1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

writing, listening, speaking as well as reading are four basic language skills for english learners. currently, listening and speaking, as two fundamental skills of english learning, have gained more attention from both teachers and students in china than other skills. writing, indeed, is the most important competence in that it indicates a person’s ability to use a foreign language and express views and feelings. it is natural that writing should be attached more importance in english learning. however, writing is the last and perhaps the most difficult skill students learn if they ever do. chinese college students, even english majors, really have difficulty in writing, especially in how to construct a coherent, logical and well-organized argumentative writing in english. according to halliday (2000), cohesion and coherence are two features of effective writing. therefore, much more skills are required to concern not only with correctness but also coherence in writing.

the theme and rheme and thematic progression patterns can give us some enlightenment. the concept of theme and rheme is first proposed by mathesius, an excellent representative of prague school, in1939. halliday (2000) argues that the theme is the element that serves as the point of departure of the message. the appearance and development of theme-rheme theory push the text to develop forward. danes called this phenomenon thematic progression and he put forward three basic thematic progression patterns. hawes (2015) suggested that the rudiments of thematic progression should be taught if students gain control of their essay structure and obtain an overview of the choices available for argumentation.

so far, many researchers at home also have studied theme and rheme theory and thematic progression patterns. hu (2005) summarized three thematic progression patterns on his own. zhu (1995) advocated the analysis of thematic progression of the text in english teaching. cheng (2009) proposed that the theory of t/tp should be included in english teaching to chinese students in his study. jing (2015) claimed that applying coherence in english writing teaching and investigate the effect of instruction on english learners’ use of t/tp would be a good direction in future research.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

This paper plans to make an empirical study of Thematic Progression Patterns through the analysis of 30 paper examples of English majors of Wuhan University of Technology. The study is conducted with two objectives. First, it is expected to explore the features of Thematic Progression Patterns in 30 writing examples. Second, the study aims to offer some suggestions for English majors to improve their writing.

In order to control variables, writing examples are picked up at random from the corpus and all the chosen compositions are of the same topic. The author will analyze the Thematic Progression Patterns of every composition according to the patterns proposed by Danes, which including linear thematic progression, constant thematic progression and derived thematic progression. Graphs and tables will be used to present findings clearly and explicitly. Then the author will have a general idea of specific features of Thematic Progression Patterns used by English majors. According to the results, the author will find the representative problems of cohesion and coherence in English majors’ writing. Therefore, the author is able to provide some feasible advice for English majors to solve their problems in English writing.

3. 研究计划与安排

before 26th december: settlement of the title

before 25th february: submission of the outline

before 25th april: submission of the first draft

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

[1] hawes, t. thematic progression in the writing of students and professionals[j]. ampersand, 2015, 2: 93-100.

[2] halliday, m. a. k. an introduction to functional grammar[m]. 2^nd edition. london: edward amold press, 2000.

[3] jing wei. thematic choices in chinese college students’ english essays[j]. english for specific purposes, 2016, 41: 50-67.