探究全民英檢中高級寫作測驗高分與低分作文之主題發展與連貫性

Abstract

在寫作上使用主位推進的策略可有效地加強文章的連貫性，而分析文章的主位推進亦能清晰呈現文意的流動與訊息結構。然而，就此領域而言，分析台灣學生作文中主位推進的文獻相對較少，文獻上探討高分與低分文章中主位推進之差異的研究亦十分有限。因此，本研究旨在探討台灣高分與低分的英文作文中，主位推進法質與量方面的差異。研究方法為文章分析法，資料取自財團法人語言訓練測驗中心，以量化與質性並重的方式，分析106篇全民英檢中高級測驗中的論說文，並探討其主位推進的狀態與語意的銜接性。 本研究結果如下：第一，不同的主位推進法就頻率而言，並未在高分與低分作文中有明顯差異；超過40%以上的文句皆未透過主位推進法連接，而頻率最高的主位推進法為重複推進法，其次為線性推進法。第二，就主位推進的質而言，低分作文中的主位推進法常無法獲得有效運用。分數較低的考生常重複同一種主位推進法，其使用的銜接方式亦較高分考生單調。此外，低分考生經常中斷文句之間的連結，以致語意無法連貫。 最後，本研究文章分析的結果，希望能解釋出台灣學生在使用主位推進法上的共通的習慣與困難。英語教師也可以藉此了解到學生面臨的困境，並以此為基礎設計相關課程，協助學生增進作文上的銜接性。 Deploying thematic progressions (TP) has been considered to be a valuable technique to achieve textual cohesion in writing, and TPs across clauses have often been assessed to reveal information flow over a longer stretch of text. However, research which empirically investigated TP strategies employed by Taiwanese EFL learners is scant, and little literature has been published on the discrepancy of TP between higher-level and lower-level writers in Taiwan. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore TP in higher-rated and lower-rated expository writings written by Taiwanese EFL learners. The corpus consisted of 106 expository essays from the Guided Writing section of high-intermediate level General English Proficiency Test (GEPT). Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2013) framework of Theme system and Danse’ (1974) categorization on TP were adopted to both quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the TPs in the essays. The proportion of TP types, marked Themes, and how TP contribute to cohesion qualitatively were investigated. The results of the study showed that the proportion of TP types were similar between higher-rated and low-rated essays. Breaks, links that did not fall into any TP types, constituted more than 40% of total links, followed by constant TPs and linear TP. The large number of breaks prohibited the ideas from developing in lower-rated essays. The qualitative results also revealed that lower-level writers employed repetitive patterns of constant TPs in their text, and they often used existential “There” to start a clause. Theme with unclear reference and empty Rheme were also distinctive features of their essays. On the other hand, Marked Themes appeared more than unmarked Themes in both groups of essays, but the use of marked Themes was limited mostly to conjunctions or conjunctive adjuncts, which indicated that the writers failed to effectively use a comprehensive range of marked Theme. To conclude, this study has importance in informing writing instructors of common problems in TP used in essays with unsatisfactory information structure, as well as in proposing a more scientific and theory-informed approach to instruct learners in effective deployment of TP.