争议点理论及其在英语写作教学中的应用研究

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Contents

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………i

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….ii

摘要……………………………………………………………………………...……...iv

Chapter One Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

Chapter Two Literature Review ....................................................................................... 3

§2.1 History of Western Writing Research .............................................................. 3

§2.2 Schools of Writing Teaching Theories .............................................................4

§2.3 The Concept, Origin and Representative Figure of Product Approach ........... 7

§2.4 The Concept, Origin and Representative Figure of Process Approach ............8

§2.5 A Comparison between the Two English Writing Teaching Approaches ....... 9

§2.5.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Product Approach ........................ 11

§2.5.2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Process Approach .........................11

§2.6 The Existing Problems of Current English Writing Teaching in China .........13

§2.7 The Present Study on the Stasis Theory .........................................................14

Chapter Three An Investigation of the Stasis Theory .................................................... 15

§3.1 Defining the Stasis Theory ............................................................................. 15

§3.2 The Stases and Contrary Arguments .............................................................. 17

§3.3 Theoretical versus Practical Questions ...........................................................19

§3.4 The Four Questions of the Stasis Theory ....................................................... 25

§3.4.1 Questions of Conjecture ...................................................................... 27

§3.4.2 Questions of Definition ....................................................................... 29

§3.4.3 Questions of Quality ............................................................................30

§3.4.4 Questions of Policy ............................................................................. 32

§3.5 The Operational Model of the Stasis Theory ................................................. 33

§3.6 The Features of the Stasis Theory .................................................................. 44

§3.6.1 Interactivity and the Stasis Theory ......................................................44

§3.6.2 Identification and the Stasis Theory ....................................................44

§3.6.3 the Audience Awareness Theory and the Stasis Theory ..................... 46

Chapter Four Application of the Stasis Theory to the Teaching of English Writing: An

Empirical Study .............................................................................................................. 49

§4.1 Hypothesis and Purpose of the Study .............................................................49

§4.2 Method ............................................................................................................49

§4.2.1 Design ..................................................................................................49

§4.2.2 Subjects ............................................................................................... 50

§4.2.3 Procedures ........................................................................................... 50

§4.3 Measures and Results ..................................................................................... 51

§4.4 Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................ 58

Research into the Stasis Theory and Its Application to the Teaching of English Writing

Chapter Five Conclusion ................................................................................................ 60

§5.1 A Brief Summary of the Study .......................................................................60

§5.2 Limitations and Further Research .................................................................. 61

Bibliography ...................................................................................................................63

在读期间公开发表的论文 ............................................................................................ 69

Chapter One Introduction

I would like to begin this thesis with a kind of phenomenon. During college writing

instruction, teachers often complain that their efforts are futile since students’ writing is

void of contents, fraught with errors, poor in language and their ability to write is not

improved. While students, too, may have something to groan, they frown that they have

no interest and enthusiasm in writing. Neither do they know how to write. When they

are given a writing assignment, they are usually forced to complete it. They say that

their minds are full of knowledge about grammar but with no idea about the topic, they

are at a loss what to write. As a result, they often rack their brains and are reluctant to

hand in their compositions at the eleventh hour.

It is a fact that English writing is closely related with rhetoric because they are

equipped with the same purpose. The aim of a piece of writing is to demonstrate the

writer’s opinion and make the readers accept it, and rhetoric is the study of the strategies

of using words to accomplish a purpose, that is, persuading people to do or to think

what the speaker wishes. From this point of view, the rhetoric theories are indeed

helpful in improving students’ writing skills.

Classic rhetoric distinguished five stages in the composition of speech: invention,

arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Defined by Cicero, invention is the discovery

of valid or seemingly valid arguments to render one’s cause plausible. Specifically

speaking, as the first canon of the five canons of rhetoric, invention is concerned with a

system or method for finding arguments. That’s to say, the orators had to find

arguments that would support whatever case or point of view they were espousing.

The stasis theory, one kind of means of invention, provides rhetors with a set of

questions that, when asked systematically, can help them to determine just where the

disagreement between themselves and their audience begins. Determining the point of

disagreement is an obvious starting point for rhetorical invention, which is always

stimulated by some difference of opinions. In the eyes of many people, the stasis theory

is not complex itself and easy to be understood. And this is why only a few rhetoricians

have ever paid attention to it. In fact, this theory can offer great enlightenment for the

teaching of English writing.

Research into the Stasis Theory and Its Application to the Teaching of English Writing

Take the teaching of English writing to Chinese students as an example. It has long

been considered as one of the most difficult tasks in the English classroom. The students

are often bothered by questions like “what to say about it?” or “how to write?” And

teachers are challenged as well: How to help the students do better in the invention and

arrangement of their writing? How to improve their writing?

At this point, we may well take the stasis theory into account. The place of the

stasis theory in the invention part of rhetoric, its persuasive effect and the importance of

the interaction between the speaker and the audience make it possible to be applied as

an effective means to the teaching of English writing. The author tries to find out the

applicable value of the stasis theory in the teaching of English writing.

In this thesis, Chapter One is a general introduction to the motivation of choice of

the stasis theory and English writing teaching as the subject of the thesis. Some current

research on the stasis theory is introduced, and objectives of the research are stated.

Chapter Two is the part of literature review. In this chapter, a brief theoretical

investigation into the English writing teaching research is made, including the history of

the Western writing research, the schools of the writing teaching theory, the two main

approaches of the English writing teaching, the current existing problems of the English

writing teaching in China and the present study on the stasis theory. All of these

illustrate the background of the study of English writing and the stasis theory, as well as

the necessity and importance of figuring out a new and effective means for English

writing teaching.

Chapter Three offers a detailed investigation into the stasis theory, including its

definition, the four questions, its operational method with examples and its rhetorical

features. All the efforts are made to give a clear image of the stasis theory and provide

convenience for the later application of it.

Chapter Four is the empirical study of the stasis theory. The author applies the

stasis theory to the field of the teaching of English writing in order to show the practical

value of it. The experimental results are quite convincing and the purpose of the study is

achieved successfully.

Chapter Five is a conclusion of the thesis. Besides a brief summary, the author

states some limitations of the research in the thesis and points out the future efforts to be

made.

Chapter Two Literature Review

§2.1 History of Western Writing Research

There have been numerous approaches to the teaching of writing in the history of

language teaching. They have evolved with the development of different approaches to

teaching in general, which have in turn contributed to the changing role and status of

writing within language teaching syllabuses and English as a Foreign Language. In spite

of other general methodological changes, however, writing continues to be one of the

most difficult areas for the teachers and learners of English to tackle.

Traditionally, writing was viewed mainly as a tool for the practice and

reinforcement of specific grammatical and lexical patterns, a fairly one-dimensional

activity, in which accuracy was all-important but content and self-expression were not

given priority to. To paraphrase Tribble, (1996: 118) students were purely “writing to

learn” as opposed to “learning to write”. Even in more recent communicative

approaches to language teaching, writing was often still seen by teachers as something

of a taboo area, threatening to detract valuable classroom time from the development of

oral communication skills.

However, with an increase in attention to students' practical needs, born out of

functional/notional approaches and further developed in the various areas of English for

Specific Purposes, the importance of the writing of certain text-types has gradually

come to the fore. This gradual increase in the status of writing as a skill, along with the

development of a more discoursal rather than purely grammatically-based approach to

language teaching, and general moves towards more learner-centered syllabuses, has

altered the teacher's perspective on both the needs of students and the problems faced by

language learners. As Nunan (1991: 88) comments,....the writing class should take into

account the learners' purposes for writing, which transcend that of producing texts for

teacher evaluation. Whereas traditionally, in the words of Raimes (1983:67), teachers

have “trapped our students within the sentence” and “respond to the piece of writing as

item checkers not as real readers”, we are now beginning to develop a more top-down

and student-centered approach to the teaching of writing, whereby issues of content,

genre and discourse have been assigned greater importance, and there happens a shift

from product approach to process approach.

Research into the Stasis Theory and Its Application to the Teaching of English Writing

This shift was also attributed to the influence of new developments in cross-

discipline theories. From 1980s, cognitive psychology has witnessed great

developments. As a result, it not only exerts great influence on pedagogy in general but

also provides a brand-new idea for foreign language teaching. Among various cognitive

psychology modes, Vygotsky’s theory of zone of proximal development (1978) has

gained universal emphasis in second-language acquisition research. Apart from that, this

shift was more due to the research and discovery in North American L1 writing

classroom. Relevant research demonstrates that writing process is not a once-for-all

process showed by classical rhetoric; instead, it is a recursive process (Farris 1987;

Walshe 1979; Yang 1995). This process involves activities of information-searching,

pre-writing process, while-writing process, revising process as well as editing process.

This discovery triggers reflections on the rhetorical writing pattern prevalent for 2,500

years since Ancient Greece.

§2.2 Schools of Writing Teaching Theories

As a traditional writing instruction mode, the School of Formalism attaches great

importance to the internal forms of writing, especially to grammar. In classroom,

teachers devoted much time to grammar exercises, instructing students in how to avoid,

identify and correct grammatical mistakes and sentence pattern mistakes. Apart from

grammar, teachers of this school also emphasize the use of metaphorical language to

describe or illustrate the contents. Thus, some of the scholars of this school are crowned

as metaphorical formalists. Since some teachers lay emphasis on the change of long and

short sentences, they are called sentence-length formalists. Others put emphasis on topic

sentence and they are named topic-sentence formalists. The representative figures of

Formalism are Francis Christensen and E.D. Hirsche. Their understanding of writing, a

complex technological, cognitive and social process, is extremely narrow. It is

indisputable that a good composition represents itself in good grammar and nice

sentence patterns. However, good form only represents one respect of a good

composition. Moreover, it is not necessarily the most important aspect. We can imagine

what the result will be if teachers give students exercises on grammar, sentence patterns

as well as rhetorical figures repeatedly in an environment that is void of or far away

from the real life.

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摘要：

ContentsAcknowledgements………………………………………………………………………iAbstract………………………………………………………………………………….ii摘要……………………………………………………………………………...……...ivChapterOneIntroduction.................................................................................................1ChapterTwoLiteratureReview......................

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