Chinese English Majors Research Articles

Effects of content-based curriculum on the language performance of Chinese English majors

In 2014 the School of Foreign Studies of Nanjing University of Science and Technology replaced the old language-skill-based curriculum for undergraduate English majors with a new content-based curriculum. The study investigated the effects of content-based curriculum on the language performance of students in the national Tests for English Majors - Grade 4 and Grade 8 (TEM-4 and TEM-8). It was found that content-based curriculum had positive effects on the language performance of lower-grade English majors; however, the students under the new curriculum exhibited a tendency of polarization development, with both the excellence rate and the failure rate in TEM-4 greatly increasing. It was also found that content-based curriculum did not have obvious positive or negative effects on the language performance of highergrade English majors in TEM-8. Suggestions were put forward on the improvement of content-based curriculum for undergraduate Chinese English majors.

Needs Analysis of Chinese English Majors in EGP Courses

Based on the needs analysis model outlined by Li (2007), this study investigates the needs of Chinese English majors enrolled in EGP courses and identifies the gender differences in their needs from linguistic, cognitive, and affective perspectives. SPSS 23.0 was used in this study to analyze data obtained from 221 Chinese English majors through a revised version of Li’s (2007) questionnaire. The results showed that: 1) from the linguistic perspective, students revealed the strongest desire to practice pronunciation and speaking in class, attached the greatest importance to vocabulary and speaking, and had a conflict opinion of vocabulary. 2) from the cognitive perspective, students manifested aspirations for the teacher’s positive feedback, a harmonious English learning environment, communicative learning activities, and the opportunity to practice in class. 3) from the affective perspective, students recorded the usefulness of English as their primary learning motivation, showing a broadly positive attitude and adequate confidence when learning English. 4) males preferred using the grammar-translation method to learn English and were more likely to be motivated by their desires to understand the information in English; females favored adopting the communicative method to learn English and were more likely to be stimulated by school’s requirement and their cravings for good grades. This research endeavor is considered significant because its finding can be used to assist Chinese teachers and course designers to develop the rarely-examined EGP courses provided for Chinese English majors based on the often-overlooked students’ needs.

Epistemic Modality and Projection in Argumentative Writing: A Corpus-driven Comparison of Chinese English Majors and Native English Speakers

In academic writings, writers are supposed to properly express the degree of certainty and doubt. Especially in the argumentative text, writers are required to give appropriate arguments and project previous theories or ideas. Epistemic modality and projection are concerned with how writers express their degree of certainty and doubt, which is important for a qualified argumentative text writer. Through comparison of 30 pieces of argumentative essays respectively from Chinese English majors and native English speakers of undergraduate level, this study finds that Chinese English majors rely more on a narrower and imbalanced epistemic devices and projecting verbs in their writings. Therefore, it’s imperative for Chinese English majors to expand their vocabulary and improve their English proficiency.

Pragmatic Failure in Cross-Cultural Communication

There is a phenomenon: a non-native speaker may confront miscommunication even with a good master of the target language, which is known as “pragmatic failure”. Unlike linguistic errors, native speakers often fail to recognize it as such and attribute it to boorishness, which may do more harm to communication. Though pragmatic failure is a primary cause of cross-cultural communication breakdown, it receives little attention, especially in traditional foreign language teaching. This thesis intends to examine Chinese English majors’ pragmatic failure in verbal communication, probes into the causes of pragmatic failures and puts forward strategies in avoiding pragmatic failure.

A Study of Chinese University English Majors’ L2 Motivational Self

As a highly important affective variable, motivation has always been a focus of research in second/foreign language (SL/FL) learning and proved to play a critical role in SL/FL learning. Even so, considering the complex and dynamic nature of SL/FL motivation, it always deserves research. Guided by the newly proposed framework of L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009), the present mixed-method study hence explored Chinese English majors’ L2 motivational self. One hundred and one English majors from a prestigious university in Beijing answered the questionnaire and 15 of them were interviewed in the present study. Analyses of the data revealed the following main findings: (1) the participants were generallyhighly motivated to learn English, had vivid images of themselves as proficient English users in the future, had positive appraisals of their L2 learning experiences, and had a moderately good perception of their ought-to L2 self, (2) senior students reported having significantly higher ideal L2 self and held more positive attitudes towards English learning experience. Based on these findings, some pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Academic Features Among the Non-academic: A Case of Chinese Argumentative Texts as Compared to BaREnLoB

Compared with different degrees of academic corpora(RC): BaREnLoB, this study conducted a CIA analysis to find out whether the usage features owned by Chinese English majors in their argumentative texts in WECCL2.0 (the observation corpus,OC henceforth) can demonstrate different academic features except for non academic ones. Results show some academic features among the non-academic(i.e.almost the same strong narrative features, and insufficient epistemic comments, rare depiction and classification of particular things, i.e. similar to previous findings). It shows: (i) NN2 (mostly followed by should ) and we (the usual form to refer to the author himself /herself or the research group themselves) are usually incorporated as subjects; (ii) The standard frequency (PMW) of the top 20 verbs(including be, have, find, know, become, see, etc.) and all the 55 pointed common stative ones(Zhang Z.B, 2003) between OC and RC differ much although the standard frequency(PMW) of stative verbs among the 20 top between differs slightly. (iii) the occurrences of “ they/he/she + modal verbs” in OC are many times more than those in RC, even “we/you/I + modal verbs” between show the nonnatives employ much less than the natives. (iv) there are 4 out of 19 carefully-picked abstract nouns before modal verbs are in OC while none in RC. In short, this research finds that the English argumentative writings by Chinese English majors display some academic features as mirrored by the reference corpus except for some non-academic features as we found before. Finally, some implications for the teaching and research of modal verbs are discussed. Keywords: deontic and epistemic modality, academic feature among non academic, Chinese argumentative texts DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/71-02 Publication date: August 31 st 2020

Corpus-based Priming for Inverse Translation Training

Training students to become competent translators out of their mother tongue is a challenging objective. Yet for Chinese undergraduate English majors, inverse translation is a necessary skill and an indispensible curricular component. In the pedagogical contexts, teachers and students of translation practice have generally found dictionaries to be of limited use as the explanations or answers offered are often de-contextualized, outdated, misleading or simply wrong. In contrast, corpora can offer more in-situ reference for the struggling translator. It is an area rather under-explored, especially in China, where not much research focusing on corpus-based priming in inverse translation training has been done. Presenting a case study of 50 Chinese undergraduate students majoring in English while they complete three rounds of translation of the same ST with/without different reference materials as tool kits, this paper explores whether, how and what types of corpora can be used in the classroom of translation training for quality improvement in student’s inverse translation practice. Upon analysis, evidence from the tentative experiment confirms that a corpus-based preparatory activation session prior to inverse translation serves to prepare students in terms of linguistic capacity and knowledge base for the task at hand. However, students might place too much importance on the technical aspects of the ST and become implicitly influenced more by the reference material in their translation of technical terms than the more general words and phrases in the original texts. Grammatical nuances and creative writing are also areas in which the priming effect is weak.

Second Language Transfer in Third Language Acquisition: An Empirical Study of Chinese English Majors Learning German as Third Language

Guided by the theory of language transfer, this paper examines the transfer of English (second language) in the early stages of the acquisition of German (third language) by Chinese English majors. The results reveal that English has both positive and negative effects on German acquisition, especially on German pronunciation, vocabulary and sentence learning. On the basis of these findings, some suggestions are also put forward in order to improve the efficiency of third language (German) teaching, namely, English-as-a-vehicular-language teaching, contrastive teaching and corpus-based teaching.

Generic Complexity in Bachelor’s Theses by Chinese English Majors: An SFL Perspective

For Chinese English majors, bachelor’s theses are regarded as the most substantial piece of writing in their undergraduate study. However, in the field of EAP/ESP and genre research, thesis writing at the undergraduate level has been relatively neglected. From the perspective of genre in Systemic Functional Linguistics, the macrostructure of a bachelor’s thesis constitutes a macrogenre which combines more than one elemental genre to accomplish complex goals. An understanding of the deployment of elemental genres in this macrogenre can further help reveal the rhetorical values circulating in this thesis writing community. Based on the genre taxonomy developed by SFL genre theorists (e.g., Rose, 2010, 2015a, 2015b), this study analysed the genre deployment of 40 highly-rated bachelor’s theses written by English majors at a Chinese university, triangulated with semi-structured interviews with thesis writers and advisors. The results show that the 40 theses contained 776 shorter texts instantiating 22 types of elemental genres across 7 genre families. Specifically, reports were most extensively used by the thesis writers to transmit their received disciplinary knowledge. Arguments and text responses, though ranking lower in number, were essential to the writers’ projection of evaluative meanings and authorial selves. Stories, chronicles, explanations, and procedural genres were deployed sporadically, but empowered the writers to perform a constellation of social roles . The findings of this study may assist novice thesis writers by heightening their genre awareness, and more practically, increasing their knowledge on the specific types of elemental genres over which they need control to produce a rhetorically well-developed bachelor’s thesis. This paper then concludes with implications for teaching and researching thesis writing in non-English dominant contexts.

Is Chinese English Majors’ Tendency to Use Modal Sequences Better with the Passing of Their College Campus Time？

Based on the result of the trends of modal sequences in Chinese English majors’ argumentation, this research focuses on the relationship between English majors’ tendency to use modal sequences and their college campus time. The paper reveals that the tendency to use modal verbs is not related to their college campus time, and that epistemic and deontic modality to uses are not related to their college campus time, either. This study offers reference to the understanding of how Chinese students acquire modal verbs and gives suggestions for modal verb teaching which are the following: (1) We should bear in mind when compiling textbooks that more exposure to epistemic modal verbs with euphemism modality for students is needed in early senior high textbooks; (2) Native speakers’ tendency to use modal verbs should be explicitly clarified in class; (3) native speakers tend to use should be consciously presented both in and after class; (4) The proper pragmatic meaning of modal verbs, the basic value view and social philosophy of Anglo-American Culture involved as well as the differences in cultural tradition and value between East and West should be underlined in English modal verbs teaching.

A Comparative Study on Vocabulary Learning Strategies by Chinese English Majors and Non-English Majors

The present study aims to explore English vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies employed by English majors and non-English majors. A questionnaire was administered to 210 students (105 English majors and 105 non-English majors) from two universities to explore English vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies employed by English majors and non-English majors in China. The questionnaire is adapted from Gu and Hu [1]. Statistical descriptions and independent samples t-test are undertaken to process the data collected. The analyses of the data reveal both Chinese English and non-English majors are interested in learning vocabulary. They report adopting a number of learning strategies in their vocabulary learning processes. They appear to use metacognitive strategies more often when they learn vocabulary, especially self-initiation. At cognitive level, they are both inclined to adopt dictionary use, guessing, note-taking and activation strategies very often, while encoding and rehearsal are less used. English majors’ strategy use frequencies seem all higher than non-English majors, except note-taking strategies. English majors show significant differences from non-English majors in some vocabulary learning strategies like: self-initiation, dictionary use and contextual guessing. The study suggests that teachers should encourage students to hold a positive belief on vocabulary learning and to employ both metacognitive and cognitive strategies in learning vocabulary. Students should pay as much attention to cognitive strategies as to metacognitive strategies.

Chinese Vocational College English Teachers and Majors’ Perceptions of the Product Approach and Process Approach and Attitudes toward the Application of the Product Process Approach

In this particular small-scale survey, questionnaires were sent to 50 students majoring in English and interviews with 4 teachers teaching English writing in vocational colleges were used to collect data. It is agreed that the traditional Product Approach to some extent was still useful due to learners’ insufficiency in English competency and the exam-oriented approach of the Chinese education system. However, the product-oriented pedagogy is argued to overlook learners’ creative thinking, problem-solving skills and the concept of the writing purpose and audience. Thus, the Process Approach is considered to be a much more sophisticated approach. Although the process writing has various advantages, it originated from L1 (English as a first language), which may not be wholly suitable to in an EFL (English as a foreign language) context. Hence, the adaptability and simplification of the original Process Approach are perceived to be significant. In addition, the main findings of the study indicated that both Chinese English teachers and majors held positive attitudes towards the Product Process Approach. They pointed out the synthesis might not only guarantee proper language input, but also enhance learners’ communication skills and strengthen their understanding of the multiple drafts, the writing purpose and the audience. It is suggested that the synthesis might be useful if the two approaches are properly balanced according to different students’ levels and various genres. The limitation of this study was the small sample that could not represent all the Chinese university teachers and students’ views. In addition, it needs long-term empirical studies to further examine the validity and reliability of the synthesis.

Exploring the Factors of Foreign Language Anxiety Among Chinese Undergraduate English Majors and Non-English Majors

The study aims to examine three factors of foreign language anxiety i.e. speaking anxiety, foreign language classroom anxiety and teacher-generated anxiety, among Chinese English majors and non-English majors. The data were analysed to find out which of these factors invoke more anxiety. Research data collection was done via Foreign Language Anxiety Scale. A total number of subjects are 101, including 51 English majors and 50 non-English majors, with Chinese as their mother-tongue and learning English as a second language at university. The results revealed that English majors feel the middle level of foreign language speaking and classroom anxiety while Non-English majors experience high level of foreign language speaking and classroom anxiety. Moreover, both groups felt more anxious when they spoke to the teacher. Keeping in view the results of the study, some follow-up studies are recommended.

A Corpus-based Study on the Use of Hedges in Writings of Chinese English Majors

Hedge serves as a key component of pragmatic competence. This paper reports a corpusbased contrastive study of hedges used in argumentative essays by Chinese English majors and native university students. The results shows no statistically significant difference in the amount of hedges used in two corpus, but generally Chinese learners tend to apply a rather limited range of hedge items to convey their meanings than the counterparts, especially in the use of epistemic modal auxiliaries, and adverbs. Part of the compositions by Chinese learners were examined manually from pragmatic perspectives and a large number of incorrect uses of hedges are identified. The findings of the paper are expected to facilitate Chinese learners’ writing of English papers as well as to provide some implications for related teaching practice.

Investigating Interlanguage Pragmatic Competence in a Chinese EFL Context

Interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence is vitally important for EFL learners to avoid embarrassment which could happen in an interaction between speakers from different cultural backgrounds. The present research aimed to investigate the EFL learners’ ILP competence and its variations by gender while conducting speech acts, understanding conversational implicature and performing routines. The participants were 390 Chinese English majors. The data was collected with the ILP competence test and semi-structured interviews. The ILP competence test was developed for the Chinese context by the present researchers. The quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and independent T-test. The qualitative data were analyzed with content analysis. The results indicated that the EFL learners’ ILP competence was at the medium level. Significant differences existed at the overall level and in conducting speech acts and performing routines at the category level according to gender. Significant differences were also found in the four aspects of conducting speech acts: 1) correct speech acts, 2) typical expressions, 3) amount of speech and information, and 4) levels of formality, directness and politeness. In addition, in some individual items in understanding conversational implicature and performing routines, significant differences were found. Overall, the females performed better than their male counterparts.

Chinese Undergraduates’ using Pattern of Modal Sequences in Argumentation Corpus

This paper studies the grade features of using modal sequences in the WECCL (2.0) corpus towards Chinese English majors. Main findings revealed: (1) the modal sequences overall were overused or underused in Chinese English majors’ argumentation corpus, (2) the average keyness of overused modal sequences tended to descend however the average keyness of underused tended to rise, (3) most overused modal sequences were deontic ones, while most underused modal sequences were epistemic ones. In the end, this paper tried to give a reasonable explanation about this phenomenon.

Agency Construction and Navigation in Oral Narratives of English Learning by Chinese College English Majors

The current study aims to investigate the discursive construction and navigation of agency in oral narratives of English learning by Chinese college English majors. Based on the theoretical framework integrating Bamberg et. al.’s theory of identity dilemma and Hallidayan systemic functional linguistics, the study has addressed two research questions: 1) How do the speakers construct different levels of agency in their narratives? 2) How do the speakers navigate among different levels of agency throughout their narratives? The research data comes from monthly-based individual interviews with the participants for one year, from which significant English-learning stories are selected. Then transitivity analysis and logico-semantic analysis are conducted to the stories clause by clause so as to find out the linguistic patterns for agency construction and navigation. The study has found that speakers construct different levels of agency with various transitivity patterns, and navigate the agency dilemma by moving back and forth among different levels of agency with various logico-semantic relations. It has also illustrated that agency is not a fixed entity that a speaker possesses, but constructed and negotiated dynamically by the speaker all the way through his/her narratives.

Action Research on Improving Chinese Normal English Majors’ Pronunciation Competence

Action Research on Improving Chinese Normal English Majors’ Pronunciation Competence

Appraisal Resources in Chinese College Students' English Argumentative Writing

Appraisal system is the new development of Halliday's interpersonal function, which is a very important parameter in argumentative writing since its purpose is to influence and convince readers. Directed by appraisal system, with UAM corpus tool for annotation and statistics, this paper carried out a comparative empirical research in interpersonal meaning on Chinese and American students' 64 English argumentative essays. The study found that the overall use of appraisal resources in Chinese English majors' essays fell far behind American college students, with the only exception of affect resources. In the attitude subsystem, it shows that Chinese college students have a poor vocabulary, colloquial expressions, subjective logic and other problems; in the engagement, students from the two countries have an abundant use, which may be relevant to argumentative writing itself; although graduation resources are the nucleus of appraisal system, they are least used by the two group of students, probably caused by the reason that graduation meaning are often covert in the text. The study contributes to revealing a comprehensive difference of appraisal resources between Chinese and American college students' argumentative writing, and the teaching of writing in such genre will also be benefited.

The Impact of Strategy Training on Vocabulary Comprehension

This article focuses on a study of the effect of strategy training on vocabulary comprehension. 112 sophomore English-majored students at Yangtze University were chosen as participants in a strategies-based instructional treatment or comparison group students receiving the regular vocabulary course. Data were gained through the performance of a set of two vocabulary tasks on a prepost basis by both groups and were analyzed by the tool SPSS17.0. The subsample of 24 students also provided verbal report data to show their cognitive insights into strategy use and the instruction itself. The findings showed that 1) Chinese English-majors used a variety of English vocabulary learning strategies in vocabulary learning, including metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies. 2) The increased use of vocabulary strategies contributed positively to vocabulary and article comprehension.