1 Introduction

This chapter explores the importance of business English writing courses among non English major students, emphasizing the crucial role of topic familiarity in business English writing tasks. Domestic research mostly focuses on curriculum development and genre analysis, lacking empirical research on the impact of topic familiarity. This study uses a multi-level Rasch model and multiple regression analysis to reveal the impact of topic familiarity on writing performance, and explores the relationship between its sources and writing performance, providing empirical support for business English writing teaching.

2 Literature Review

Business English writing and genre knowledge are used as teaching and research tools in specialized English, emphasizing situational specificity. Bachman u0026 Palmer proposed the concept of communicative language competence, Douglas proposed specialized language competence, and the Tardy framework focuses on specialized English writing competence, including formal knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, process knowledge, and disciplinary knowledge. Zhang analyzed the writing texts of Business English students based on the Tardy framework and found that students differ from practitioners in four dimensions. The Business English Writing Test involves background knowledge related to the topic, and topic familiarity is related to language schema, formal schema, and content schema, which affects language comprehension and output. Research shows that topic familiarity plays a positive role in writing tests, improving the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of language production, but the degree of impact varies. This article is based on the Tardy framework and school-based performance tests to investigate the impact of topic familiarity on business English writing, in order to play a positive guiding role in teaching.

3 Research Methods

This chapter elaborates on the research methodology, including research questions, subjects, tools, and processes. The study aims to explore the impact of topic familiarity on college students' business English writing, involving three specific issues: writing performance, the influence of scoring items, and the influence of familiarity sources. The research subjects were 201 non English major undergraduate students, and the grading was completed by 3 teachers and 1 graduate student. The research tools include writing tasks, topic familiarity questionnaires, rating scales, general English writing tests, and interviews. The writing task is designed as a claim letter and a shipping letter, and the questionnaire uses a five point scale to evaluate students' understanding of the topic. The scoring scale is based on the Cambridge Business English exam standards and genre knowledge framework, and is divided into five items. The results of the General English Writing Test are used as a reference, while interviews are conducted to gain a deeper understanding of students' mastery of the topic. The research process adopts a multi-level Rasch model analysis and multiple interaction regression analysis to ensure the consistency and reliability of the scores.

4 Research Results and Discussion

This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of topic familiarity on the performance of college students in business English writing. Research has found that the difficulty level of different topics has a significant impact on students' writing performance, with claims topics being more difficult than shipping topics. The distribution of students' ability values in scoring items such as genre format, vocabulary, content, coherence and cohesion, and grammar and structure shows that students perform the best in genre format, while scoring the lowest in grammar and structure. Topic familiarity has an impact on students' writing performance, especially in terms of genre format, but has little effect on overall writing performance. Students perform better in terms of content, grammar and structure, and vocabulary in writing claims topics than in shipping topics, while the opposite is true in terms of coherence and consistency, and genre format. The source of topic familiarity also affects writing performance, and students who easily associate topic knowledge have a significant advantage in writing. The combined effect of past and new knowledge can promote students' processing level and have a positive impact on their writing performance. The level of students' understanding of the topic, the depth of writing processing and content expansion, as well as the potential positive influence of their mother tongue in foreign language writing, are all important factors that affect their writing performance.

5 Conclusion

This study explores the impact of topic familiarity on college students' business English writing, revealing the interaction between topic knowledge and writing performance through self-evaluation and quantitative and qualitative analysis of writing performance. The research results indicate that the factors affecting students' familiarity with topics are complex and diverse, which has guiding significance for business English writing teaching. It is recommended that teachers pay attention to language and topic knowledge to positively guide students' writing performance, and adopt multiple evaluation criteria in the assessment.