| It has been, by some experts, stupendously predicted that in the near future, Chinese English learners will outnumber the total population of English-speaking countries. However, although unremitting efforts have been made to improve English proficiency and learning efficiency, and considerable headway has been made, the stubborn fact remains that it seems even at tertiary education stage, the most Chinese English learners'English writing output ability is not sufficiently great to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings to other people in written symbols to make other people or readers understand the ideas conveyed. Writing is an act of making up correct sentences and transmitting them through the visual medium as mark on paper, namely, an individual, problem-solving skill, as equally or more important than any of such basic language skills as listening, speaking and reading, which is complex and recursive. At the present time, Chinese English learners are faced with an exceptionally tricky situation, that is, they still can not create a fluent composition, although they have learnt English for 12 years or so since elementary education stage, and even some students have passed CET 4 or CET 6 exams. What's more, on the basis of the previous writing mark statistics in CET 4 and CET 6, the national average score of college English students'composition which is given the maximum score of 15 points can only be about 5 or 6 points. Even worse, many students have great trouble in reading the given composition titles, concepts, frames and lots of arguments. Namely, they don't have an idea to begin. When they do, then, they don't know how to develop. When they have lots of ideas to put in their minds, and they are certain, conforming to native Englishmen's thinking patterns to express what they are eager to put, they can not come up with appropriate vocabularies or well-turned phrasings, felicitous grammatical structures, or textual writing structures, It can be easily found that the students'composition papers seem to be ok in grammar, but they are full of too many"Chinglish"expressions. Certes,it is inevitable that many"Chinglish"expressions always appear in the students'writing papers, that is to say, on the surface, it seems that words, phrases, and sentence structures have been used correctly, yet in-depth, their writing papers lack fluency and accuracy in both conceptual connotation and structure in English. There is no denying that writing problems may arise from many reasons, but, Chinese English learners'lack of motivation can basically be checked off, as the significance of writing has been realized esp. at tertiary education stage for better career options and development. Studies on English writing have been done from different perspectives and so many writing approaches like product approach, process approach and structural teaching approach have been introduced into Chinese English writing classes, and apparent grammatical errors in students'writing papers have become a rarity through faculty's unremitting efforts. Now that the teaching effects on Chinese English writing have been less than satisfactory, considering these tremendous and unprecedented linguistic efforts, it is natural that further attempts for a more effectual didactics will be made by Chinese English educators and instructors in order to have a better understanding of students'writing problems and help them ameliorate writing proficiency for an effective writer. The above mentioned situation brings about the hypothesis that the different thinking patterns between Chinese and English will have to be reckoned as an underlying cause or factor with which this thesis deals. The hunch is based on the previous researches pertinent to language and thinking patterns, and the recent linguistic theories, as well as author's personal experience and reflection of the teaching.In answer to coming to grip with the above mentioned model issue, this study aims to solve four problems as follows:1. What are the reflections of the differences of Chinese and English thinking patterns in Chinese college English writing?2. What are roughly the factors that may cause the differences of Chinese and English thinking patterns? 3. What is the relationship between the cognitive training, the gradual acquisition English thinking patterns and the improvement of Chinese college English learners'writing ability?4. How can English thinking patterns of college English learners be developed? This research thesis mainly consists of four parts.The first part is a chapter about the literature review. After a wraparound review of the current situations in Chinese college English writing, this thesis introduces some theories connected with language and thinking. The previous studies and relevant theories at home and overseas involving the differences between English and Chinese languages which are caused by the different thinking patterns between English and Chinese, and the recent linguistic theories to be applied into the study are introduced, which are Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and other studies on language and thinking, language transfer theory, the affective filter theory and the fundamentals of cognitive theory. Then, differences between English and Chinese thinking patterns from the perspectives of forms and connotation of language are explained.The second part deals with research methodology in which questions, participants, instruments and experimental procedures and so on have been explained. The experiment is comprised of three stages, namely, a pre-experimental stage, an experimental stage as well as a post-experimental stage. In pre-test stage and post-test stage, a questionnaire and some standard writing samples are conducted among sixty sophomores who are from College of Humanities & Information of Changchun University of Technology and who are divided into two groups, control group and experimental group with a designed training conducted in experimental group four class hours per week throughout twelve consecutive weeks of empirical research.The third part includes the analysis and discussion of the experimental results. One is the analysis and discussion of the questionnaire after the two groups, experimental group and control group, have been surveyed by means of the anonymous questionnaire related to language and thinking in pre-test stage. The results of it indicate that the two groups share similarities. The majority of them on both sides feel that language and thinking are related, and the language differences exist, while they have little or no awareness about the impacts of thinking differences on English and English writing, and it is inevitable for them to adopt Chinese thinking patterns while writing. The other is the analysis of data obtained from the experimental group and the control group in pre-test stage and post-test stage from four spheres, (1) Chinese concrete thinking pattern and English abstract thinking pattern; (2) Chinese parataxis thinking pattern and English hypotaxis thinking pattern; (3) Chinese subjective thinking pattern and English objective thinking pattern; (4) Chinese circular thinking pattern and English linear thinking pattern. The results demonstrate that the two groups share similarities in pre-test stage, while at the end of the post-test stage the analysis of data indicates the experimental group who has taken thinking pattern differences teaching and training in writing and the control group who has accepted the traditional English teaching in writing as ever have shown evident differences in performance, namely, the former performs much better than the latter.The fourth part elaborates the major findings of present study, the implications for language teaching and learning, the limitations of present study as well as the suggestions for future research. The major findings of this thesis are listed as follows:1. The crux of Chinese college students'writing lies in different thinking patterns between Chinese and English, but betterment on grammatical rules can ravel out only part of errors. Many problems still exist in Chinese college students'writing, such as improper choice of words, the incorrect collocation, the logic confusion and the lack of necessary coherence so on and so forth. On the surface, these problems seem to be boiled down to the grammatical errors. While in depth, they are caused by different thinking patterns between Chinese and English which are also the reason of too many"Chinglish"expressions in Chinese college students'English writing. English and Chinese have their own specific means of expression as well as thinking patterns. Influenced by the negative transfer of mother tongue, Chinese college students are accustomed to cognizing and depicting the world, selecting words and collocations, making sentences and organizing texts in Chinese thinking patterns.2. Some teaching and learning implications are implied in accordance with the results and discussion. In the process of teaching, teachers'eyes should be had on the training of students'English thinking patterns, and meantime, Chinese thinking patterns should be avoided consciously. First of all, with the help of teachers, English ways of cognizing and depicting the world, making sentences and organizing texts in English thinking patterns should be introduced, explained and practiced. Students should better be asked to understand and grasp two different thinking patterns by comparing two kinds of thinking patterns. Then, imitation and recitation are also beneficial to improving the students'English thinking patterns and their writing ability. Some typical English materials in form of text for students to recite and imitate have to be provided by teachers, which contributes to the accumulation of typical English words, phrases, sentence structures, idiomatic usages, and text types. Lastly, reading is also a good method to develop students'English thinking patterns. During the course of reading English originals, students have more opportunities to compare Chinese expressions and its corresponding English ones, and their English thinking patterns and writing ability will be gradually formed.3. Metaphor is seen as a figure of speech as well as a thinking pattern. Knowing and explaining words by conceptual metaphor can make some abstract thinking more concrete, meanwhile, help students understand true connotation of words, and improve their ability to use language. In addition, the conceptual grammatical metaphor can realize diversity of sentences and coherence of texts. The metaphorical thinking improves not only students'ability to select words, make sentences and organize texts but also their cognitive and thinking abilities. As a consequence, it is essential to develop students'metaphorical thinking ability in writing.4. Writing teaching should also focus on the development of connotational or cultural thinking ability. Different cultures make people cognize and understand this world in different ways, and different recognizations and comprehensions form different thinking patterns. The ultimate aim of foreign language teaching is to make students master the target language and communicate with others by applying it. The successful communication includes not only the better mastery of vocabulary and structure knowledge but also the correct understanding about the cultural factors involved in two languages. In writing teaching, it is teachers that should help students realize cultural thinking differences between two languages.To sum up, students'writing levels can be really improved through guiding their writing from the perspective of different thinking patterns between Chinese and English. The findings of this study suggest that the pedagogic model of the combination of the contrastive recognization of Chinese and English thinking pattern differences and the cognitive training of English thinking patterns for college English writing course is an effective one. |
PDF Full Text Request