A Study Of Argumentative Writing From The Perspective Of Information Structure

Writing has always been emphasized as one major language skill required which could never be washed out from our daily use. With soaring modern technology and fierce competition, argumentative writing, as a powerful weapon for consensus leading, is becoming a necessary capacity greatly demanded in our society. Moreover, practicing argumentative writing can improve students'ability to organize words logically in order and to express themselves properly as well as clearly.The study of information structure, on the other hand, has been attracting more and more attention in the recent few decades, and the findings from which were applied to almost every aspect of language teaching. However, specific studies of argumentative writing from the perspective of information structure are quite rare.Starting from this novel combining point, the notion of information structure is employed into argumentative writing in this paper.Fifteen classical English argumentative writing samples are selected from different periods of English and American literature, the Holy Bible, famous public speeches and so on, for a relatively detailed analysis from the perspective of information structure by applying the frame of theme type as well as thematic progression pattern. Meanwhile, argumentative writings done by Chinese students are also chose to be analyzed by using the same method as the comparison to a model sample writing on the same topic done by English native speakers. Differences among students'writings and sample writings on discourse level show the relationship between the maintenance of information structure and the quality of argumentative writings.Through an analysis of classical argumentative English writings on thematic structure as well as a contrastive analysis of a sample writing by an English native speaker and argumentative writings by some Chinese students, this paper puts forward some major findings according to the study of English argumentative writing from the perspective of information structure, aiming to reclaim the importance of information structure in argumentative writing, introducing the knowledge of information structure and thematic structure into teaching process, in order to lead Chinese students to much better performances in such significant fields in society on written argumentation.