A Comparative Study On Thematic Progression Patterns In Argumentative Composition By English Majors From Key Universities And Ordinary Universities

The present comparative study aimed at sorting out the differences and similarities in theuse of Thematic Progression and Nominalization among English majors from ordinaryuniversities and key universities.Freshmen and seniors from an ordinary university and a key university were required tofinish an argumentative writing, entitled “Can Money Buy Happiness?” within45minutesduring a class.120essays were selected randomly from the students’ compositions as theobjects of this study and were analyzed in light of Zhu Yongsheng’s (1995(3):7) classificationof TP Patterns and Nominalization theory, proposed by Quirk et al (1985:1548-1552).The findings of the study are as follows. With regard to Thematic Progression, nosignificant difference was found between freshmen from the two types of universities. Somestudents felt awkward in employing various patterns, whereas most of them prefered twopatterns. Besides, no significant difference was found in each chosen pattern between the twogroups. However, as for the choice of TP Patterns among different groups of seniors,significant differences were found. To be specific, two-pattern adoption was quite commonamong seniors from ordinary universities, while seniors from key universities tended to usethree patterns. Meanwhile, seniors attempted to avoid using single-pattern and some evenadopted four patterns. On the topic of the patterns chosen, seniors from both kinds ofuniversities followed the same order: T-T> R-R> R-T> T-R. Significant differences werefound in the employment of Same Theme, Same Rheme and Continuous Pattern. With regardto the use of Nominalization, more Nominalizations were found in key university freshmen’swritings and the overall tendency of adopting Nominalization in both two groups followed thesame sequence:-tion>-ity>-ency>-ment>-ance>-sion>-ness>-ancy>-acy>-ery.Meanwhile, significant differences were found in the employment of suffix-ency. As forseniors, those from key university adopted a larger number of Nominalizations but the overalltendency remained alike. Accordingly, significant differences were found in the use ofsuffixes-ency and-acy.