The Application Of Stylistics In Improving English Major's Communicative Competence

In the past 20 years also, many Chinese teachers of English have experimented in incorporating stylistic theories to English teaching vis-à-vis the tradition-ridden grammar-translation method that has proved inadequate. However, the research undertaken in that respect, tentative as it is, suffers some drawbacks. Take for example one main thrust of the research efforts—that in applying stylistics with the aim of improving students'communicative competence. Research in this filed is believed to be flawed in at least two aspects: for one, many explorations are oversimplified rather than thorough; for another, many stop at recommending theoretical modest proposals instead of inventing solutions to the problem thereof by, say, designing feasible strategies for real-life practice. The latter is exactly what this thesis is intended to pursue.The exploration in this thesis for a new approach to improving students'communicative competence in English teaching undergoes several steps. At the outset after introduction part, the thesis clarifies the definitions of stylistics and communicative competence, based on which it establishes the links between the two concepts. Stylistics, as a linguistic study of style, aims to enable the learner to perform appropriate language use on the consideration of style with the task of describing language features of different styles. Communicative competence, though oftentimes defined variably, is generally accepted to be the combination of grammar competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. The connections between stylistics and communicative competence are expressed mainly in two aspects: (1) The described language features of styles are closely related to grammar competence; and (2) both stylistics and communicative competence emphasize the appropriate use of language. In Chapter Three, the thesis proceeds to analyze the necessity and feasibility of applying stylistics in teaching English to English majors from the perspectives of materials features, teaching resource and theoretical support, as well as course needs, teaching constraints and teaching syllabus, respectively. Chapter Four summarizes the useful stylistic knowledge from the levels of language structures and the concept of context. Then, for the purpose of providing practical strategies of teaching, Chapter Five first introduces the proportional syllabus as the guide to framework design. The proportional syllabus is grounded with the principle of language use, and is tightly connected to stylistics and communicative competence, thus lays the legitimate base for adopting the syllabus in course designing. In what follows Chapter Five of the thesis describes the principles of framework design with abidance of the proportional syllabus. The thesis then proceeds to a case study of a typical course commonly delivered to the third-year English majors in Chinese universities, i.e. Advanced English, for which detailed course framework is designed. Up to now a new approach—the application of stylistics—has been brought forth for improving students'communicative competence in English teaching, although it has yet to be tested in practice. It is believed that the Proportional syllabus and the principles of framework design as demonstrated therein are entitled to be universal guidelines for frameworks design for courses other than Advanced English. It is the author's expectation that the outcomes of this research can shed some new light on future research and practice of approaches to enhancing student's communicative competence in English teaching.