Research On The Cultural Factors In College Students’ English Writing

As one of the four basic skills in English, English writing has always been animportant part of English teaching. Teachers have taken many measures to help studentsto improve their English writing skills, but the effect is still not so satisfactory. For thewriting problems of college students, many studies have been carried out by scholarsmostly from a linguistic point of view. In the study process, the author found that culturalfactors have a significant impact on college English writing. Cultural factors are directlyreflected in the English writing among college students or indirect effect on the students’subconscious writing; ultimately they are presented in their compositions. Writing is anexpression of culture, and the external reflection of culture. Without the consideration ofculture in English writing, one will fail to see the whole for the part.Hall’s High-and-Low Context Theory and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theoryare taken as the theoretical framework in this study. Mainly using questionnaires andcomparative research methods, this paper gives a comprehensive analysis of the impact ofEnglish and Chinese cultures on English writing, and proposes three research questions:Question1: What is the present status of college students’ English writing?Question2: What are the cultural roots that caused the difficulties in college students’English writing?Question3: How to improve college students’ English writing skills from a culturalperspective?Around this research topic, the author does a research of60English major students inone vocational college, and conducts a detailed analysis of the involving questionnairesand English writings.The study found:1) the English writing level of Vocational College Students arerelatively low. Cultural Factors have had a significant impact on College Students’English writing in choosing words and making sentences.2) In English writing,compound sentences, active sentences are more widely used by Chinese students and thetopic sentences are placed the at the end of the article. This is because Chinese culture belongs to high context and the way of Chinese people’s thinking is holistic, image,subjectivity, spiral type. In addition, collectivism cultures make students prefer to expresspersonal views with “we”, and use the words of the great sage as an argument, in order toreceive agreement.3) In the process of English writing teaching, the knowledge ofWestern culture should be increased in teaching content. The teachers should take culturecontent into language teaching to enhance students cultural awareness, and increase thestudents’ writing practice, thus their English writing skills can be effectively improved.