A Study On English Majors' Argumentative Writing From The Perspective Of Thematic Progression

English writing,as a productive activity,is an important indicator of measuring students' competence in using the language,especially for English majors.Moreover,argumentative writing is a common genre.It can directly reflect the students' logical thinking ability and rational ability in expressing their ideas.Accordingly,taking argumentative writing as an example,the study analyzes English majors' compositions to understand students' current situation in argumentative writing and find out the main problems in their compositions,which may arouse English learners' and teachers' attention and consideration about English writing.At the same time,specific and feasible suggestions are provided,which is hoped to be of help for improvement.Based on the theoretical framework of thematic progression,the study attempts to analyze argumentative writing produced by sophomores majoring in English.This study is conducted to answer the following questions:(1)What's the current situation of students' argumentative writing?(2)What kinds of problems exist in the macro structure and micro semantic links of students' argumentative writing respectively?Both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted in the study.First,54 compositions of English sophomores are collected.They are analyzed from two perspectives,namely,from the macro structure and semantic links,aiming to find out problems in students' argumentative writing.Then,a questionnaire is designed for 120 sophomores majoring in English and an interview is carried out for 3 English teachers.The investigation makes a relatively deep understanding and confirmation of the found problems to grasp the general situation of students' English argumentative writing.On this basis,specific suggestions are provided for improvement.Data analysis shows that students' compositions can meet the basic writing requirements in the National Syllabus for College English Majors.However,there is a gap between students' writing and the advanced writing requirements.Concerning the content,91% of the compositions present the theme in the introductory part,while the main information is not prominent in 79% of the compositions.As to the use of language,82% of the compositions have close connections in language expression.Whereas,there are language mistakes in 54% of the compositions.With regard to the coherence,40% of the compositions lack high validity in logical connection.To be specific,problems in the macro structure are incompact layout in organization and simple ways of development for content.83% of the compositions center on the parallel pattern,leading to the parallel development of compositions and weak connections among sentences.In addition,non-nominal words,especially pronouns(51%)and prepositional phrases(28%)are put at the beginning of sentences.Hence,the main information is not prominent in students' compositions.69% of the arguments in compositions are from books.Students cannot fully understand the topic so that the evidence to support the arguments is not so comprehensive.As for the ways of recommendation,exemplification is used by 53% of the students in their writing.Last,61% of the compositions end with prediction or recommendation,which makes students' compositions similar in the concluding paragraph to some extent.Problems in the semantic links are mainly weak connections among sentences and inappropriate language expression.Students' compositions have comparatively low validity in logical connection,with 40% of them focusing on “implication”.Besides,there are language mistakes in 54% of the compositions.In a word,the major problems in students' argumentative writing exist in the ways of development for content,which needs to be improved.In order to help students improve their deficiencies in writing,this study provides the following suggestions:(1)Improve the ability to organize ideas.?1 Learn to write through reading.Read more articles written by English speakers,paying special attention to their writing skills and techniques while trying to grasp the structural framework of the reading materials.?2 Present ideas logically and reasonably.The main information should be highlighted to strengthen the theme.Besides,enhance the convincing effect of the texts.For instance,in the process of recommendation,antitheses,comparison and citation are allowed to use.Additionally,make efforts to understand the differences in thinking between English and Chinese,and to cultivate language sense.(2)Enhance semantic links.?1 Increase connections among sentences.Grasp the connective devices among sentences to improve the logicality of the texts.?2 Improve the ability to use language.Cumulate vocabulary purposefully and understand the meaning of words accurately to use them exactly.In addition,polish writing by correcting language mistakes based on feedbacks.There is no doubt that some limitations exist in the present study.The genre of samples is limited to argumentative writing.Due to the fact that argumentative writing has its unique structure and features,the results of the study may not be applied directly to other genres.Besides,the interviewees are relatively few in number,which influences the enrichment of the data and its further analysis to a certain extend.Despite these limitations,the study has achieved its expected goal.The findings of this study may offer some implications and references for writing practice.