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A Comparative Study Of Chinese High School Students’ Ability In Narrative Writing In Chinese And In English

Posted on:2014-06-03Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y K GaoFull Text:PDF
GTID:2267330422955992Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
This paper aims to explore through narrative writing the relationship betweenChinese high school students’ ability in narrative writing in Chinese and English.Writing, as one of the elementary skills in English learning, has increasinglyattracted attention from scholars. Therefore, research on English writing is mounting.One of it is about the influence that native language exercises on second languagewriting. In fact, much research into the relationship between native language andsecond language has attached much importance to negative transfer of mothertongue. On the basis of Cummins’(1980) Common Underlying ProficiencyHypothesis, this research assumes that a positive correlation exists between Chinesewriting and English equivalent, exploring the relationship between writing ability inChinese and in English and investigating the influence of English proficiency on thetransfer in writing ability.The subjects in this study were from a top class, where students were selectedfrom the entire grade and a regular class in a high school. According to their scoresgiven in objective questions in the second English proficiency test of grade three,50students were picked from top and regular classes apiece to investigate the influenceof English proficiency and the relationship between narrative writing ability inChinese and in English. With the help of the SPSS16.0, the quantitative analysis ofthe subjects’ scores in narrative writing was done, showing that a marked correlationexisted among top students instead of regular counterparts, thus indicating thatEnglish proficiency played a restrictive role. The qualitative analysis was carried outto compare the compositions of top students, revealing that the higher students’narrative writing scores in Chinese was, the higher their English equivalent,especially in terms of the theme, content, diction, coherence and the like. It is suggested that their narrative writing ability in Chinese was in proportion to that inEnglish. In contrast, for the regular students, whose English level restricted them toborrow their Chinese writing skills, grammatical and structural errors consequentlyoften appeared throughout the compositions.The present study supports the Common Underlying Proficiency theory that theinfluence of native language on foreign language is overwhelmingly positive andrelated to such factors as English proficiency. It also produces some implications inlanguage teaching. For one thing, Chinese and Chinese writing cannot be ignored.For another, much attention should be paid to students’ English proficiency, helpingthem to understand differences in expression of the two languages. Only bycombining English proficiency and Chinese writing ability can students’ Englishwriting ability be considerably enhanced.
Keywords/Search Tags:Chinese writing ability, English writing ability, narrative writing, correlation, English proficiency
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