College English Writing Instruction from the Perspective of Text Linguistics

李佳+张金鹏

Abstract This paper is designed to explore whether the theory of text linguistics， especially the knowledge of cohesion， coherence and cohesive devices could be applied in college English writing teaching to help improve students writing abilities. Besides， the author puts forward some suggestions for both English teachers and learners.

Key Words： text linguistics； cohesion； coherence； college English writing instruction

中圖分类号：G424 文献标识码：A DOI：10.16400/j.cnki.kjdkx.2016.11.036

1 Introduction

English writing， as one of the basic and major forms of language communication， is a complex process involving not only linguistic and cognitive activities， but also social and cultural activities. However， with years of English learning experience， quite a large number of English learners still have difficulties in composing a semantically coherent article.

In 1976， Halliday and Hason published the book Cohesion in English. Michael McMarthy and Ronald Carter（1994） have written a book Language as Discourse： Perspectives for Language Teaching which aims at exploring application of text linguistics and discourse analysis to language teaching. They believe that traditional language teaching pattern is not able to cultivate learners ability to use language， on the basis of which they put forward a new view of language， i.e. language is discourse. This is the so-called discourse-based view of language.

Different form middle school teaching， the purpose of college English teaching is to make students accumulate rich vocabulary， master grammar， and understand the passage entirely as well. Because of this， on the basis of vocabulary explaining， sentence structure analyzing and grammar teaching， college English teaching should surpass words， phrases and sentences， and highlight the whole text so as to improve students ability to use English--- the most important tool of communication， thus helping students benefit from this ability in their future work.

Under this background， the author conducts her research， and believes that it is worthwhile for language teachers to investigate effective ways with the help of the theory of text linguistics to improve students writing ability.

2 Research Design and Procedure

2.1 Research Design

Sixty sophomores from two classes were chosen as the subjects of the research （30 students in each class）. They are majoring in Preschool Education. The two classes are all taught by the researcher， with one class as the experimental class （EC）， and the other as the control class （CC）. The research lasted for a whole semester （16 weeks）， from September， 2015 to January， 2016. The textbook used in class is New Horizon College English， Book II. The students have four sections （180 minutes） classroom learning every week.

Students in the experimental class and the control class have the same English writing proficiency at the beginning of the study， because the researcher found from their English examination results in College Entrance Examination that their English level was almost equal. In the last school year， they have been taught by equally skillful teachers.

The instruments are comprised two tests： pre-test and post-test. The pre-test is the first writing assignment for students at the beginning in the new semester on September， 2015， and the post-test is the last writing task at the end of that semester. The difficulty coefficients of the two tests are almost the same.

2.2 Research Procedure

Before the research， the first thing is to tell the students what cohesion and coherence are about. The teacher explained the students clearly with adequate examples and correct use of cohesive devices and coherence devices in class.

Since the research lasted for a whole semester （16 weeks）， the process of the research can be mainly divided into three stages. The first stage lasted form the first week to the sixth week； the second stage lasted from the seventh week to the tenth week； the third stage lasted from the eleventh week to the sixth week.

Though they had learned college English for one school year， from the result of the writing part in their final examination in June， 2015， only about 25% students got more than 10 points （the full mark for the writing part is 15 points）. In the first class of the semester， the students were asked to compose a short essay on the topic “How to Bridge the Generation Gap”， which is the pre-test. These essays would be kept for future use in the second stage. Meanwhile， from the first week， the author began to introduce the knowledge of text linguistics in her class.

The procedure is like this： instruction of cohesion and coherence → introduction of cohesive devices and coherence devices → simplified exercises related to cohesion and coherence → writing

During this process， apart from using the traditional grammar and sentence teaching method to non-English majors， after explaining the language points in the text， the students would be asked to analyze the writing skill of the text in their textbook from the perspective of text linguistics with the authors help. They had to answer some questions like these： 1）. As for the content： Is the theme of the article clear？ Is it supported by enough facts？ Is there irrelevant material？ Is the logic sound and proper？ 2）. As for the organization： Is the arrangement of the material clear & logical？ Does each paragraph have a separate central idea？ Does the conclusion give readers clear impression of what the paper intends to say？ After that， they also need to draw out an outline of that text or a certain part of the text if it is too long.

The purposes of adding this exercise are ：1）. To make the subjects clearly realize the importance of cohesive devices in English writing； 2）. To raise the students textual awareness； 3）. To learn hoe to evaluate a well-written essay is the first step to write an essay on ones own.

After six weeks of instruction in this way， students grades in the pre-test were declared in the seventh week， which marks the second stage. But unlike what they had practiced before， the subjects this time had to answer the same questions aiming at their own essays， not the text. Meanwhile， the researcher would arrange more essay analysis practice in class.

In the third stage， the subjects were divided into 15 pairs in each class in the eighth week， two of them in one pair. Student A and student B of the same pair exchanged their essays with each other to take the same revision task and give evaluation to the learning partners work， which would be a chance of tapping students potential and arouse students interest in study. In general， on the basis of the practice in the first two stages， the process for the subjects to accomplish this task went smoothly， because the textual awareness was starting to take shape in their minds.

During the six weeks in the last stage， the subjects were asked to finish one short essay about 150 words on a certain topic given by the researcher every two weeks to consolidate their learning efficiency. At last， before the final examination， the subjects were asked to finish the post-test--- one short essay again. This time in composing the essay， they focused their attention on not the grammar and word choice first， but the logic， organization and coherent content first.

3 Writing Instruction in the Three Stages

3.1 Writing Instruction in the First Stage

To introduce to the subjects what cohesion and coherence are about and the classification of the devices is the first thing to do in the first stage.

Since English is not the major of the subjects and they do not have sufficient time on it， in order not to influence their major courses， the author did not arrange other materials to the students， but planned to make full use of the textbook. Many teachers do not arrange time on the text structure part or may ignore the text structure analysis part at the end of each unit， but in fact， thats quite important for students. In this part， teachers can guide students to reexamine the text with a different view--- to find out the cohesive and coherence devices.

Take the text in section A in the first unit， New Horizon College English II as an example. The title is “Time-Conscious Americans”. At this stage， we put aside the language points and grammar， focus on the writers way of conveying information to readers and the way of organizing this article.

Para. 2 “We are slaves to nothing but the clock，” it has been said. Time is treated as if it were something almost real. We budget it， save it， waste it， steal it， kill it， cut it， account for it； we also charge for it. It is a precious resource. Many people have a rather acute sense of the shortness of each lifetime. Once the sands have run out of a persons hourglass， they cannot be replaced. We want every minute to count.

——New Horizon College English Book II， Unit 1， Text A

The third sentence in this paragraph is a parallel sentence and the parallel structure lies in the eight phrases： budget it， save it， waste it， steal it， kill it， cut it， account for it and charge for it. The personal reference “it” acts as a semantic linkage between these sentences. The eight “its” all refer to “time”--- the subject in the second sentence. That is to say， the use of pronoun reference links these sentences closely together， adding coherence to this paragraph. The teacher， therefore， may guide students to learn the main idea of this paragraph.

3.2 Writing Instruction in the Second Stage

At this stage， the author added in-class exercises to ensure that the students in experimental class could have a good understanding about cohesion and coherence， and they knew how the devices they had learned can make text coherent. Typical samples without proper transitions among sentences will be given； the students are asked to add some to revise the sample and make contrast between two versions after their revision.

Without proper cohesive devices， these sentences， though， put together， can not form a coherent text. The author guided the students to revise paragraphs by using appropriate demonstrative references， transitional expressions， etc. From exercises of this kind， students in the experimental class learned the importance of using cohesive devices to make coherent text.

3.3 Writing Instruction in the Third Stage

The subjects were divided in to 15 pairs in each class at the third stage. They were not only asked to practice writing， but also to learn to revise their own essays. After their writing within the time allowed in class （about 30 minutes） on the given topic， two partners in one pair would exchange their ideas on the use of cohesive and coherence devices in their essays. The exercises of this kind would consolidate what the students had learned. Discussion between two partners， and the teachers explanation in this stage are also crucial for the students. At this stage， students cognition of coherence knowledge had been enhanced， their writing skills had been improved as well.

4 Data Analysis and Findings

4.1 Data Analysis

The data in table1 and 2 show that after three-month instruction， the students all make progress but the subjects in the experimental class get higher marks， which answers the first research question. The top students and the intermediate-class students （students who get 9 points to 15points） account for 90% of the total number in the experimental class， while only 63.3% in the control class. The result proves that the instruction of cohesion and coherence contributes to the improvement of students writing quality better than the traditional method of English writing teaching. The results of the post-test indicate that obvious， positive changes have been made in the subjects， especially in EC.

4.2 Correlation Between the Instruction of Text Linguistics and College Students English Writing Abilities

The author did a T-Test with data obtained from pre-test and post-test， and found obvious difference between the pre-test and post-test of EC. The data from the study are analyzed through Independent-Samples T-Test， and the tool is SPSS.

Table 3 is conducted to test whether there is any difference between the two groups at the beginning of the study. T-test for the post-test of EC and CC （also in Table 3） is conduced to see whether there is any difference after EC has been taught cohesion and coherence theory in English writing. T-test for the pre-test and the post-test of EC （Table 4） is investigated whether the students do improve a lot after the research.

For the pre-test part in the left side， it is conducted to test whether there is any difference between the two groups at the beginning of the research. The difference between the two groups is very small， with the mean being 8.3556 for the EC and 8.5556 for the CC. They are almost similar at the beginning of the research. For the post-test part in the right side， the test is conducted to see whether there is obvious difference after EC has been taught cohesion and coherence theory in writing teaching process. From the table， the mean score of the experimental class which has been taught the knowledge of text linguistics， is much higher than that of the control class. It indicates that the instruction of the text linguistics can improve the students writing ability.

5 Conclusion

According to the research results， the author draws the conclusion that the application of the theory of text linguistics contributes to the improvement of students English writing quality. The author also makes some relevant suggestions for language teachers in applying the theory of text linguistics in English writing teaching and for future research， such as firstly， cherishing every period of English class； secondly， arranging the training of the knowledge of cohesion and coherence into several stages； thirdly， avoiding so-called English writing shortcut blindly； fourthly， combining writing teaching， reading teaching， and translation teaching together， fifthly， training students to paraphrase words and phrases， etc. In addition， some advices that help non-English major students to improve their English writing proficiency are also provided， such as firstly， following the teachers guide in writing practice； secondly， reading as extensively as possible； thirdly， performing actively in English writing learning， etc.

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