Abstract

The means of communication, whatever the oral or written form, is deeply influenced by the thinking patterns shaped in specific cultures. The features of discourse typical of one’s mother tongue tend to be different from that of a foreign language. It is proposed that the English articles written by Chinese English learners are organized in ways that differ from native English speakers. Based on the thematic progression theory, this paper compares and analyzes the compositions written by both Chinese and American students. The major difference is way of the thematic progression which is closely related to the thinking patterns characteristic of each culture. Chinese students are used to the constant theme pattern and the American students to the liner pattern. The reasons for the difference are the influence of Chinese thinking pattern in writing. The paper tries to reveal the relation between the culture and language and its influence, and it tries to analyze the importance to improve the ability of cross-cultural communication.

Key Words: thinking pattern, theme, rheme, thematic progression, English writing

摘要

人与人直接的交流方式，无论是口头还是书面形式，都受到特定文化背景下思维方式的影响。语篇的写作特征与思维的有着密切的联系。而英语学习者组织写作的方式与以英语为母语的人有着明显的不同。而主要的不同是主位推进方式不同，而这与英汉的思维差异有着密切的联系。中国学生习惯于使用延续型主位推进方式，而美国学生习惯用直线型推进方式。而产生差异的原因则就是双方的思维方式不同。本文旨在揭示文化对语言的影响，分析培养学生的跨文化意识的重要性。

关键词：思维方式 主位 述位 主位推进 英语写作

I.    Introduction
With the development of the society, Chinese people have more opportunities to communicate with people from other parts of the world. English, as an international language, has been taught as a required course in China since primary school. Among the four skills of English-listening, speaking, reading and writing, writing seems a little easy compared with others in most people’s opinion. Actually, a number of compositions written in English by Chinese students seem to be far from English, are difficult to understand by the native English speakers, though many of the students can write flawless English sentences and write a beautiful Chinese composition. Thus how to improve the writing ability of English learners has become a problem that plagues most English teachers and students in China.