but the type of interpersonal Themes they used is mainly confined to "I think" or "in my opinion" and the like. Fourthly, Chinese college students tend to deal with topics in a roundabout way, which results from their twisting-line thinking mode. The study indicates that the argumentative essays by English natives and Chinese college students have few differences in terms of thematic progression; the essays analyzed are mainly developed by "constant theme pattern" and "endocentric development pattern". Therefore it can be concluded that argumentative essays are developed by "constant theme pattern" and "endocentric development pattern". At last some suggestions are put forward for future studies on the basis of the pedagogical and theoretical implications of the research.