留学生dissertation——ESL学生的语言习惯和写作能力

 

Lucy, John. Linguistic Relativity. Annual Review of Anthropology V. 26 (1997): 291-312. Academic Search (ASP). Web. 20 Nov. 2011

 

Bloom AH. 1981. The Linguistic Shaping of Thought: A Study in the Impact of Language on Thinking in China and the West. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Web. 6 Dec. 2011.

 

Hoffman, Curt, Ivy Lau, and David R. Johnson. "The Linguistic Relativity Of Person Cognition: An English–Chinese Comparison." Journal of Personality And Social Psychology 51.6 (1986): 1097-1105. PsycARTICLES. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.

 

1.Language habits and ESL students’ writing ablity
 

The effort to undertake the present essay is motivated by one observation session in CSUSB writing center, which was between a Chinese male student and a Mexican-American female tutor. The student kept on making the tense and aspect mistakes and had trouble of making natural sentences in English, but he was praised by the tutor of having good ideas about his topic. As a countryman of the student, I was very eager to tell him the reason why he had such the problems, because I had those problems when I started to learn English language and I have the same experience of him several years ago. I should say ESL writing is not only a simple exchange of two languages, but a cultural action as well. And in the end of the session, the tutor shared her experience with the student of her Spanish language learning experience which I think is very helpful. She encouraged the students to read more authentic texts and have other people read his essay for him in helping him find the mistakes he cannot figure out by himself. This “transfer error” is very common as behaviorist contend that “errors caused by the interference from the learners’ first language are difficult, and sometime impossible, for her to figure out without help” (20 Tseng)#p#分页标题#e#

 

Inspired from this observation, I would like to explore the relationship between language, thought and culture based on the theoretical perspectives on learning a second language in Bruce’s book ESL Writers; and further analyze some different habits between Chinese and English, then investigate how the different language habits affecting ESL students’ writing ability and finally provide some strategies for both ESL students and the writing center tutors to improve students’ writing ability.

 

With reference to the study of ESL writing, the research began earlier in America in the world, as America is an immigrant country where there are students from everywhere all over the world. Thus, the American teachers and tutors have to face the condition: how to improve the ESL learners’ writing ability and many problems were found in the ESL students’ writing. In the earlier years, under the influence of structuralism and behavioral psychology, people “learn by drill and practice” (19 Tseng) which were applied widely to train the learners to master the target language structures. Later, as the theory of linguistic and pedagogy developed, some specialists gradually realized that even though the students could write in right language structure but the compositions were still not natural to read. Until 1980s many specialists who studied the distinction between the L1 and L2 writing found that different national language features and way of thinking affect the learners’ writing process and writing ability. (). Many Chinese ESL learners think that writing is the most difficult skill among the four language skills -- listening, speaking, reading, and writing, which is comprehensive reflection of language and thinking ability. In the process of SLA, errors and mistakes are unavoidable and some linguists classified these errors and mistakes in details. The study on ESL writing started since 1960s, when the structuralism and behaviorism were prevailing. Under the influence of them, teaching ESL writing, as a subfield of second language teaching, requires students to do a lot of drills so as to master the sentence structures and phonetic rules. However, some researchers soon found that even if students could write composition with correct grammar and sentence structures, their composition were felt very incoherent by the native language readers.

 

Still, in writing center, as I observed, most of the assessment of ESL students’ writing is just the correction of the vocabulary and grammar errors. (May be the students very first and “urgent” problem in writing center is the grammar correction). In learning, students place lopsided emphasis on large vocabulary but ignore the usage of them and lack the accumulation and knowledge for the features and habitual expression of the target language. As a result, students are becoming afraid of writing, lazy in writing, getting in trouble in writing, and incapable of writing well. Even though ESL students come all along from their country seeking for the authentic language environment to study English language, there is still a lack of knowledge of importance about culture and thought on their writing. Writing is a very complex task and successful writing depends on a large number of factors, among which writing ability is the basic qualities, including their thinking ability, knowledge, and behavioral competence. Language is the basic vehicle of writing and the basic qualities of students are reflected on language. Such abilities include mastery of standard language and formation of habitual language or individual language. Therefore, Chinese students should not only master their mother tongue but also master the target language while writing in English. In other words, they should master and cultivate both Chinese and English language habits.#p#分页标题#e#

 

The study of this thesis based on the theory of the relationship between language, thought and culture because the formation of language habits depends on couples of elements. According to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, it is suggested that different language influence perception and thought in different ways. “our language helps mould our way of thinking and consequently, different languages may probably express speaker’s unique ways of understanding the world” (162 Hu). On the one hand, language may determine our thinking pattern; on the other, similarity between languages is relative. For two different speech communities, “the greater their structure differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be.” (163 Hu). The Whorfian hypothesis asserts that one’s native language influences and controls thought, consequently barring fluent second language acquisition.

 

A nation’s way of thinking is gradually developed over a long period of time’s accumulation of historical life. The German materialist, Feuerbach, once pointed out that “eastern people saw the unity, but neglected the difference while the western people saw the difference but fogot the unity.” (Bao 2001:21) every nation has the above two distinguished ways of thinking. On the whole, traditional Chinese cultural though pattern pays emphasis on images while western thought pattern attaches much importance on abstractness. Such different kinds of focuses and selections are rooted in their own national language habits.

 

The Chinese theory that man is an integral part of nature has a long history. According to traditional Chinese philosophy, the world is a holistic one where man and nature, subject and object are contained. Traditional Chinese culture pays attention to the idea of overall harmoniousness and wholeness, objecting to knowing one thing isolatedly. Therefore, Chinese thought pattern and speech habits tend to seek unity and generality. On the contrary, westerners think that heaven and human are distinct from each other, attaching much importance to independent and interactive function of individuals, emphasizing detail analysis, stressing from small to large and from a partial to the whole and highlighting the outstanding feature of from singleness to multipleness” and “individual thinking” Chinese people tend to generally and directly recognize the essence and laws of the objects as a whole through intuition. Compared with that, western traditional thought pattern attaches much importance to science, reason, analysis and experimentation, and consequently, the western people tend to recognize the essence and laws of object through logic, argument and inference.

 

“Language is indispensible carrier of culture. Culture finds a better representation through language use.” (160 Hu). At the same time, different cultural structure determines a nation’s way of thinking and social culture, to a certain extent, constraints the language learners’ thinking pattern and expressive ability. Accordingly, every nation has its own language habit on a variety of aspects. As far as writing is concerned, the textual structure, the encoding and decoding ways, lexicon and syntax, etc. will be different.#p#分页标题#e#

 

2. Relationship between language, culture and thought

 

Analysis of different habits between Chinese and English

 

Every language in the world is of its own habitual features. For example, Chinese belongs to ideographic language while English belongs to phonographic language. The formation of language habits depends on the development and carrying of the social life which is loaded by language. Thought and cognition determine the depth and thickness of language; culture and religion determine the orientation of language; the individuality and intelligence determine the color of language.

 

English and Chinese belong to different types of language and language systems. They each have its own specific way of sentence organization, and fixed and habitual expression. Pedagogical practice reflects the fact that the more similar the writing system of two language are, the learners will need less time to develop the decoding, and encoding skills, whereas Chinese and English differ in many aspects. If one should conform to the general habits of language when writing. As long as one completely masters the habits of the target language, he can effectively write in target language. Owing to different territory, history, humanities, politics, customs, and religions and so on, people in different countries have different language use; Chinese thought pattern and language forms constitute the specific usages of Chinese. The characteristics of Chinese make Chinese people have their own habits to use language, and these habits having melted into their consciousness are so strong that when writing in English, he will apply Chinese language habits to thinking unconsciously.

 

Different times, region, and culture produce different language habits. Language is the bearer of thought, the expression of thinking, the narration and consideration of life, the advertisement of art and aesthetic, certainly the tool for communication. However, writing is the synthesis of the above all. As a result, people in different times and from different areas will be naturally affected by language habits. Writing ability, which is a comprehensive reflection of language and thinking ability, is an important and difficult part of the language competence. There are many factors affecting the L2 learners’ writing ability.

 

Habits are repetitive and consciously or unconsciously laws of daily behaviors, and using language is a behavioral process of thinking. Language habits influence thinking. From the angle of writing, every kind of language expresses knowledge, ideas, and feelings with a unique habit. Chinese and English belong to different types of language and linguistic systems, which determines the two linguistic systems present different cultural thought pattern. These distinctions influence and constrain the second language learners’ writing ability.#p#分页标题#e#

 

The second language writing research was developed after American applied linguist, Kaplan, put forward the “contrastive rhetoric” in 1966. The ESL writing study in china began later. Still,

 

For several decades or so, there exist many serious problems about the second language writing both in pedagogy and students’ writing ability. In ESL writing study of teaching, product is paid more attention to than to process; vocabulary structure and grammar are emphasized much more than culture, thought pattern and personal factors which also affect the writing process and ability ().In the 1980s, many researchers studied thinking habits influence second language learners’ writing ability.

 

Writing as one of the most important skills in the second language learning, has been neglected for a long time. The study on the second language writing began form the 1960’s and the study in China started later with a decade or so. However, the study has become more and more necessary in ESL and EST due to the various purposed and significances of writing in social, professional and academic areas. Furthermore writing is essential to our social identities and personal experiences. Still, the ESL learners shoulder the task to convey Chinese culture in target language.

 

Nevertheless, Chinese English teachers and students paid more attention to English listening and speaking than reading and writing. Furthermore, most teachers teach English writing according to traditional method, focusing on linguistic knowledge and grammatical correction. The students are always influenced by the Chinese ways of thinking when writing English. Teachers seldom in the writing course introduce the distinct language habits of Chinese and English, which influence the writing ability in English, and do not find the fundamental causes which lead to the errors made by the students. This essay tries to analyze the distinctions of Chinese and English language habits and thought patterns, cultural patterns and cognitive ways which all harbor in the language habits, and furthermore explore the influences of the distinctions on ESL writing.

 

``````this essay tries to start from the analysis of two language habits and their influencing factors of the distinction on L2 writing. On the other hand, through the analysis of different language habits in Chinese and english, the connotation of language habits can be better understood. Moreover, the study is going to explore the root causes of the errors made in ESL writing and it is expected that there are some implication for ESL writing and teaching.

 

The study of this thesis based on the theory of the relationship between language, thought and culture because the formation of language habits depends on couples of elements. According to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, it is suggested that different language influence perception and thought in different ways. “our language helps mould our way of thinking and consequently, different languages may probably express speaker’s unique ways of understanding the world” (162 Hu). On the one hand, language may determine our thinking pattern; on the other, similarity between languages is relative. For two different speech communities, “the greater their structure differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be.” (163 Hu). The Whorfian hypothesis asserts that one’s native language influences and controls thought, consequently barring fluent second language acquisition.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Spire held that once the form of a language is established it can discover meanings for its speakers which are not simply traceable to the given quality of experience itself but must be explained to a large extent as the projection of potential meaning into the raw material of experience. Whorf elaborated on Sapir’s ideas and his ideas and his study showed that a person’s thoughts are controlled by inexorable laws of patterns of which he is unconscious. The Whorfian hypothesis asserts that one’s native language influences and controls thought, consequently barring fluent second language acquisition.

 

Culture is closely related to language which is a part of culture. Language is the external expressive form of thought which creates language. The culture structure determines the thinking pattern and social structure, to a certain extent, constrains the thinking pattern and expressive ability.

 

With reference to the study of ESL writing, the research began earlier in America in the world, as America is an immigrant country where there are students from everywhere all over the world. Thus, the American teachers and tutors have to face the condition: how to improve the ESL learners’ writing ability and many problems were found in the ESL students’ writing. In the earlier years, under the influence of structuralism and behavioral psychology, substitution drills were applied widely to train the learners to master the target language structures. Later, as the theory of linguistic and pedagogy developed, some specialists gradually realized that even though the students could write in right language structure but the compositions were still not natural to read. Until 1980s many specialists who studied the distinction between the L1 and L2 writing found that different national language features and way of thinking affect the learners’ writing process and writing ability. Many Chinese ESL learners think that writing is the most difficult skill among the four language skills---listening, speaking, reading, and writing, which is comprehensive reflection of language and thinking ability. In the process of SLA, errors and mistakes are unavoidable and some linguists classified these errors and mistakes in details.

 

3.The study on ESL writing started since 1960

 

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From what has been analyzed above, starting from the relationship among writing, thinking and culture, the author analyzed the distinction of language habits in Chinese and English and their influence on language. The analysis is arranged from the deep influencing factors including thought pattern, culture and cognitive ways to the linguistic factors including composition of writing system, language structures and idiomatic language. It is very essential to know both the different language habits and the different cultural thought patterns which have effects on the formation of language habits. All the above factors will influence Chinese students’ English writing. After understanding the connation of language habits, I will elaborate on two factors which influence the ESL writing, and furthermore some strategies for cultivating language habits will be provided.#p#分页标题#e#

 

4.Negative effects of language habits and strategies

 

Two factors affecting ESL writing

 

In the

 

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Strategies to reduce negative effects of language habits:

 

Because of the distinction between Chinese and English language habit, Chinese students still have many problems in English writing. From the viewpoint of language habits and on the one hand, they lack of the awareness and knowledge of English language habits and on the other hand, the habits of mother tongue is a main obstacle to L2 writing. Thus, it is essential to improve the culture habits in the process of language learning. The following are some suggestions for students to improve their ability of L2 writing and meanwhile reduce or avoid the negative influence of language habits.

 

1. To be aware of the existence of language habits

 

First, students should realize the existence of language habits of both mother tongue and target language habits. Language, as a carrier, can carry rich content, including culture, thinking, habits, and cognition and so on. That’s why many students can write grammatically right sentences but confusing in meaning.

 

2. To understand the purpose of using language

 

In order to write in English, one should in the one hand, manage to perceive the essential characteristics of English including internal features of the language, its vocabulary, grammar, syntax, texture and the like; on the other hand, it is also necessary to learn the customary content carried by English like culture, habits and way of thinking of English people.

 

3. To know the social and human characteristics loaded by English

 

Language learning needs context but it is hard for Chinese students to have such a language-using environment. In china, which has a logographic instruction writing system, memorization of symbols and passages is a large part of literary instruction, “still, there is a strong belief that the path to lively and creative writing style lies in internalizing of other’s style”, writes Carson (1992: 53). Therefore, according to the above ways, in order to learn more native English, we can read English original works and watch English videos or movies. In the original books or English movies, there will be a large number of native language expressions and a variety of cultural phenomena and social situation of English countries.

 

4. To do the training to reduce the effects of mother tongue

 

The interference of mother tongue is also an important factor influencing L2 writing and consequently, it is very necessary to train oneself to reduce or avoid the negative students have to think in Chinese firstly and then translate what they have conceived in their mind into English word by word, the negative transfer is to enforce reciting and increase comprehensive language input. Reciting and reading are both good ways to do so and large quantities of reading and reciting can decrease the anxiety of students in the process of language input, strengthen the language output and furthermore, reduce the negative transfer from mother tongue to target language. This is, at the same time, a good means to strengthen students’ language sense and prompt the formation of language habits of target language. Reading is input and writing is output and application. Only when the language output overweighs the language output, can the latter become possible. Through reciting and reading English books and newspapers, students are not only able to know and learn native English but express their ideas through more native-like English and get rid of the negative influence of mother tongue as well, and finally improve their English writing ability.#p#分页标题#e#

 

5. To improve one’s comprehensive ability to master language

 

As we know, writing is a creative activity, which not only requires the writer’s basic mastery of linguistic knowledge but also requires that the writer is able to use words, and make sentences flexibly. So L2 writing is harder for the Chinese students to meet those demand. Therefore, reading widely and widening one’s mind are very essential for the students to improve the comprehensive ability to master language including both Chinese and English. If so, L2 writing ability can be improved gradually.

 

Implication for ESL writing tutors in writing center:

 

The cultivation of students’ language habits depends on the common efforts of both ESL learners and teachers. The following suggestions are offered to English teachers in teaching English writing.

 

1. Having the intercultural sense

 

Kaplan believes that students from different cultural background use different writing patterns which are caused by the negative transfer from mother tongue. According to previous investigation, the English output process of ESL learners, and found that the reasoning process of English output mostly came from mother tongue. Accordingly, ESL teachers should combine the teaching content with comparison of Chinese and English thinking patterns, making the students understand the distinction of the different thinking modes behind the two languages in order to enhance their cultural sense and sensitivity to English culture and meanwhile overcome the impact of Chinese language thinking mode in writing English. After the students master Chinese and English thinking pattern, they will be able to shift thinking mode in the process of English writing automatically and finally produce more native-like English writing.

 

2. pay attention to textual teaching

 

traditional language teaching pay less attention to teaching writing, or use improper teaching methods, which lead to the average low English writing level of Chinese students. First, teacher should make the students know the different thinking patterns of Chinese and English. Second, they should find effective ways to improve the students’ writing ability. Reading is a good way to help improve the students’ writing ability. Many researchers indicate that reading ability and textual knowledge ability affect English writing ability indirectly. Third, correspondent writing training and trill practice are necessary. Students should be trained to cultivate the idea to think in English to organize their writing.

 

3. combining grammar with language use

 

In China, traditional English teaching pays much attention to grammar but less attention to the practicable using of language. Students just mechanically learnt the grammatical items and vocabulary but can not use the language flexible and lack language sense, not mention writing well in English. Furthermore, they know less about the different thinking patterns of Chinese and English which leads to different language expression. So, if possible, tutors should do some comparison between the student’s native language and English as much as possible, like the sentence-making ways, textual organizations and so on. Accordingly, such tasks can be designed to enhance their ability to use language, as translation, sentence making and the like. Meanwhile, tutors should encourage students to recite more and do the retelling practice in their daily life. As Zamel pointed out, writing for the ESL students is still essentially seen as the formation of a habit. (1976: 69). The imitation of a variety of English styles and patterns will be helpful for Chinese students. And the ESL teachers’ task is to train the students to foster the ability to produce spontaneous and genuine English structures finally.#p#分页标题#e#

 

4. Creating language learning environment to improve the comprehensive language ability.

 

English teachers somehow play the intercultural role in the process of teaching foreign language. On the one hand, they teach the students linguistic knowledge, and on the other hand, they convey the foreign culture to the students. Language learning requires environment, so tutors should not only teach linguistic knowledge but also insert the cultural teaching. They need to suggest the students to immerse themselves in more real environment, such as English videos, newspapers and multimedia means to provide more real language environment in order to improve the students’ sensitivity and sense of identity to the culture and customs of target language. To increase the effective input of target language, the activity and enthusiasm of students can be activated. Those activities are helpful to improve their learning interest, and activate the learning motivation and finally improve their writing ability.