1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
For many years, most teaching methods for writing course emphasize linguisticknowledge and assignments correcting on grammar, while little attention is paid to theidiomaticness of a composition when they deal with words, sentences and ways of organizingtheir ideas. Based on Wang Wenyu & Wang Lifei (2003), the main and serious problem ofteaching English writing in China is the lack of writing contents. The teaching guideline ofEnglish writing and teaching materials seldom reach the demands of writing contents. Mostteachers adopt “Product approach” as the teaching method of English writing. Moreover,teachers have focused on writing techniques, such as grammar, spelling of words and so on,but they ignored the importance of thinking patterns in the whole writing process (WangWenyu &Wang Lifei 2003:11). Thought is defined as a cognitive activity for human beings tounderstand and reflect the objective world. When people ponder over things, they make use ofjudgment, conception or reasons to reflect the objective world.As writing is a productive skill, it needs writers to master the language proficiently. ForEnglish as a second language (ESL), it is necessary for students to be good at using Englisheffectively. In fact, in English writing students are often disturbed under the influence ofmother tongue. According to Ulla Connor’s view (1996), “English as a second language(ESL), students often mention that when they write in English as a second language theytranslate, or attempt to translate, first language words, phrases, and organization into English.”They often use Chinese as interlanguage and translate it into English. As a result, a lot ofexpressions belong to Chinese culture in English writing. So it is necessary to learn linguisticknowledge and develop cultural awareness for Chinese students in a successful Englishwriting.
1.2 The Purposes and Significance of the Study
People often adopt some traditional methods to approach teaching goals: focus on form,the writer and the reader. The first method means that teachers often give a good range ofmodels for students to imitate and adapt in order to instill notions of correctness andconformity. The second method is often called the process approach to teach writing skills. Asan independent producer of texts, it puts its stress on a cycle of writing activities that movelearners from the generation of ideas and the collection of data by publicizing a finished text.The third method is that it is more oriented and focuses on the ways in which writers and textsneed to interact with readers. Since the phrase “thinking modes” has introduced to foreignlanguage education, the discussion about the relation between languages, culture, thinkingpatterns have deeply influenced the system of traditional education. Based on contrastiveanalysis, using this method presents the different thinking patterns under differentphilosophical thoughts. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of differentthinking patterns in the process of producing idiomatic English writing of senior high-schoolstudents. Moreover, learners can be gradually aware of their own different cultural schema,attitude, and thoughts seen from perspective of other languages, and avoid unidiomaticexpressions in English writing.It is clear that students need to dev
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2 Literature Reviews
2.1 The Definition of Thinking Patterns
Porter and Samovar (1995) claimed that thought is the process that makes use of theconceptions, judgment and reasons to reflect the objective world. Psychologists have provedthat thought can process all kinds of information that come into human brains, and what wethink can reflect the material essences. That is to say, thinking patterns is the mental processof reasoning and solving prevalent problems in a community. People from different culturesshare the different thought modes which exist in every cultural group.Edward Sapir defines thought as “the highest latent or potential content of speech. Thecontent that is obtained by interpreting each of the elements in the flow of language aspossessed of its very fullest conceptual value” (Sapir, 1921, 12). A further study of the natureof “thinking” leads to different types of thinking, among which the commonly accepted one is“creative thinking” and “logical thinking” (Robertson, 1999). The creative thinking tends tosolve an unfamiliar problem in one domain using a familiar problem from another domain,which is using knowledge that you already have to make an inference about some specificcase. While logical thinking refers to two main forms of reasoning: deductive reasoning andinductive reasoning, which means generalizing from particular instances (Robertson, 1999:65). Patterns of thought is essentially a cultural concept implicating that the way man thinks isinfluenced by his or her cultural background (Lian, 2002).
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2.2 Studies on Culture, Language and Thought
In linguistic field, the relationship among language, thought and culture have been a hottopic to discuss. They are interrelated with each other, because language is the carrier ofthought and thought is the reflection of human’s brain which is a kind of conscious activity torecognize objective reality. Thinking patterns is the foundation of culture and different kindsof thinking patterns make different shape of cultures. Saussure, Whorf, Sapir and otherscholars have played an important role on research and speculation.Many researchers at home and abroad have been debated on relationship betweenthought and language. Thought is closely related to language, they are independent butinteractive. Moreover, the way of thinking determines the way of expressing language.Thought pattern is the representation of cultural psychology. It is the substance of language.On the other hand, language is a vehicle and reflects thinking, and its development is notseparated from thought pattern. Based on Sapir (1921), “at best language can but the outwardfacet of thought on the highest, more generalized level of symbolic expression.”
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3 The Theoretical Framework ....... 15
3.1 Contrastive Analysis ...... 15
3.2 Error Analysis ........ 16
3.3 Inter-language Theory ........... 17
4 Research Design......... 19
4.1 Research Questions ........ 19
4.2 Subjects ........... 19
4.3 Instrument....... 19
4.4 The Procedure of the Research ..... 20
4.5 Data Collection and Analysis ........ 23
4.6. The Causes of the Errors Made by the Students........... 29
5 Conclusion.......... 31
5.1 The Major Findings of the Research .... 31
5.2 Limitation of the Research .... 33
5.3 Suggestion for Future Research.... 33
4 Research Design
4.1 Research Questions
The research put forward the following questions for investigation:
(1) What’s the basic attitude towards influence of Chinese thinking patterns in Englishwriting among senior high-school students?
(2) How do Chinese thinking patterns influence Chinese senior high school students intheir English writing?
(3) Which is the better way of overcoming Chinglish of senior high school students intheir learning of English writing?
4.2 Subjects
The participants consist of 60 Grade Three students of Fuxin senior high school. Idivided these 60 students into two classes, and each class has 30 students. One of the twoclasses was the experimental class (EC), the other was the control class (CC). Theexperimental class was directed by contrastive teaching mode, while the control class wasconducted by the traditional English teaching mode. And the two classes were taught by thesame teacher. The research lasted for 12 weeks.
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Conclusion
Writing is a kind of written form for communication to express ideas. It includeslistening, speaking, reading and other language skills. Although writing is regarded as animportant subject in senior high schools, the students’ writing capacities improve slowly andthe outcomes of teaching are not satisfying. From the questionnaire, we can see that the experimental class and the control class havethe basic attitudes towards the influence of the Chinese thinking patterns in English writing,while they have little knowledge about the relationships between the different thinkingpatterns and the English writing while they are writing. Although, students realize theexistence of the Chinese thinking patterns, but they hardly know the influence of Chinesethought patterns being reflected in their English writing, except for errors of linguistic skills.In current English class, teacher often explains writing skills in detail and then givesstudents a topic to practice. After finishing, students hand in their compositions to the teacherfor grading. Because teacher mainly corrects grammar, word usage and phrases with fewcomments, most of students seldom read their writings again after they get them back. As aresult, they make the same mistakes in their papers again. So that having learned English for along time, students do not enable to write a complete and idiomatic English paragraph. Intheir English papers, we can find lots of errors and mistakes from negative transfer of Chinesethinking modes.
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Reference (omitted)
