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A Study of Themes in English Argumentative Essays Written by Chinese EFL Students and American Students

Author: LiuHeng
Tutor: MaZhuangZuo
School: Beijing International Studies University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Theme construction interlanguage writing corpus-based comparative study register
CLC: H314
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2012
Downloads: 76
Quote: 0
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Abstract


Following the Systemic Functional Grammar, this study compares the Theme used in English argumentative compositions written by Chinese students and American students in order to investigate how Chinese students use Theme in their argumentative writings. In this thesis, a corpus-based comparative approach is adopted, combining quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. Two comparable corpora are selected from Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (SWECCL) and Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS) respectively. Comparing the use of Themes in argumentative compositions written by Chinese students and American students, this study finds mainly three significant differences:(1) Chinese students tend to overuse multiple Themes, in particular multiple Themes containing interpersonal Themes but also those containing textual conjunctive Themes in their argumentative writings.(2) Chinese students overuse subjective interpersonal metaphors and objective interpersonal metaphors for certain types of modal expressions and evaluative comments, e.g. expressions of potentiality, emotive reactions, significance, and truth.(3) Chinese students use pseudo-clefts (both basic and reversed) more frequently than American students. However, Chinese students underuse it-clefts in their argumentative writings. In particular, they use the cleft constructions to thematize new information as well as express personal opinions more often than American students.The previous study on English Themes found that the use of Theme has a close relation with text style or register. In English written language, simple Theme and it-clefts are frequently used, whereas in English spoken language, the use of multiple Themes, use of subjective/objective interpersonal metaphors which express personal attitude or comments and use of pseudo-clefts are much more common. The features of Theme usage in Chinese students’argumentative writings result both in a style of writing which is more appropriate for spoken language and a style of persuasion which is overly direct, subjective and emphatic. The possible reasons for these phenomena may be language transfer; learning strategies and a lack of knowledge about certain aspects of argumentative writing and register differences, etc.The findings of this thesis point to several important pedagogical implications on L2writing. Firstly, contrastive rhetoric should be introduced and taught accompanying with writing. Students need to be taught about differences in the cultural norms of argumentative writing as well as other genres of writings in the foreign language and in their mother tongue. Moreover, students also need to be made aware of register differences in general, including not only register differences between spoken and written language, but also more detailed register variation within different genres. Meanwhile, these findings are expected to provide some valuable implications and advices for research on interlanguage writing.

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CLC: > Language, writing > FOREIGN > English > Grammar
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