（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）语篇分析在大学英语写作教学中的应用.pdf

vii 论文摘要论文摘要 英语写作是大学英语教学中一项棘手的课题，由于以往部分教育工作者往 往侧重于词汇和语法的教学，而忽视语言结构是如何在语篇中运用的，从而导 致英语写作只停留在句子层次上。从语篇分析角度科学的、系统的分析语言材 料，谋篇布局，有利于培养学生对英语文章的语篇分析能力，了解英语文章的 结构，全面的掌握英语知识，提高实际应用能力，克服写作过程中的障碍。 本文通过测试和问卷调查的方法，收集数据，并对其进行归纳、分类，统 计结果，分析了我国大学英语写作教学的现状及存在的问题，从语篇方面指出 学生习作中的特点与缺陷，并针对此提出了实际教学中的解决方案。 论文研究包括三个组成部分。第一部分是对本科一年级学生习作的分析， 实验目的是分析学生作文中的语篇结构方面的问题，并以此为依据确定我们所 运用的语篇教学方法。第二部分是对大学英语教师的访谈，目的是找出目前学 生作文中存在问题的多方面原因。最后一部分是我们的语篇教学方法的试验。 实验目的是对我们采用的语篇分析方法所取得效果的检验，历时一学期。在这 一实验中，我们首先在教学过程中实施了根据实际情况并结合语篇分析理论确 立的一套教学方法，在此过程中，收集资料及数据，最后通过几组数据的对比 得出结论，即我们所实施的语篇教学方法在提高学生的英语写作水平上有一定 的成效。 论文的目的在于阐述怎样把语篇分析应用于大学英语写作教学。在教学实 践中，我们采用了两个结合，即把写作同阅读教学相结合，以及把过程教学法 与结果教学法相结合。从某些方面来讲，以上研究对于大学英语写作教学有一 定的参考价值。但是由于样本人数少，实验时间短，所得结果尚有一定的局限 性，只能为今后的进一步研究提供参考。 关键词关键词:语篇分析语篇分析,大学英语写作教学大学英语写作教学,应用应用 vi abstract in this thesis, the status quo is given in the first place, indicating that the students writing ability is fairly weak and it is necessary to probe into efficient solution, which is the purpose of this thesis. the present research consists of three parts. the first part aims at clarifying the problems in students compositions. the second part probes into the main reasons for such problems. both of the two parts contribute to the constitution of our textual teaching methods. the third part of our research is the experiment with textual teaching method. at the end of teaching, their effects on the improvement of students writing ability are studied. as to the application of discourse analysis in practical teaching, this thesis illustrates why and how to apply it. theories of discourse analysis are shed light on, including thematic theories, cohesion, coherence and textual pattern. the subsequent section is about teaching methodology. we advocate two combinations, i.e. combining reading with writing, combining product approach with process approach in teaching practice. the major findings of our research are summarized in the last part. it is also emphasized that to apply textual training into college english teaching is not to ignore the instruction of basic knowledge of the language. finally, the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are presented. keywords: discourse analysis, college english writing teaching, application viii list of tables table 1-1 a comparison of the score rates of five items in cet4 1 table 1-2performances of grade 90s undergraduates of nankai university and zhejiang normal university in cet4 2 table 3-1errors in subjects compositions 23 table 3-2 conjunction errors in narration and argumentation27 table 4-1results of the investigation (full mark 10) 47 iii 上海交通大学 学位论文原创性声明 上海交通大学 学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下， 独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外， 本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式 标明。本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名：张艳 日期：2006 年 1 月 17 日 iv 上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书 上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规 定，同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电 子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权上海交通大学可以将本学 位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、 缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密保密，在 年解密后适用本授权书。 本学位论文属于 不保密 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名： 张艳 指导教师签名：王同 顺 日期： 2006 年 1 月 17 日 日期： 2006 年 1 月 17 日 1 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 necessity of the study since 1986 when college english test (cet) was put into practice, the average scores of writing throughout the country have remained very low, about half of the full score 15, with 5.8 in the examination in june of 1991, 5.88 in january of 1994 and 7.52 in june of 1997. moreover, the scores of writing items are also the lowest one among all the items. the data in table 1-1 is a case in point. we can see from the table below the score rates of five items in cet4, in which the other four except writing are around 60% and 43.2% of writing presents a striking contrast. table 1-2 indicates that students both of the two universities obtained much lower scores in writing than in the other three items. table 1-1: a comparison of the score rates of five items in cet4 (june, 1993) itemslistening comprehension reading comprehension vocabulary and structure clozewriting full scores 2040151015 score rate 58.5%64.8%63.2%61.2%43.2% as we all know, writing is one of the basic abilities of english learning. neglecting writing ability, one cannot master a language in proper sense. english writing embodies ones knowledge and application competence of this language while writing one is required to employ them in certain context to fulfill the purpose of communication. however, english learners in china, especially those non-english majors in universities as indicated in the above statistics, have relatively poor competence in english writing. the deficiency of writing ability cannot meet the requirement of the college english teaching syllabus and the social needs. table 1-2: performances of grade 90s undergraduates of nankai university 2 and zhejiang normal university in cet4 (june, 1992) item score listening comprehension reading comprehension vocabulary and structure writing full mark20401515 score16.2836.2012.078.83 nankai university score rate 81.4%90.5%80.47%58.87% score10.8329.24%9.046.88zhejiang normal university score rate 54.15%73.10%60.27%45.87% college english teaching should benefit not only the cultivation of students language competence, but also that of students communicative competence; and it should not only put emphasis upon language training on sentence level, but also gradually develop the communicative competence on discourse level. in order to find efficient ways to solve the problem mentioned at the beginning of this part, this thesis attempts to probe into the teaching approach and methods of writing form textual point of view by doing some surveys and experiments. 1.2 design of the study at the very beginning of this thesis, it is admitted that the writing ability of chinese non-english majors is fairly poor, lagging far behind other abilities. data are collected and presented to indicate these facts by comparing the items in cet. so this thesis suggests some possible solutions to the problem in question so as to improve college english teaching. the present research consists of three parts. the first part aims at clarifying the problems in students compositions. the second part probes into the main reasons for such problems. both of the two parts contribute to the constitution of our textual teaching methods. the third part of our research is the experiment with textual teaching method. at the end of teaching, their effects on the improvement of students writing ability are studied. 3 this thesis consists of six chapters. this chapter is an introduction that states clearly the needs for such a research and provides a birds eye view of the present study. chapter two is the literature review part. chapter three reports students problems in efl writing and explores the possible causes. chapter four is about our experiment with textual teaching method. the last chapter is the concluding part. it summarizes the major findings of the research, and the pedagogical significance of the study in college english teaching. and it also states the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. chapter 2 literature review 2.1 a brief appraisal of changes in approaches to the teaching of efl writing there have been numerous approaches to the teaching of writing in the history of language teaching. they have evolved with the development of different approaches to teaching in general, which have in turn contributed to the changing role and status of writing within english language syllabuses and the english as a foreign language classroom. in spite of other general methodological changes, however, writing continues to be one of the most difficult areas for the teacher and learner of english to tackle. traditionally, writing was viewed mainly as a tool for the practice and reinforcement of specific grammatical and lexical patterns, a fairly one-dimensional activity, in which accuracy was all-important but content and self-expression virtual non-priorities. to paraphrase tribble, students were purely writing to learn as opposed to learning to write. (tribble,1996,p118). even in more recent communicative approaches to language teaching, writing can often still be seen by teachers as something of a taboo area, threatening to detract valuable classroom time from the development of oral communication skills. however, with an increase in attention to students practical needs, born out of functional/notional approaches and further developed in the various areas of english for specific purposes, the importance of the writing of certain text-types as a skill learners might need to develop has gradually come to the fore. this gradual increase 3 this thesis consists of six chapters. this chapter is an introduction that states clearly the needs for such a research and provides a birds eye view of the present study. chapter two is the literature review part. chapter three reports students problems in efl writing and explores the possible causes. chapter four is about our experiment with textual teaching method. the last chapter is the concluding part. it summarizes the major findings of the research, and the pedagogical significance of the study in college english teaching. and it also states the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. chapter 2 literature review 2.1 a brief appraisal of changes in approaches to the teaching of efl writing there have been numerous approaches to the teaching of writing in the history of language teaching. they have evolved with the development of different approaches to teaching in general, which have in turn contributed to the changing role and status of writing within english language syllabuses and the english as a foreign language classroom. in spite of other general methodological changes, however, writing continues to be one of the most difficult areas for the teacher and learner of english to tackle. traditionally, writing was viewed mainly as a tool for the practice and reinforcement of specific grammatical and lexical patterns, a fairly one-dimensional activity, in which accuracy was all-important but content and self-expression virtual non-priorities. to paraphrase tribble, students were purely writing to learn as opposed to learning to write. (tribble,1996,p118). even in more recent communicative approaches to language teaching, writing can often still be seen by teachers as something of a taboo area, threatening to detract valuable classroom time from the development of oral communication skills. however, with an increase in attention to students practical needs, born out of functional/notional approaches and further developed in the various areas of english for specific purposes, the importance of the writing of certain text-types as a skill learners might need to develop has gradually come to the fore. this gradual increase 4 in the status of writing as a skill, along with the development of a more discoursal rather than purely grammatically-based approach to language teaching, and general moves towards more learner-centered syllabuses, has altered the teachers perspective on both the needs of and the problems faced by language learners. whereas traditionally, in the words of raimes, teachers have trapped our students within the sentence and respond to the piece of writing as item checkers not as real readers (raimes, 1983a), we are now beginning to develop a more top-down and student- centered approach to the teaching of writing, whereby issues of content, genre and discourse have been assigned greater importance, and, as nunan comments, paraphrasing zamel: .the writing class should take into account the learners purposes for writing, which transcend that of producing texts for teacher evaluation. (nunan, 1991, p88, referring to zamel, 1987). 2.2 product, process and genre: approaches to efl writing there are generally three approaches to efl writing, product, process and genre. these approaches are regarded as being mutually exclusive and there has been much debate between proponents of each approach. 2.2.1 the product approaches product based approaches can be said to see writing as mainly concerned with knowledge about the structure of language and writing development as mainly the result of imitation of input in the form of texts provided by the teacher. with a product approach, students are encouraged to mimic a model text, which is usually presented and analyzed at an early stage. a model for such an approach is outlined as follows: stage 1: familiarization/ analysis of target text stage 2: controlled writing stage 3: guided writing stage 4: free writing the main criticisms of product-based approaches are that skills, such as planning a text, play a relatively small role in these approaches, that the knowledge that learners bring to the classroom is undervalued and not enough attention is given to the 5 social context in which texts are produced. 2.2.2 a process approach tribble defines the process approach as an approach to the teaching of writing which stresses the creativity of the individual writer, and which pays attention to the development of good writing practices rather than the imitation of models. (tribble, 1996, p160). thus, the focus shifts from the final product itself to the different stages the writer goes through in order to create this product, by breaking down the task as a whole into its constituent parts. writing can seem greatly less daunting and more manageable to the efl students. various headings have been given to the different stages in the writing process, possibly the most exhaustive being white and arndts generating ideas, focusing, structuring, drafting, evaluating and re-viewing. (white and arndt, 1991, p 4. see also hedge, 1988, p 15 and tribble, 1996, p 59). these stages generally involve different forms of brainstorming, selecting and ordering ideas, planning, drafting, redrafting and revising and editing. furthermore, as raimes comments, the process in not linear at all but recursive (raimes, 1985, p229. quoted in tribble, 1996, p59), as, in tribbles words, at any point in the preparation of a text, writers can loop backwards or forwards to whichever of the activities involved in text composition they may find useful. (tribble, 1996, p 59). this not only provides the student writer and the teacher with a practical and manageable framework within which to work through the writing process, but also allows for great flexibility, depending on each individual task and the personality and preferences of each individual writer. process approaches to writing tend to focus more on the varied classroom activities which promote the development of language use.a model for such an approach is outlined as follows: stage 1: rehearsing or pre-writing stage 2:drafting stage 3:revising stage 4:editing 6 process theories have been extremely influential in the evolution of l2 writing instruction. responding to purely formal views of writing, proponents borrowed the techniques and theories of cognitive psychology and l1 composition to refine the ways we understand and teach writing. while remaining the dominant pedagogical orthodoxy for over 30 years, however, process models have for some time found themselves under siege from more socially-oriented views of writing which reject their inherent liberal individualism. the main criticisms are that such approaches often regard all writing as being produced by the same set of processes, that they do not give enough importance to the kind of texts writers produce , and finally they may not provide learners with sufficient input to carry out the writing tasks successfully. 2.2.3 genre-based pedagogies: a social response to process genre based approaches see writing as essentially concerned with knowledge of language in context and the development of writing as a response input in the form of texts. genre approaches regard ways of writing as purposeful, socially situated responses to particular contexts and communities. the genre approach to teaching writing focuses, as the term suggests, on teaching particular genres that students need control of in order to succeed in particular settings. this might include a focus on language and discourse features of the texts, as well as the context in which the text is produced. a model for such an approach is outlined as follows: stage 1: introduce sample text stage 2: analyze text stage 3: manipulate language elements stage 4: produce target text the main criticisms against genre approaches are that they down play the skills needed to produce a text and see learners as largely passive. this last factor may lead problems to learners who are able to deal with the kinds of writing that they have dealt with in the classroom but are not able to deal with any new forms of text that they may come across outside the classroom. in addition students are unlikely to be 7 able to use the language creatively. 2.2.4 a process genre approach a process genre approach starts with the situation which gives rise to a particular genre of writing. the students then produce some writing in line with their own needs supported by the teacher, their peers and sample texts. drawing together genre and process approaches, flowerdew (1993) and badger and white (2000) argue for a procedure which focuses on the process of learning about, and acquiring genres, rather than one which focuses solely on the end product, or specific variety of genre. flowerdew (1993) argues that we cannot hope to predict the range of genres that our students will, in time, need to be able to deal with. in their view, we need to help our learners see how they can go about discovering how genres differ from one another, how the same genre may vary, as well as what the particular expectations of the writin