To Improve The Non-English Majors' Ability To Write Through C-to-E Translation Training: Why And How?

The fact that non-English majors'ability to write in English is not as good as it should be has become an obvious problem, which is very common and which deserves our intensive concern in the College English instruction. Why does this problem arise? How do we solve it? This dissertation attempts to find answers to them by way of argumentative reasoning on the basis of a down-to-the last detail analysis of the related literature. A good many findings of the research on this problem, both home and abroad, have shown that mother-tongue thinking is unavoidable and difficult to reject for a student of foreign language in his or her foreign language learning and writing within the native language speaking context, and what is more, mother-tongue thinking can play a positive role in second language acquisition. Based on the related research findings, the dissertation has arrived at a conclusion that it is an effective way to improve the ability of non-English majors to write in English through C-to-E translation training.This dissertation consists of seven chapters.Chapter One first highlights the importance of English writing in the current situation of China, then analyzes the urgency of improving students'ability to write in English, finally, reveals the real writing process of Chinese non-English majors', which is Chinese-English translation in the name of English writing.Chapter Two is about research motivation. It presents relevant studies of second language writing. This chapter mainly focuses on the analysis of three researches on the effects of translation from mother tongue to target language on foreign language writing, conducted by Kobayashi & Rinnert (1982: 183-215), Brooks (1993: 85) and Uzawa (1996: 271-294), which arouses the author's interest in taking an attempt to make a connection between Chinese-English translation training and the improvement of second language (L2) writing.Chapter Three bases its arguments for thinking mode of mother tongue in second language learning from the perspectives of language and thinking, and cognitive theory. This chapter probes the rationales for using L1 in L2 learning from three aspects: 1) as the language that we are immersed in first and the tool we communicate by mainly, mother tongue could not be erased completely from our brain because its phonological system, grammatical structure, lexical use and sentence patterns have been deep rooted in our brain. It has been proved that thinking in mother tongue in second language learning is a natural process and preferred strategy for L2 learners. Consciously or unconsciously, students would like to make comparisons of the similarities and discrepancies between mother tongue and foreign language; 2) the author argues against the biased viewpoint of the negative role of mother tongue in language learning, claiming the necessity and advantages of using mother tongue in language learning; 3) the positive effects of mother tongue is taken into considerations.Chapter Four reasons the groundings of using translation in foreign language teaching and demonstrates its positive role in foreign language learning.Chapter Five relates the awkward writing situation and the main difficulties confronted by Chinese non-English majors, and also analyzes the causes for such a problem.Chapter Six shifts its attention to the relations between foreign language writing and translation. The positive effects of translation training on foreign language writing are analyzed and some patterns of translation training for Chinese non-English majors are offered. Chapter Seven overviews the main points of this dissertation on theoretical basis and practical support, and points out that more researches on the effects of Chinese-English translation training on English writing of Chinese non-English majors should be carried out in order to testify the philosophical thinking and speculation in this dissertation on the basis of empirical data.On perusal of this research paper, the benefits from applying C-to-E translation method in L2 writing exercise can be generalized in three aspects: 1) deep, concise and clear understanding about the word's meaning, connotation in particular, word's usage in a certain context; 2) more flexible with diversified sentence structures without changing the meaning that it conveys originally; 3) helpful for foreign language students to raise the awareness of convergence and divergence between Chinese and English, through the contrastive study directed by translation training, as well as to avoid making the same language errors consciously.