A Study Of Thesis Writing Anxiety Of English Major Postgraduates

Since the 1960 s,emotional factors have drawn extensive attention along with tremendous development in psychology,pedagogy and language acquisition.In recent years,numerous researches on foreign language anxiety in terms of listening,writing,reading and speaking have developed rapidly.However,relatively few studies on the foreign language thesis writing anxiety have been conducted,which means there is much room for further research in this field.According to the objectives of English teaching for English majors in higher educational institutions,such as colleges and universities,writing is deemed as one important language skill in tertiary or advanced education.In addition,thesis writing in graduate education has always been placed in the top priority.However,the impact of emotional factors,especially anxiety in thesis writing cannot be underestimated.Therefore,based on the “Affective Filter Hypothesis” proposed by Krashen in 1985,this thesis explores the level and manifestation of English major postgraduates' thesis writing anxiety as well as the causal factors of anxiety,and applies the results of the research to better help English majors write high quality academic papers.This study firstly uses Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory(SLWAI).This questionnaire,consisting of 22 items,was proposed by Cheng Yuxiu in 2004.According to Cheng,manifestations of writing anxiety mainly include somatic anxiety,avoidance behaviors and cognitive anxiety.Eighty third-year English postgraduates from a foreign language university in the Northwest of China are selected for this questionnaire survey,only 60 questionnaires collected.Then 60 of them are expected to answer another questionnaire—Causal Factors of English Major Graduates' Writing Anxiety Inventory(CFEMGWAI),which is designed by Zeng Ting(2013)to better investigate the causal factors of thesis writing anxiety.Finally,six out of sixty graduates are interviewed for further exploration and supplement of the results from the two questionnaires.The following conclusions are reached: 1)English postgraduates experience relatively high anxiety level during the periods of thesis writing process.The previously mentioned somatic anxiety,avoidance behavior,together with cognitive anxiety is salient in the present study.To be specific,we can find that both somatic anxiety and avoidance behavior are present throughout the whole writing period,whereas cognitive anxiety is even more obvious than these two judging from the results from the SLWAI.2)Thesis writing anxiety is caused by different factors which can be roughly divided into five categories,namely,writing motivation,writing strategy,linguistic knowledge,research ability,and external factors.3)In order to alleviate and mitigate the anxiety status,this thesis puts forward some suggestions.First of all,academic papers are supposed to be properly required and well managed;in addition,it is urgent for higher educational institutions to build adequate database resources;finally,thesis writing guidance should be strengthened and thesis writing practice should be further solidified for students' outputting high quality thesis.