浅谈托福写作官方范文中的主位及主位推进模式

Analyzing Theme and Thematic Progression in TOEFL Writing Sample Responses

韩礼德(Halliday)提出的系统功能语法框架内的分析理论一直是许多英语教学学者和教育工作者所重视的理论。然而,现有许多研究的关注点是高校教师如何把主位及主位推进理论作为一种有效工具去判定学生论文中语篇连贯的情况,很少有研究关注语培机构工作环境下的教师如何将主位及主位推进理论应用到新托福独立写作的课堂教学当中。同时,托福独立写作其中一个较为常见的教学重点是提升学生文章中的语言特征而非连贯性。本文旨在分析由美国教育考试服务中心(ETS)提供的五篇高分作文范文,并考查这些文章中的主位及主位推进模式。本文将探讨其在实际教学上的相关启示,致力于给语培机构教师未来的托福独立写作教学提供一定的启发。

The significance of theme and thematic progression (T/TP) as a key component of discourse analysis theory within the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar proposed by Halliday has been stressed by many ELT scholars and educators. However, many existing studies concentrate on the usefulness of T/TP as an instrument for college instructors to identify their students’ essay quality in terms of textual coherence, and few of them place emphasis on how teachers in a test-prep institutional environment can apply the theory of T/TP in their classroom teaching of TOEFL iBT Independent Writing. Also, common Independent Writing teaching attaches more importance to linguistic features than to coherence. This paper intends to analyze five high-level writing responses provided by ETS, the TOEFL iBT test developer, and to examine the T/TP patterns in these essays. Pedagogical implications will be discussed, and some insights for test-prep teachers into the application of T/TP to their teaching of TOEFL Independent Writing will be provided.