| Based on the Product Approach and Cognitive Approach on the macro-level,this thesis makes a comparison and detailed analysis of the lexical, sytactical andtextual features of argumentative writing by China’s non-English majors in theirsophomore year. The specific theoretical bases are Categorization Theory,Grammatical Metaphor and Schema Theory, which all belong to the field of cognitivelinguistics. The study is aimed to find out the linguistic problems of the non-Englishmajors’ argumentative writing by observing their application of cognitive theories inthe writing process, so as to improve student’s language performance and Teaching ofEnglish as a Foreign Language (TEFL).The145research subjects from School of Communication Studies of XISUmajor in Journalism and Advertising. The four classes are divided into the ControlGroup and the Experimental Group. The major findings obtained from the quantitativeand qualitative studies are shown as follows:1. According to the grading criterion set by the author, the statistics collectedbefore and after the experiment shows that the new instruction methodadopted can significantly improve the diction, syntax and text scores of theExperiment Group in the argumentative writing.2. Text analysis reveals that the instruction of Categorization Theory,Grammatical Metaphor and Image Schema in class helps students polish theirdiction, enhance the objectiveness of sentence expression and standardize thetextual structure, thus makes their argumentative compositions morenative-like and coherent.This study reveals the language and text features of the Chinese non-Englishmajors’ argumentative writing in a systematic way. It is recommended that teachersintroduce relevant cognitive theories in class and lead students out of their cognitivemistakes. It is hoped that the thesis will be instructive and helpful for languageteachers to see the power of applying linguistic theories, especially cognitive linguistictheories, in their teaching practice. |
PDF Full Text Request