On The Chinglish In The Non-English Majors' English Writings

Language competence tests are organized every semester to examine the college students'mastery of English. While revising the non-English majors'English compositions, the author easily finds that there are so many Chinglish expressions in their English writing. The main purpose of this thesis is to analyze the China's English learners'L1 thinking activities during the English writing process to understand their language usage, writing strategies and other mental activities that lead to the final output.The present study aims to answer the following research questions:1. What types of Chinglish are produced in Non-English majors'English writings?2. Is there any correlation between L1 use and English writing performance?3. What role do L1 thinking and application play in the English writing process? In order to solve the problems, a think-aloud protocol was employed to analyze the English writing process. The 16 participants were required to speak out their thoughts aloud and state everything that occurred to them, no matter how trivial it was. Through data analysis, the results of the research show that in non-English majors'English compositions, Chinglish most frequently appear at the levels of lexis and syntax and it is significantly positively correlated with the L1 thinking. Non-English majors use both Chinese and English thinking in the English writing process. The SPSS analysis shows that the percentage of L1 use in English writing is correlated negatively with the English writing performance. A detailed correlation analysis between L1 use and the performance of expression, transition, clauses and grammar in English writing reveals that L1 use hinders the performance of grammar and expression significantly and that of clause insignificantly, while it does obvious benefit to the performance of transition.The researcher has finally made some proposals which might be beneficial for further study.