Differences of English thinking mode and Chinese thinking mode hinder English learners whose first language is Chinese in their ESL learning, especially when it comes to writing. This research aims to find out the differences in English writing of Malaysian Chinese students in UTAR between Chinese thinking mode influences and English thinking mode influences. At the same time, it also aims to find out the differences between ESL students in UTAR who are professionally trained and who are not in terms of the Chinese thinking mode interference.
The analysis shows that differences of English thinking mode and Chinese thinking mode in English writing can be noticed in grammar, sentence patterns, discourse development and Chinglish elements. Therefore, there does exist interference from Chinese thinking mode in Malaysian Chinese students in UTAR who are still learning English.
INTRODUCTION
- Introduction
- Background of Study
- Statement of Problem
- Research Objectives
- Research Questions
- Significance of Study
- Definition of Terms
- Chapter Summary
Studies regarding the intervention of Chinese ways of thinking in Malaysian Chinese degree students are clearly insufficient. Therefore, there is a need to examine the influences of the Chinese way of thinking on Malaysian Chinese tertiary students whose first language is Chinese. To find out the intrusion of Chinese way of thinking in English argumentative essay writing of Malaysian Chinese students in UTAR.
The research not only focuses on the influence of Chinese mindsets on Malaysian Chinese tertiary students, where most similar studies focus on students from mainland China, but also focuses on Malaysian Chinese students whose first language is Chinese, where most similar studies focus on students whose native language is Malay. Interference in the first language is the error in the application of the second language that has a close relationship with the first language (Derakhshan & Karimi, 2015).
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Introduction
- Thinking Mode and Language
- Chinese Thinking Mode and English Thinking Mode
- Linear Thinking and Spiral Thinking
- Abstract Thinking and Concrete Thinking
- Analytic Thinking and Synthetic Thinking
- L1 Transfer in L2 Writing
- Chapter Summary
Sixth, as a mediator in the brain that corresponds to external information, language helps strengthen the brain's ability. While the first language has been implemented in the aging process, the mind is nurtured with the unique characteristics of the particular language. In the English sentence, the central idea "he came in" was emphasized at the beginning of the sentence, while the second element was then demonstrated.
On the other hand, in the Chinese sentence, the background information “我正要上床丝面 (I went to sleep)” was first provided to introduce the condition of the central idea. In addition, the substitution used in the English sentence increased the variety of sentence structures, which adds to the extent of abstractness while reducing redundancy.
METHODOLOGY
- Introduction
- Research Design
- Sampling and Participants
- Data Collection
- Research Procedure
- Chapter Summary
Pinkham, 2000, p. 3) Although the Chinese translation of the sentence is "加速经济改革的步伐 (jia su jing ji gai ge de bu fa)", it is clear that the sentence. A is disturbed by the Chinese that the superfluous phrase "the tempo of" was added to demonstrate the word "步伐 (bu fa)". The sampling method of the research is purposive as the selected samples are based on the knowledge and background of the participants, therefore the samples are believed to be the most appropriate and suitable to achieve the purpose of the research (Mccombes, 2019).
Creswell (2018) suggested that participants in the qualitative research should be around twenty to thirty; therefore, there are a total of 20 participants selected from Year 3 students in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Ten of them are recruited from English majors because students of English majors such as English Language or English Education are supposed to have a certain level of English proficiency and competence compared to students of other majors, therefore they are supposed to be more aware of the first language interference. The current study assigns a written task of a short argumentative essay writing assignment to investigate the phenomenon of the use of L1 (Chinese) in L2 (English) writing.
The subject of the argumentative essay is "Is competition good?", and its length is approximately 250 words. The chosen topic is based on the most common argumentative essay topics on the website "EssayShark". While for the second category, "the nouns, pronouns and antecedents, the placement of sentences and clauses, dangling modifications, parallel structure and logical connections are analyzed and explained" (Pinkham, 2000).
The noun plague “The prolongation of the existence of this temple is due to its solidary construction” (p. 172). This chapter presents the qualitative design of the researcher's research to identify the interference of Chinese thinking in writing English argumentative essays and the justification for choosing the perspective design. To examine the participants' written work, the theoretical framework from the book The Translator's Guide to Chinglish is applied.
RESULTS AND FINDINGS
- Introduction
- Findings of Data Collected via Pre-writing Questionnaire
- Findings of Data Collected via Written Task
- Basic requirements of an argumentative essay
- Grammar mistakes
- Sentence patterns
- Discourse development
- Chinglish elements
- Chapter Summary
Most of the participants are from Year 3, Semester 3, accounting for 14 people, and 6 students in their second semester of Year 3. Furthermore, the collected responses on awareness of Chinese mindset and its influences (Table 3) show that able to recognize it and its negative effects on their English learning, while others seemed to have a fairly general concept. Neutral about essay writing 5 Dislike essay writing 11 2 How much do you know the Chinese?
The analysis and discussion of the findings written from the essay are categorized into five sections (Figure 1). The results of the examination in grammar errors, sentence patterns, discourse development and Chinglish elements are applicable in answering the first research question which deals with the differences in English essay writing between students under Chinese thinking mode impacts and those under English thinking mode impacts . Despite the supporting details in the argument section, the lack of a conclusion leads to the incompleteness of the essay structure and confuses the reader to some extent.
Example (A) is an extract from one of the essays and sentence B is grammatically correct after the change. The word "overconfident" is an adjective, but the context of the sentence requires the noun "overconfident". But in the first pair, he clearly omits the conjunction and subject of the second sentence, which results in multiple verbs in one sentence, and in the meantime, confusion can arise.
This is one of the cases that shows the impact of the Chinese way of thinking the most. From the book The Translator's Guide to Chinglish, the essence of the Chinglish is that there are always unnecessary words or phrases due to the spiral characteristic of Chinese thinking mode (Table 6), which makes the expression redundant and imprecise despite the correctness in grammar ( Pinkham, 2000). In the first pair, the main action of the sentence actually falls on the noun.
Meanwhile, the second pair reveals the similar concept that the subject of the action "to go out with" does not correspond to the subject of the sentence. While most English majors are able to meet the requirements of an argumentative essay, there are still some non-English majors who failed to complete a formal essay that answers the second research question about changes in writing. of English essays between students who are professionally trained and those who are not.
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
- Introduction
- Summary of Findings Pertaining the First Research Question
- Summary of Findings Pertaining the Second Research Question
- Reflections of Past Studies
- Recommendations for the Future Research
- Chapter Summary
According to the examples taken from the essays, students who are able to apply English thinking mode put together sentence patterns where the main idea is the front, while the explanations are following. On the contrary, participants who cannot avoid the Chinese thinking mode in their English writing tend to describe the situation first and then the main idea. Last but not least, Chinglish elements were noticed in the essays written by students affected by the Chinese thinking mode in terms of unnecessary combinations, uneven structure, unnecessary twins and misused modifiers.
In conclusion, the answers to the first research question about the differences in English essay writing between the influences of the English way of thinking and the influences of the Chinese way of thinking are as follows. First, the Chinese way of thinking that influences writers can lead to frequent grammatical errors, while writers who apply the English way of thinking are able to avoid them. Second, the position before the central idea is the result of the influence of the Chinese way of thinking, while the sentence pattern where the central idea is placed in the front corresponds to the English way of thinking.
Nevertheless, students who are influenced by the English way of thinking must use a topic sentence to highlight the main idea of the discourse and transitions to maintain cohesion. On the other hand, according to the responses from the pre-writing questionnaire, English majors have a better understanding of the Chinese way of thinking than non-English majors, which supports the results of the writing task. Therefore, according to what has been analyzed, the participants of English majors have a better understanding of the Chinese way of thinking and its influences than the participants of non-English majors.
At the same time, English students are better at avoiding Chinese thinking mode in their English writing than non-English students. Second, when it comes to grammatical errors, sentence patterns and discourse development, the former may do better to avoid Chinese ways of thinking in their English essays, while the latter tend to follow. For example, linear thinking and spiral thinking analyzed in the articles appear in the essays written by the participants who are influenced by the Chinese mode of thinking, so that their development of discourse often paves the way for the central idea in the beginning.
There are two recommendations for future research regarding the Chinese mindset in terms of scope of topics and competence in analyzing processes. Then reflections of results in previous studies and the underlying causes are discussed in terms of Chinese mindset formation.
