On The Pragmatic Transfer In High School Students' English Writing And Its Implications For English Teaching And Learning

Due to the increasing opportunities of direct communication with native English speakers available for Chinese English learners, more and more attention is being paid to the improvement of learners'pragmatic competence. The major function of language is communication. There is no doubt that writing as a means of communication, is one of the most important ways to facilitate this function. So whether we can successfully communicate or not largely relies on whether we can express ourselves correctly and accurately in English writing. The present study investigates the pragmatic transfer phenomena in high school students'English compositions by using two questionnaires and by carrying out an experimental study which aims at improving students'English writing and pragmatic competence. The research method used here is a quasi-experiment. Two intact classes of the second graders in a senior high school were taken as the subjects. One of the classes served as the experimental group and the other the control group. The experiment lasted about 18 weeks. The main approach used in the training was making full use of the designed materials in each part (especially the integrated skills) of every unit of the textbook to improve the students'writing and pragmatic competence in daily English classroom teaching by the teacher. The results suggest that the students who received training of improving pragmatic competence and English writing have improved their English proficiency more than those who did not receive the training. The result of the T-value analysis shows that there is considerable variance between the experimental group and control group. The study proves that the training of improving students'pragmatic competence and writing ability in daily English classroom teaching is effective and feasible.Altogether, this thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the significance, the content of this study and the organization of the thesis. Chapter 2 offers a review of research on transfer, pragmatic transfer, the classification and causes of pragmatic transfer, and pragmatic competence at home and abroad. Chapter 3 introduces the experiment which aims at fostering students'pragmatic competence and English writing in daily English classroom teaching. Chapter 4 presents findings yielded from the study and analyzes the...