A Study On The Use Of Thesis Statement And Topic Sentence In Senior High School Students' English Writing

In recent years, with the enhancement of English teaching and improvement of students'English level, diction and sentence making no longer constitute difficult parts in their writing process. However, the essays written by the Chinese students after they have mastered a large number of vocabularies and a sound foundation of basic knowledge in English language still seem difficult to understand as to the native speakers of English. Although the sentences contain no grammatical errors and go through smoothly, the whole organization is not arranged according to what the native speakers do. This is particularly obvious in the use of thesis statement and topic sentence in Chinese learners'English compositions.In fact, many causes contribute to the present condition that Chinese students are still unable to write idiomatic English compositions. The present research focuses on the differences between Eastern and Western culture to analyze the problem existed in students'essays. Language, culture and thought pattern is closely related. On the one hand, thought pattern is closely related to culture. It manifests the characteristics of a culture, and also restricts the elements of a culture. On the other hand, thought pattern is closely related to language. Thought pattern is the deep mechanism that makes language generate and develop, which in turn urges the thought pattern to generate and develop.The present research adopts an empirical method to explore the problems students encounter when structuring their compositions and the cultural influence on their organization of English writing. Based on the quantitative research of discourse analysis in the Linguistics Methodology written by Gui Shichun and Ning Chunyan (1997), the present study chose the English compositions written by 57 senior high school students from Zhenjiang No.l Middle School in the City of Zhenjiang of Jiangsu Province as a sample. The study focuses on the following features:whether there is thesis statement and topic sentence or not, placement of thesis statement and topic sentence, frequency in the use of thesis statement and topic sentence and so on. By analyzing compositions written by them under a given topic, the author summarized their common problems on the use of thesis statement and topic sentence. Based on the data obtained from the quantitative study and the research question of the present study, interviews on nine selected subjects were further carried out. As qualitative study, the interview aimed at supplementing data for quantitative research, and at the same time exploring the Chinese cultural influence on the use of thesis statement and topic sentence in students' compositions.The following findings are obtained from the present research:First, the Chinese students tend to perform indirectly in presenting the main idea of an essay on a given topic, the thesis statement always being postponed to the end of the essay or even hidden within the whole text. This is closely related with the Chinese synthetic and circular cultural thought pattern.Second, even if there is thesis statement, the viewpoint expressed by the thesis statement is still ambiguous. As a result, readers will be at a loss in understanding the purpose of the composition. The synthetic and ambiguous thought pattern in Chinese traditional culture is an important reason in causing this problem.Third, since intuition is preferred in Chinese cultural thought pattern, in student's compositions unrelated materials are always included such as quotation of well-known Chinese mottos, which in the Westerner's eyes is a sign of lack of logic.Besides, this thesis also points out that in future English teaching, the teachers should try to raise students'cultural awareness. Cultural differences and its influence on English writing need to be introduced to high school students as early as they start to learn this part. The study is limited in the number of the sample, which is not wide enough. Besides, the 57 students'condition in the use of thesis statement and topic sentence might not reflect the overall situation throughout our country.