Journal of Literature and Art Studies, November 2022, Vol. 12, No. 11, 1162-1168
doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2022.11.011
payme是什么意思On L1 Negative Transfer in Second Language Acquisition Bad on Chine Students’ Writing Composition
ZHU Jie-xin
School of Foreign Language, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China, 430070
jpmorganThere is negative transfer of first language (L1) in cond language acquisition, which generally introduces
language errors, hindering learners’ cond language acquisition. Taking EFL learners’ English composition as an
example, this thesis analyzes the language errors caud by the negative transfer of L1. This thesis is conducted as
the following four stages: The first part is an analysis of the relationship between language and thinking patterns,
drawing forth the concept of language transfer; the cond part is the literature review on cond language
acquisition and language transfer; the third part is the statistical analysis of the collected 110 samples; and the
fourth part is the practical and innovative suggestion. This thesis aims to assist English acquirers in understanding
the negative transfer of L1 and provide effective and practical measures in the future English teaching.
Keywords: negative transfer, cond language acquisition, writing composition
1. Introduction
In a multicultural context, learning a foreign language becomes specifically significant, especially for most high school students. After all, English rves as not only a required subject in the “gaokao” (college entrance examination), but also offers more possibilities for their future development. However, the fact is that the majority of nior high school students are EFL learners, who merely learn English in certain circumstances, in need of the appropriate learning materials and communication opportunities. English composition encompassing lexical, syntactic and discour levels is a suitable approach to test students’ learning capacity. Therefore, this thesis takes high school students’ English writings as an example.
This study has found that there exists various language mistakes in writing samples. As a matter of fact, the esnce of this problem lies in different thinking patterns, for thought is reflected in a certain way, to be more preci, in a certain form of language (Liu, 2019). The relationship between language and thought has been studied for a long time. Generally, there are four common views on language-thought relationship. Spair-Whorf Hypothesis which refers to the linguistic determinism is the centralized embodiment of Whorf’s language-thought relationship. Swiss psychologist Piaget claimed Cognitive Hypothesis, which believes that n is prior to language. Independent language-thought theory advocates that language is nothing but a uful tool for thinking patterns. The last one illustrates that language and thought correspond to each other.
Undoubtedly, there are great differences between Chine and Western thinking patterns, thus the diver
ZHU Jie-xin, Master of Translation and Interpreting, School of Foreign Language, Wuhan University of Technology.
ON L1 NEGATIVE TRANSFER IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION BASED ON CHINESE STUDENTS’ WRITING COMPOSITION 1163
languages encompassing their own characteristics. Given the linguistic differences, language transfer will occur in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). This thesis takes the English writings of nior 1-3 students in Hebei as an example to study the negative transfer on L2 writing, so as to provide the theoretical and practical implications for their future cultivation.
dulcetLiterature Review
Previous Studies on Second Language Acquisition
As a branch of linguistics, SLA has evolved into an independent field in the final third of the 20th century (Saito-Abbott et al., 2003). Of so many perspectives on the SLA theory, the most general an
d well recognized are as followings. Selinker put forward the Interlanguage theory, which has widely applied in studies of SLA. While in all L2 ttings, there are at least three linguistic varieties: a native language (NL), a target language (TL), and the learner’s developing cond language (interlanguage). Interlanguage is independent with the two languages and stands for a language variety (Odlin, 1993). Krashen placed great emphasis on the distinction between language learning and acquisition. His Input Hypothesis which stress that the meaningful input beyond acquirers current level of competence will assist them in evolving from stage i to stage i+1 (Faltis, 1984), reprents the paradigm of SLA studies in the 80s of the 20th century. On account of the rearch on the immersion learners, Merrill Swain argued that learners in immersion class actually engage in little language production and comprehensible input is not sufficient for L2 learners. Therefore, the comprehensible output is required for L2 acquirers who prefer to be fluent and proficient in the target language (Izumi et al., 1999). Michael H.Long concluded that comprehensive input is beneficial in the process of SLA, while for SL acquirers, especially for EFL learners who lack the communication environment, group work can vastly increa practice opportunities, thus improving their language competence (Long et al., 1985). Sociocultural theory pointed out by the Russian psychologist and psycholinguist Lev S. Vygotsky and his colleagues meant that learners taking advantage of conscious and collaborative mental activities would assist them in adjusting planning, thinking and at
tending patterns, thus socially mediated mental processing evolving into lf-mediated processing (Lantolf, 1994). The framework of Dynamic System Theory described and illustrated that due to the interaction between acquirers’ learning environment and principles of lf-organization, the complex systems make progress. Precily speaking, owing to many interacting variables (an individual’s interaction with the physical and social environment), the cognitive system develops (Verspoor et al., 2008).
In the long-term development, many influential SLA theoretical schools with interdisciplinary perspectives have indeed came into being, which can be roughly divided into the following two categories, cognitive school and sociocultural school (Yang et al., 2020). Chomsky pointed out the Universal Grammar (UM) which is perceived as the underlying theory of cognitive school, of which Michael Long, Kevin R.Gregg, and Stephen Krashen are the reprentatives. Kevin R.Gregg concluded the connection between variability and SLA theory and believed that the variable competence must invite an explanation of the acquisition of competence (Gregg, 1990). Bad on the UM theory, they considered that the objectives of SLA rearch are learners’ internalized language ability, so as to provide explicit explanation for the esnce of SLA system. As for the sociocultural school, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory is perceived as the theoretical cornerstone. Soci
ocultural school pays attention to the two concepts, mediation and internalization (Lantolf, 2006). They studied how SL
ON L1 NEGATIVE TRANSFER IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION BASED ON CHINESE STUDENTS’ WRITING COMPOSITION 1164
communicators successfully express their intentions in the actual language utterance. In order to reconcile the disputes and contradictions between the two above-mentioned schools, sociocognitive theory that organically compromis their core concepts. Atkinson pointed out that language and language acquisition are social phenomena that occur simultaneously and are constructed interactively (Atkinson, 2002).
Studies on Language Transfer
In foreign language teaching activities, the relationship between SLA theory and language transfer is of vital significance. Language transfer involving a wide range of phenomena (Jarvis et al., 2000) is mainly about the influence of L1 on SLA. In the process of SLA, learners’ habit of applying L1 will directly exert an influence on it, either positive promotion or negative interference. Robert Lado explained and clarified the Contrastive analysis which assumed that the majority of language errors
are caud by the differences between the native and target language (Spolsky, 1979). When the L1 is similar to or consistent with the target language, positive transfer will appear. Nevertheless, when the L1 differs with the L2, negative transfer is prone to occur.
Chine belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language, while English pertains to the Indo-European language family. Therefore, the two languages prent different linguistic features. Chine, the paratactic language, lays great importance to the function and meaning of ntences, while English is hypotactic language, exerting much attention on the application of inflexion, such as prepositions, conjunctions and so on. In light of the language variance, Chine learners will encounter negative transfer in SLA. Negative transfer mainly manifested in phonology, lexics, grammar, discour and cultural levels (Zhao, 2011). Phonology transfer refers to the intonation and tone differences, mainly caud by the pronunciation rules, while the last four aspects mainly embodied in writing language. By exploring SL acquirers’ writing composition, this thesis is designed to find out the negative transfer of L1 in SLA and offer constructive suggestions for future foreign language teaching.
ms dosCa Study of Negative Transfer in Chine Students’ Writing Composition Rearch Samples
The rearch object of this thesis is the students from grade one to grade three in an ordinary nior high school in Hebei Province. There are a total of 110 samples after eliminating unsubmitted writings or tho failing to meet the writing requirements. Their English composition is taken as a sample with the purpo of analyzing the negative transfer of L1 from such three levels as lexics, syntax and discour.
coatiRearch Content
This writing task is lected from the three-volume composition of the college entrance examination in 2016. In accordance with the current college entrance examination’s composition scoring criteria and vocabulary requirements in Hebei, the vocabulary requirement is reduced from 100 words to 80 words. In order to prent the actual level of students’ English writings, rearchers try to create an examination-like environment, in which students can’t communicate with each other, neither u mobile phones nor computers.
Writing Task Description:
疯狂英语mp3下载Assume that you are Li Hua, and you have an appointment that you will go to the bookstore with the international student Bob, while you can’t keep your words for some reasons. Plea write him an e
mail that includes:
helen keller1.Express your apology;
2.Explain the reason;
ON L1 NEGATIVE TRANSFER IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION BASED ON CHINESE STUDENTS’ WRITING COMPOSITION 1165
3. Make another appointment;
Notice:
1. Approximately 80 words;
2. Details could be appropriately added to make the text coherent.
Statistics Analysis and Interpretation
Bad on the students’ writing output, the rearcher classifies their language errors from the three levels, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1
Lexical errors
Statistics have shown that under the influence of negative transfer of L1, students mainly make such lexical errors, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2
extremely
Lexical Errors
Lexical errors/category number proportion
article10 7.9%
personal pronouns 24 19%
preposition 24 19%
spelling 51 40%
misu of words 17 13%
Through statistical analysis, it’s obvious that in the EFL environment, there are 126 lexical errors in the 110 Chine high school students’ SL writings, including 10 article errors, accounting for 7.9 %, 24 personal pronoun errors, accounting for 19 %, 24 preposition errors, accounting for 19 %, 51 spelling errors, accounting for 40 %, and 17 language misu, accounting for 13 %. As is reveled in the table 2, affected by the negative transfer of L1, spelling error is the largest contributor in lexical mistakes. It can be concluded that students have insufficient vocabulary and lack the environment to u English frequently.
Grammatical errors
Statistics have shown that under the influence of negative transfer of L1, students mainly make such syntactic errors as verb voice and ten inconsistency, subject-predicate disagreement, and incomplete ntence components, which are shown in Table 3.
Table 3
Grammatical errors
Grammatical errors/category number proportion
verb voice and ten inconsistency 32 24%
subject-predicate disagreement35 26%
misu of modal verbs 14 11%
incomplete ntence components 52 39%
ON L1 NEGATIVE TRANSFER IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION BASED ON CHINESE STUDENTS’ WRITING COMPOSITION 1166
The verb ten consistency in English is a major feature different from Chine verbs. While using verbs, students is required to pay attention to the temporal context when the action or state is taken place. Nevertheless, students normally make such mistakes in their writings, for example, “We go to
the bookstore tomorrow.” Tomorrow is the overt sign for future ten. Therefore, this ntence should be modified as “We will go to the bookstore tomorrow.”
Subject-predicate agreement means that the predicate verbs in English change with the subject, while there is no such grammatical rule in Chine. Hence, students will ignore the subject-predicate agreement in writings. Such as, “I think you is my best friend.” As long as the subject is plural or cond person pronouns, the predicate verb should be “are”.
English ntences are compod according to certain grammatical rules and basically originated from five basic ntence patterns. S+V (Subject + Verb), S+V+O (Subject + Verb + Object), S+V+P (Subject + Verb + Predicative), S+V+IO+DO (Subject + Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object), and S+V+DO+OC (Subject +Verb + Direct Object + Object Complement). However, owing to the influence of Chine thinking patterns, students’ compositions commonly lack parts of ntence elements. Bad on the above shown data, of all missing ntence elements, subject, predicate and object stand above all. For instance, “I have much homework that must do it”, “we anytime after school next week” and “I decide on Saturday this week.”宾客
Discour errors
exceeded
According to the statistics, affected by the negative transfer of L1, students mainly make such discour errors as cohesion and coherent, as shown in Table 4.
Table 4
Discour Errors
Discour errors/category number proportion
cohesion 29 53%
coherent26 47%
The discour level includes two categories cohesion and coherent, and cohesion refers to the association of meanings in discour. The relationship between ntences can be divided into coordination and subordination. Coordination is a common syntactic relationship in English, which is usually combined with such conjunctions as “and”, “but”, and “or”. Subordination refers that one language unit is subject to the other, or rather, one ntence can be divided into main clau and subordinate clau. Under this circumstance, corresponding connectives are needed between main clau and subordinate clau. “I’m sorry can’t go to the bookstore with you today” is a typical nte
nce which lacks of appropriate conjunction words. In addition, English ntences avoid repetition, so such methods as reference, substitution, ellipsis should be taken to avoid repeated words. For instance, concerning the two ntences “I misd my grandmother and grandfather, so my parents plan to go to visit my grandmother and grandfather. ” It should be revid as “I misd my grandmother and grandfather, so my parents plan to go to visit them.”
Coherence refers to the correlation of different information in a text, which is bad on the cognitive nature, precily speaking, the reader’s understanding of the text. Although there is no distinct connection between two ntences, the reader is still able to infer the specific situation of the cond ntence from the description of the
