A Study Of Differences In Writing Of Chinese English Majors And Non-English Majors

In recent years, ESL writing has been a heated topic that appeals to a large numberof instructors as well as researchers abroad and at home. In our country, many an EFLwriting research has sprouted in multi-dimensions, covering learner research,motivation research, strategy research, cognitive model research, interlanguageresearch and individual variation research, etc. Domestic empirical studies mainlyfocus on in-class teaching and writing test.In the domain of domestic EFL writing research, despite a variety of studies onEnglish writing by English majors and non-English majors respectively, little researchon the comparative study between the two is conducted. The present study compareswriting samples of English majors and non-English majors to examine differentdevelopmental features from the perspective of lexical complexity, syntacticcomplexity and writing proficiency. Lexical complexity is further divided into lexicalvariation and lexical sophistication as measures and syntactic complexity isapproached in respects of length unit and density unit.In order to examine features demonstrated in writing of English majors andnon-English majors, the present study take140sophomores at Jilin University assubjects,70English majors and70non-English majors respectively. In the study120valid writing samples are examined, centering on lexical complexity, syntacticcomplexity and writing proficiency. The results show that a significant differencedisplays in the two groups and English majors excelled non-English majors in thethree aspects.The study is conducive to English writing learning and teaching. Learners couldreceive various training in writing aims and teachers could select from variousmethodologies and teaching focuses, so that the students’ writing proficiency could beenhanced in the long run.