Thematic Theory and Teaching of English Writing

【摘 要】寫(xiě)作是測(cè)試學(xué)生英語(yǔ)水平的有效手段之一，同時(shí)也是中國(guó)學(xué)生英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)的難點(diǎn)之一。因此，如何在提高學(xué)生思想表達(dá)和語(yǔ)篇組織能力的基礎(chǔ)上，提高學(xué)生的寫(xiě)作水平，已成為外語(yǔ)教學(xué)研究的熱點(diǎn)，并有了不少相關(guān)成果。主位理論是其中之一，尤其是在大學(xué)英語(yǔ)教學(xué)中的作用受到越來(lái)越多的關(guān)注。

【關(guān)鍵詞】主位理論；寫(xiě)作教學(xué)；語(yǔ)篇

Writing is one of the means of measuring the students’ English ability， and one of the difficulties of English learners in China. Though many students may write grammatically correct articles， they can not give a clear idea in expression of ideas and organization of discourses， and the article as a whole is short of integrality. Hence， how to improve students’ ability of expression of ideas and discourse organization， and then to improve students’ writing ability as a whole， has become a hot issue， and some results has been got， in which the role of thematic theory in college English teaching has gained more and more attention.

Thematic theory is the main area of study in discourse analysis. The different types of themes and TP patterns can help us understand the logical and coherent flow of information in a text. Abundant studies have been conducted on thematic theory both at home and abroad for many decades. Some scholars deal with the relationship between thematic theory and discourse coherence， and some conduct contrastive study of thematic structure in Chinese and English discourses. Besides， recently there are some researches on its application in the translation field as well as the application to English teaching. This study is to apply thematic theory to the teaching of college students’ writing and it consists of five chapters.

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction. It introduces the study of thematic theory briefly， summarizes the problems in current college English writing， and presents the aim and organization of the present study.

Chapter 2 is a literature review on the studies of English writing and thematic theory. Current situations of English writing in China， traditional approaches to English writing， and thematic theory are presented in this chapter. The emphasis of this chapter is placed on thematic theory which is studied from 3 aspects， that is， study of theme， study of TP patterns and case analysis.

Chapter 3 describes research methodology， the practical part of the research. Objective， hypothesis， experiment and data collection are dealt with here. The present research aims at probing into the effect of the application of thematic theory to English writing among non-English majors. Two hypotheses are proposed， i.e. 1） The more varied the theme types and TP patterns are， the higher scores of English writing are； the frequency of multiple themes and simple linear pattern of high score compositions is higher than that of low score compositions. 2） The students’ writing ability can be improved through the training of thematic theory. The subjects of the experiment are non-English major sophomores in NEDU. 40 compositions， 20 written before the instruction of thematic theory and 20 written after one term’s instruction of thematic theory， are collected to set up a data base for the analysis.

Chapter 4 demonstrates the elaborate analysis， detailed interpretations of the findings of this study. With the help CAD and Microsoft Office Excel， a series of analyses and comparisons are conducted on the 40 compositions collected and the results are presented. By the comparative study on theme types， TP patterns and scores in pre-teaching and post-teaching compositions， the results show that theme types and TP patterns are closely related to the score of English writing， and the students’ writing score can be improved through the training of thematic theory.

Chapter 5 explores the pedagogical implications and elucidates the conclusion. Four pedagogical implications are put forward for the application of thematic theory to college English writing teaching in this part. They are， 1） There must be some emphases on certain kind of theme types or TP patterns in the instruction， and going too far is as bad as not going far enough. 2） Reading and writing should be combined closely in the instruction of writing， that is， to improve writing through reading， and to improve writing through writing itself. 3） In the instruction of thematic theory the students’ English level should be taken into consideration. 4） It is both necessary and profitable to enhance teachers’ awareness of thematic theory， since it is a challenge for teachers to teach thematic theory and it is difficult for the students to grasp the essence of the theory. Then， the conclusion is drawn， that is， themes and TP patterns are helpful for students’ coherent writing， and the students’ writing ability can be improved through the training of thematic theory. Finally， the limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are presented at the end of the thesis.

Traditional teaching of English writing focuses only on the grammar， but ignores the coherence of the discourse. The present study advocates that teachers should pay more attention to the arrangement and internal connection as well as logical relationship of the discourses， in order to improve the students writing ability completely when rules of grammar are also emphasized. By the study we find that the application of thematic theory to English writing is feasible， and it can help improve the students’ writing ability obviously. But it is merely a tentative attempt based on small scale analysis of some compositions of non-English majors and it is just a potential tendency. Therefore a large number of further studies are suggested.