An Empirical Study On Thematic Progression In English Writing

English writing involves the selection the words and sentences, textual cohesive andcoherence, and logic way of thinking. However, the current domestic teaching of Englishwriting focuses more on the sentential level, such as words, grammar; less on the discourselevel, such as textual coherence and overall organization. Therefore, the writings of collegestudents always fail to convey the topic and information effectively. In light of the writingproblems caused by textual incoherence, the thesis proposes to apply thematic progressionpatterns into the writing teaching among the non-English majors to explore whether thepatterns could be used to solve the problem of incoherence in writing and how to operate thepatterns in classroom instruction.The thesis discusses six thematic progression patterns: simple linear progression,constant progression, constant Rheme pattern, zigzag pattern, split progression and derivedhyper-thematic progression. Then the six patterns are applied into college English writingteaching. The effects of the research are manifested by the results of pretest and posttest. Thesubjects of the research are two classes from the Chemical Department in Xiangtan University.The two classes are labeled as the Controlled Class and the Experimental Class respectively.The pretest proves that the overall writing ability of the two classes is similar. After the pretest,a ten-week experiment has been carried out. During the experiment, the Controlled Class istaught by topic-guidance writing, while the Experimental Class is guided under the thematicprogression patterns. The posttest is done after the experiment, and related analysis anddiscussion have been made.The results of the analysis are as follows: firstly, thematic progression could be used inclassroom teaching to solve the problem of textual incoherence and improve students’ writingability. Under the guidance of thematic progression, the students will try to think over acomposition from the textual perspective, pay more attention to logic cohesion and textualcoherence and make a composition expressive. Secondly, the use of thematic progression canmake sentences more cohesive and accelerate the effective transfer of information. This couldexplain from two perspectives. Formally speaking, Theme and Rheme is related to theirpositions in a sentence. The progression of Theme and/or Rheme could be realized through repetition and substitution of meaning. Functionally speaking, the Theme and Rheme alwayscarry some information, so the progression of them will help delivery information or message.Thirdly, the simple linear progression, constant progression and constant Rheme pattern arethe most frequently used patterns in students’ compositions. The three patterns have their ownadvantages in constructing a coherent text. In the simple linear pattern, the Rheme in thesecond clause becomes the Theme of the first clause, which is good for the development of atopic. In the constant pattern, several sentences have the same Theme, which could be usefulto concentrate on a topic. In the constant Rheme pattern, attention is attracted by the Rhemeof the clause, which make the main idea prominent.The thesis proves that the application of thematic progression in English writingteaching can foster the students to think over a composition from the textual perspective, andenhance the awareness of textual coherence, thus promote information flow and expressiveability.