Analysis On Discourse Errors In Chinese High School Students’English Writing And Pedagogical Suggestions Qi Zhengjuan

Discourse errors are the main aspect of the problems that appear in Chinese high school students’ English writing. Under this background, with the theory of discourse analysis and the help of advanced statistical method, this thesis tries to analyze the discourse errors by analyzing60Chinese EFL learners’ writings from a high school in Nanjing from the aspect of cohesion and coherent, as well as the text structure. Besides, in order to reveal the cause of the discourse errors, the current situation of English writing teaching in senior high schools is investigated by means of a questionnaire conducted on learners and an interview with teachers. The questionnaire aims at mastering the difficulty in students’ English writing, the awareness of English discourse and degree of the negative transfer of Chinese. And the interview refers to the teachers’ awareness of English discourse teaching and their action on the discourse errors in students’ writing.According to the research, the results of the errors analysis indicate that discourse errors lies in the aspect of cohesion and coherent, as well as the structure. As for the cohesive aspect, errors mainly lie in the inappropriate use of connectors and reference; coherent errors are oral sentence fragments, unnecessary fillers in the field of discourse, and the logic problems. Also, problems are found in the text structure that only1/6of the passages are written in the pattern of English discourse. Analyzing the causes, the conclusion can be made that the negative transfer of Chinese cannot be neglected, as it has a strong influence on the Chinese high school students’ English writing, in the aspect of cohesion and coherence, as well as the text structure. Firstly, thinking in the Chinese style interferes the use of cohesive devices in students’ English writing; secondly, thinking in the Chinese style interferes the coherence of the text; finally, thinking in the Chinese style interferes the correctness of the text structure.Therefore, in order to improve the English writing of Chinese high school students at the discourse level, the author puts forward some detailed teaching strategies, aiming at enhancing the awareness of the English discourse. Firstly, knowledge of English discourse should be taught with the comparison of Chinese and English. Also, teachers should give some exercise related to the English discourse. Finally, attention should be paid to the discourse errors also in the respect of teaching evaluation.