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The Investigation and Study on the Correlation between Thematic Theory and English Writing in College

Author: WangCaiHong
Tutor: GuoJinHui
School: Shenyang Normal
Course: Curriculum and Pedagogy
Keywords: theme rheme thematic progression English writing teaching
CLC: H319
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 69
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Abstract

English is a compulsory subject in university teaching. Writing plays an important role in the five English skills, but it is also a weak part for students. In addition to the problems of lacking vocabulary and grammar errors, there is a common phenomenon that many students write the sentences one after another without thinking, which will result the connection between sentences unnatural. Thus, sentences patterns lack flexibility and variety and text structure is loose. Traditional writing teaching focuses on correcting grammar and spelling, which can’t solve these problems.In the Systemic Functional Grammar proposed by famous linguist Halliday, thematic structure, information structure and cohension are the three main elements in text function. It provided powerful analytical framework for the English writing teaching. Thematic structure means from a starting point of a clause can be extended to the development of thematic progression in the whole text. Theme and thematic progression can help us understand the organizational structure of discourse and can also test the sentence sequence connection, which plays an important role in promoting text coherence.However, from the current research literature, the majority of scholars discuss related issues from the perspective of cohesion theory. There is few study based on thematic theory which is the semantic coherence in meaning within the language. Besides, there is few study on analysing student’s compositions based on this theory. Thereby, this thesis selected 90 non-English major students from 2 classes in 2009 as study subjects in Shenyang Normal University and chose one topic for their writing as pre-test sample, then, based on thematic theory, the author analyzed the features of theme selection and thematic progression in different students’ compositions and compared good samples with poor ones in order to investigate the differences between them. What’s more, the author investigated the students’attitude towards their writing and the situation of English writing teaching in university through a questionnaire so as to design a new teaching method "thematic teaching approach" to help students improve their writing scores. Finally, the author divided 90 subjects into experimental class and control class. The new teaching method was used in teaching the experimental class. After 12 weeks, through results of comparison between pre-test and post test, the effectiveness of new teaching method will be tested.The results show that, multiple theme and clause as theme in high score group were used more than low score group, which can help making sentence patterns more diverse and flexible. High score group students used constant progression and continuity progression more than other patterns. What’s more, most students can use the theme and thematic progression patterns subconsciously, but owning to lacking comprehensive understanding and systematic exercises, they don’t konw how to develop an essay flexibly.As an attempt, the author puts "thematic teaching approach" into teaching which was proved to be feasible and effective. Especially for those middle and low level students who can make a big progression in improve their English writing skills.This thesis is only a preliminary exploratory study and the small sample size to some extent limits the universality. Therefore, the important function of thematic theory in English writing teaching remains to be further studied.

The Investigation and Study on the Correlation between Thematic Theory and English Writing in College

Abstract

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