Chinese English Majors Research Articles

A Survey on the Use of Causal Discourse Markers among Chinese English Majors

Chinese English Majors mainly write argumentative compositions which itself is a kind of causal relations. Thereby, causal discourse markers, as one of the Discourse Markers can be employed in their argumentations to tighten the coherence and logical relations. Based on the results of other scholars’ previous research, this thesis applies questionnaires to investigate the reasons of using causal discourse markers in English majors’ oral and written English. According to the analysis of questionnaires, the reasons that caused English majors using of causal discourse markers are as follows: 1) lack of stylistic awareness; 2) intentionally avoiding making mistakes; 3) time factor (timed); 4) negative L1 transfer; 5) teachers’ influence. The results generated from the data analysis and discussions have also provided some pedagogical implications.

A Corpus-Based Study on Chinese English Majors’ Use of Discourse Markers

Discourse markers (DMs for short hereafter) are used widely by native speakers and L2 learners. Previous studies are mostly about the acquisition and application of DMs, but studies on the potential factors that might affect the use of DMs are rare. Under the Relevance Theory, the present corpus-based study aims to reveal the influence of gender and oral proficiency on the use of DMs by Chinese English majors. It found that: (1) generally speaking, the variety of DMs employed by Chinese learners of English is rather limited; (2) male Chinese learners of English use more DMs than female learners; (3) high proficiency Chinese learners of English employ more DMs than the low proficiency group; moreover, the variety of DMs used by the former group is much larger than that of the latter. These findings reveal that the learner factors of gender and oral proficiency do influence the use of DMs in L2 learners’ conversations and they should be taken into consideration when we are learning or researching.

The Effect of Task Frequency on EFL Speaking Ability Acquisition

Psychological researches indicate that human attention resources are rather limited. Accordingly it proves to be very hard for learners to simultaneously attend to both content and form in L2 learning. This study aims to examine the effects of task frequency on EFL speaking ability acquisition. Both instant test and delayed tests were given. 20 sophomores of Chinese English majors repeatedly retold the same story and the material was chosen from the national TEM4 (Test for English Majors-Band 4), a proficiency English test for Chinese undergraduates. It was found that participants’ attention was gradually shifted from content to form so that the balance development of both content and form could be achieved in participants’ EFL speaking ability acquisition. In addition, participants also made correspondent progress in various linguistic forms such as fluency, accuracy and complexity. The results revealed the positive effect of task frequency on appropriate use of attention resources and explored the effective means to the balance development of various aspects in linguistic content and form. There are important implications for the results.

A Comparative Study of Reading Strategies Used by Chinese English Majors

In this thesis, by means of questionnaire, we made an investigation into the reading strategies used by Chinese first-year and third-year English majors. The purpose of this study attempts to identify the typical types of reading strategies among English majors in a normal university of China, and also, to examine what differences exist in strategy use by first-year and third-year students. The output shows all the three reading strategies, whether metacognitive, cognitive or social/affective strategies are widely used by English majors in normal university. Nevertheless, differences do exist in the degree of popularity of some specific reading strategy items. The difference in use of reading strategies between first-year and third-year students is that the former are reported to employ much more social/affective strategies while the latter do much better in metacognitive and cognitive strategies. From what discussed, we know that readers can benefit a lot from appropriate reading strategies in reading, so it is possible and necessary for teachers to offer reading strategy instruction for the students and also different strategy instruction should be offered to students in different grades.

An Empirical Study of Reading by Chinese English Majors in the Presence of Background Speech

This study investigated how background speech affected L1 and L2 reading of Chinese English major students. English, Dutch, and Mandarin Chinese were respectively set as the second language (L2), foreign language (FL), and first language (L1) background speech conditions. Self-paced word-by-word reading paradigm was used to collect the response time (RT) of each word. The conventional analysis revealed that L1 background speech exerted the most disruptive effect on both L1 and L2 reading and suggested that the background speech effect could be phonological and could be at the stage of phonological processing of L1 and L2 reading. It also implied that L1 phonological processing could be simultaneously activated during L2 reading. Spectral analysis of ten subjects’ reading data indicated that pink noise existed in each time series of word RT of L1 and L2 reading in each condition. It provided clear evidence that L1 and L2 reading processing are similar with different concurrent background speech.

Designing Distance Learning Tasks to Help Maximize Vocabulary Development

Task-based language learning using the benefits of online computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can be effective for rapid vocabulary expansion, especially when target vocabulary has been pre-arranged into bilingual categories under simpler, common Semantic Field Keywords. Results and satisfaction levels for both Chinese English majors and Japanese Engineering majors were high in this qualitative comparative study, indicating its potential for helping many students from various language backgrounds to rapidly expand their target language vocabulary, especially when blended with other real language negotiation tasks, preferably for an authentic audience. Print versus online reading and vocabulary development methods are compared, as well as surveys of both Chinese and Japanese college students, after they were engaged in a “Collaborative Writing Exchange Project” using similar online vocabulary development tools. All target terms were pre-organized and made available under common Semantic Field Keywords online in both Japanese and Chinese, but students had freedom to choose within sets of most relevant words from five academic disciplines. Writing themes were suggested to learners in both countries to keep their email exchanges consistent.

On the Relationships Between Learner Autonomy and Language Proficiency: An Investigation of Chinese English Majors

On the Relationships Between Learner Autonomy and Language Proficiency: An Investigation of Chinese English Majors

A Corpus-based Study of Errors in Chinese English Majors’ English Writing

On the basis of the corpus of English Majors’ Composition of Ludong University (EMC corpus), this thesis analyzes the errors in Chinese English Majors’ English writing and the reasons resulting in the errors. The research reveals that in the EMC corpus the proportion of “grammatical errors” ranks the highest, followed by “wrong usage”, “syntactic errors” and “errors of discourse constructions and content”; with the increasing time of learning, learners’ language proficiency has improved and is reflected by their error rate which has been decreasing year by year. Concerning the errors in English writing, this thesis proposes some corresponding strategies to reduce errors and improve the teaching of English writing.

A Corpus-based Study of Developmental Stages of Demonstratives in Chinese English Majors’ Writing

On the basis of comparisons between the corpus of English Majors’ Composition of Ludong University (EMC corpus) and other corpora as well as among different levels in EMC corpus, this thesis studies the feature of using frequency and stages of development of demonstratives used by Chinese English Majors. The result reveals that English Majors of lower and higher grades tend to overuse and underuse demonstratives respectively; with their better and better command of English, the using frequency of demonstratives tends to be closer to that of native speakers’ except for the proportion of the using frequency of singular to plural demonstratives as demonstrative pronouns as well as the using frequency of plural demonstratives.

The Features of Rhetorical Patterns in English Expository Essays by Chinese EFL English Majors and the Pedagogical Issues of Teaching L2 Writing at the Tertiary Level in China

The current exploratory study focuses on classifying rhetorical patterns in expository essays by 166 Chinese English majors at two universities. The quantitative analysis shows the sampled Chinese students used four rhetorical patterns: the inductive, deductive, quasi-inductive, and non-topic sentence pattern, based on the merged framework, although the distribution of major patterns varied in the sampled subject. The qualitative analysis focuses on identifying features of the four rhetorical patterns in terms of the differing rhetorical cultures and reasoning modes between Chinese and English, in which their expository prepositions are constructed. The conclusion challenges the ‘circular pattern’ hypothesis claimed by Kaplan (1966). The paper yields a tentative conclusion regarding rhetorical patterns in expository essays, and their implications for teaching L2 writing to Chinese EFL students.

The Influence of the Intermediary System of Cognition on Vocabulary Acquisition for Chinese English-Majors

In the article, the author tries to find out the main factors that affect the subject's vocabulary acquisition by an investigation. It is concluded that vocabulary acquisition models and strategies are something external, what really works upon vocabulary acquisition is the intermediary system of cognition including the knowledge structure and abilities structure of the subject. The richer the intermediary system is, the greater the subject's cognition will be, which will contribute greatly to the subject's vocabulary acquisition. Meanwhile, the components of the knowledge structure and abilities structure are explored, furthermore, it studies how the components as the intermediate means work upon vocabulary acquisition in an interactive manner.

Discourse and Culture of Learning Communication Challenges

It has been widely acknowledged in language acquisition research that cultural learning is an inseparable part of language learning. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the culture of classroom learning which involves both teachers' and learners' cultural values, beliefs, roles, expectations, and conceptions of teaching and learning. Communication challenges become obvious when teaching methodologies developed in one educational context are exported to another educational context. This paper reports on the findings from a case study conducted in 1997 in the People's Republic of China where pedagogical communication conflicts between English native speaking teachers and Chinese university English language majors became acute. The paper focuses on the problematic area - the discourse of participation that was highly valued, promulgated and practised by native speakers teaching English in China. It will point out some of the discrepancies between this discourse and the Chinese culture of learning. In transplanting Western educational models to Chinese classrooms, participants did not sufficiently acknowledge the cultural distance between these models and the Chinese local socio-cultural and educational realities. The discourse of participation was strongly resisted by Chinese students and teaching by native speakers often failed to achieve the desired results. In spite of the "good" intentions on the part of both native teachers and Chinese students, there existed a vast gulf in their perceptions of what constituted "good" teaching and learning, of what appropriate roles they were fitted in, and what they expected of each other. The paper argues that the gulf, the hidden source of the pedagogical communication problems, can be bridged through creating a cultural synergy in which common interests are to be found and shared, sources of problems identified, cultural differences understood and respected, and learning maximally enhanced.