A Case Study On Chinese EFL Learners' Linguistic Development In Two Different Written Genres

The present study underpinned by Dynamic Systems Theory explores the changes of grammatical complexity,vocabulary complexity,linguistic accuracy and fluency in narratives and argumentative essays writing of six Chinese learners who learn English as a foreign language.The six participants who are freshmen majoring in Navigation in Dalian Maritime University are involved in this research for 14 weeks.The general development trajectories and individuals' linguistic changes are investigated.Besides,the reasons accounting for these changes are analyzed.Furthermore,this study reveals the genre effects on the linguistic development of English writing.It is expected that some enlightenment and help can be provided by this research for English writing teaching and learning in different genres.The findings of this research are shown below.After 14 weeks' experiment,the development paths of the six students' grammatical complexity,vocabulary complexity,linguistic accuracy and fluency in two written genres are nonlinear and unstable.Each individual's development path is different.Their changes are different from the changes of group average.Secondly,there are many factors affecting these changes.The study makes a detailed analysis of the changes from motivation,learning strategies,second language learning time,learners and so on.Thirdly,the study explores how genres affect the linguistic development of English writing.There is a genre effect on the development of grammatical complexity.The grammatical complexity of argumentative essays is significantly higher than that of narratives.Although there is no obvious genre effect on the development of vocabulary complexity,linguistic accuracy and fluency,vocabulary complexity and fluency of argumentative essays are higher than those of narratives while linguistic accuracy of narratives is higher than that of argumentative essays.Some implications of this study are put forward for English teaching.In order to enhance non-English major students' writing ability,teachers can guide students to write in different genres.By writing in different genres,students can have a good command of the writing strategies and the key elements of different genres.