A Study On The Differences Of Chinese And African Students' English Writing From Cultural Perspective

Syntactic complexity and discourse coherence in English writing are closely related to the overall language proficiency of language learners.The current study quantitatively and qualitatively investigates the differences of discourse coherence between African and Chinese students' English writing;the differences of syntactic complexity between African and Chinese students' English writing;and how college English teaching and learning motivation influence African and Chinese students' English writing.Participants of the present research are 15 African non-English postgraduates and 15 Chinese non-English postgraduates,who filled out two questionnaires and completed the same argumentative writing task.In addition,this study interviewed the 15 Chinese participants and 6 of the African participants.Based on Chiang's(1999,2003)coherence rating scale the coherence of the study samples was analyzed,and meanwhile the L2 SCA developed by Lu(2010)was applied to measure and analyze the syntactic complexity of the research samples.The data collected in the study were tested by independent samples t-tests and Pearson-product correlation analysis by SPSS16.0.The results suggest that there is no significant difference between African and Chinese students' English writing in discourse coherence;the syntactic complexity of African and Chinese students' English writing turns to be significantly different in mean length of T-unit(MLT)and in T-unit complexity ratio(C/T);and the analysis of college English teaching and students' learning motivation from cultural perspective reveals that African college English teaching and Chinese college English teaching are significantly different in teaching methods,writing requirements,writing frequencies,question types of English tests,and in-and after-class English learning;there is no significant correlation between African writing samples and college English teaching,nor is it between African writing samples and learning motivation(there is no significant correlation between African writing samples and college English teaching or learning motivation in terms of discourse coherence or syntactic complexity);college English teaching positively influences the discourse coherence and the two subcategories(MLS,C/T)of syntactic complexity of Chinese writing samples;and extrinsic motivation exerts positive effect on the discourse coherence and the three subcategories(C/T,DC/C,DC/T)of syntactic complexity of Chinese writing samples.Compared with African writing samples,the influence of college English teaching and extrinsic learning motivation on Chinese participants' English writing and learning is more significant.Last but not least,implications for college English teaching,especially for teaching of English writing,and suggestions for future studies are summarized.This study consists of six chapters.Chapter One introduces the background,purpose and significance of this study.Chapter Two reviews recent studies on English writing,discourse coherence and syntactic complexity at home and abroad.Chapter Three elaborates thetheoretical foundation of this study.Chapter Four is methodology,which describes in detail the research questions,research objects,research instruments,and experimental procedures as well as data collection and analysis.Chapter Five analyses and discusses the research results.Chapter Six summarizes the research findings,and points out the implications and limitations of the present study.