论文总字数：28558字

摘 要

母语负迁移一直是二语习得理论研究中的热门话题，它指的是母语知识在二语学习过程中产生干扰。对于大多数中学生而言，写作是英语学习中最难掌握的部分，而学生在写作过程中产生的诸多错误多来源于母语负迁移的影响。因此，本文针对中学英语写作中的母语负迁移现象进行研究，从词汇、句法和语篇三个层面分析中学生英语写作中由于母语负迁移而产生的错误，并且根据这些问题对英语教学提出一些建议，旨在帮助学生尽量避免母语负迁移对英语写作的负面影响。

关键词：中学英语写作；母语负迁移；教学建议

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 The definition of “transfer” 1

2.2 The definition of “negative transfer” 1

3. The Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue in English Writing 2

3.1 Negative transfer at the lexical level 2

3.1.1 Misuse of parts of speech 2

3.1.2 Misuse of word meaning 3

3.1.3 Misuse of collocation 3

3.2 Negative transfer at the syntactic level 4

3.2.1 Subject-verb disagreement 5

3.2.2 Lack of subject 5

3.2.3 Disorder of word order 6

3.3 Negative transfer at the discourse level 6

3.3.1 Discourse pattern 6

3.3.2 Expression pattern of Chinese paratactic sentences 7

4. The Suggested Solutions to Negative Transfer in English Writing 8

4.1 Improving vocabulary teaching 9

4.2 Expanding English input 9

4.3 Strengthening syntactic training 10

4.4 Increasing discourse analysis 10

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

In the process of second language acquisition, the mother tongue system, which has been steadily established before, will inevitably affect the mastery of the new language system. Therefore, in the process of acquiring second language, the negative impact of prior knowledge will occur again and again. Researches also show that the negative transfer of mother tongue is especially evident in the process of English learning due to the lack of proficiency in the use of English. Therefore, middle school students who use Chinese as their native language often transfer the sentence structure and word order of Chinese to English, which always leads to Chinglish.

English writing reflects the comprehensive ability of English learners. However, in middle schools, writing is still a weak and tough spot in English teaching. Teachers in middle schools fail to attach attention to the negative transfer of mother tongue and cannot find some effective solutions to improving students’ writing. As a result, the negative transfer of mother tongue deeply harasses most students in middle schools, and the need to improve the writing level of students has messed up teachers" minds. This paper examines the causes of negative transfer, analyzes the errors caused by negative transfer of mother tongue in students" writing from the following aspects: vocabulary, syntax and discourse, and finally puts forward some pedagogical implications in writing.

2. Literature Review

2.1 The definition of “transfer”

Transfer refers to the influence of prior knowledge and skills, learning methods on the learning of new knowledge and skills. In the field of second language acquisition, transfer from the native language to the target language tends to occur. R. Ellis (1965) defines “transfer” as “a hypothesis that learning of task A affects the learning of task B”. James (1980) then defines the “language transfer” into the effect of the first language on the second language.

2.2 The definition of “negative transfer”

The most widely accepted and recognized definition of “language transfer” was made by Odlin (1989). He defined: “Transfer is the effect of commonalities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been acquired (or is not fully acquired).” According to Odlin’s theory, there are two kinds of transfer: negative transfer and positive transfer. In other words, positive transfer means that learners use existing language knowledge in language learning and make no errors, while negative transfer refers to the learners use original knowledge but make errors.

3. The Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue in English Writing

3.1 Negative transfer at the lexical level

Vocabulary is the most basic element in writing. Since English and Chinese belong to two different language families, and the social and cultural background of the two languages are different, there are great differences in the meaning, collocation and usage of Chinese and English. When students try to memorize one English word, they cannot help using Chinese as a medium by finding a Chinese word corresponding to it. They consider that English vocabulary is completely identical with the Chinese vocabulary in every aspect so that they use English words according to Chinese habits. However, this is not the case. When it comes to the meaning of vocabulary, there are mainly three situations in their correspondence, that is, complete correspondence, complete non-correspondence and incomplete correspondence, among which, the most notable one should be the incomplete correspondence, which is not only manifested in the polysemy phenomenon of words, but also in the connotation difference of the same meaning (Fang, 2004). Thus, because of the insufficient knowledge of the similarity and difference between the two languages, students tend to make errors in their writings.

3.1.1 Misuse of parts of speech

In English, the change of part of speech of vocabulary appears frequently and it is always reflected by the change of the word form. That is to say, when the part of speech is different, the form of the word is mostly different, for example: health (n.), healthy (adj.); hot (adj.), heat (n.). Notwithstanding, there is no change of word form in Chinese, which is owing to that Chinese is mostly made up of ideographs. To judge the part of speech of a Chinese vocabulary, we need to understand it in a specific context. For example, “开心” can be either an adjective or a verb. In the sentence “这是件令人开心的事”, “开心” is an adjective. But in the sentence “她开心极了”, “开心” is a verb. Because of this kind of Chinese thinking habits, students are less sensitive to English parts of speech and often make mistakes in judging and using parts of speech of English vocabulary in their writing.

3.1.2 Misuse of word meaning

When writing English compositions, Chinese students are always used to conceiving the contents in Chinese firstly in their minds and then try to translate the Chinese contents into English. However, just as mentioned above, Chinese and English distinguish from each other considerably in their meanings of lexical items. Most students have insufficient accumulation of vocabulary and ways of expression and application. They tend to understand the use of words one-sidedly, casually choose words from the Chinese vocabulary in their minds, and translate them literally, ignore the inherent meaning of words. As a result, they often write some plausible sentences and make transfer errors. For example:

1) Wrong: She leaves off her study to attend on her ill cousin in the sanatorium.

Right: She leaves off her study to attend on her sick cousin in the sanatorium.

Analysis: When ill is utilized to mean “sick” in English, it cannot be used as an attributive, which means, in this statement, it cannot be placed before the noun “father”. When ill is used as attributive, it is similar to bad, such as ill effects.

2) Wrong: Sometimes several yellow films are shown in the cinema.

Right: Sometimes several blue films are shown in the cinema.

Analysis: “yellow” in Chinese often means that the content is vulgar and has a serious erotic tendency, but “yellow” in English does not have this meaning. As a counterpart, in English, the word “blue” has the significance of vulgarity and salacity, such as blue jokes and so on.

3.1.3 Misuse of collocation

In terms of the collocation of vocabulary, there are also large amounts of distinction between English and Chinese. Because students do not have a good grasp of vocabulary collocation, they often just have a narrow understanding of the similarities of the two languages. Thus, they often misuse English collocation, which leads to transfer errors. For example:

1) Wrong: The price for this brand of cosmetics is very expensive.

Right: The price for this brand of cosmetics is very high.

Analysis: It is often said in Chinese that “the price is expensive”, so students transfer the habit to English. However, we can only use such expression as “high price” and “expensive goods” in English.

2) Wrong: Did you find the answer of the physics problem?

Right: Did you find the answer to the physics problem?

Analysis: In Chinese, only one word “的” is used to denote "belonging", while in English, the inanimate affiliation is denoted by the preposition “of”. Therefore, students often apply the preposition “of” in English to all the structures that denote the affiliation according to Chinese habits. But some words in English should collocate with “to”, such as: the key to the problem, the way to the supermarket, and the solutions to the difficult problem. And even some words need to collocate with “for”, such as: plan for the summer holiday, design for the villa, procedure for the operation, home for the disabled.

3.2 Negative transfer at the syntactic level

According to the study of second language acquisition, the prior knowledge of Chinese definitely have a significant impact on the learning of English. When it comes to the syntax, such impact is highly obvious in middle school students’ writing. When students start to write an article, they always unconsciously resort to their knowledge of mother tongue and then apply their Chinese expression habits to English writing. In this way, the large distinction between the two languages will result in the negative errors in students’ compositions. In this part, the syntactic negative errors in English writing is mainly expounded from the following aspects: subject-verb disagreement, lack of subject, disorder of word order and so on.

3.2.1 Subject-verb disagreement

Chinese is a language with no inflection, and there is no requirement of consistency of subject and predicate. However, the requirement of subject-verb agreement plays an important role in English grammar, it mainly includes: the consistency of predicate verbs with subject in person and number; the consistency of tense in main clauses and subordinate clauses and so on. Therefore, after forming Chinese patterns firmly in their minds, students always fail to pay enough attention to the agreement of the subject and predicate during their writing. For example:

1) Wrong：Dorothy is one of the staff who finishes the mission.

Right：Dorothy is one of the staff who finish the mission.

2) Wrong：Chuck, with his friends will take part in the maths examination.

Right: Chuck, with his friends will take part in the maths examination.

3) Wrong: He lied to his mother that he has completed his homework.

Right: He lied to his mother that he had completed his homework.

3.2.2 Lack of subject

When it comes to the issue of subject, English and Chinese really distinguish considerably from each other. In Chinese, the relationship between subject and predicate is relatively loose and there is no necessity for subjects. Many subjects in the theme structure are omitted. However, in English, an explicit subject is an indispensable part in most kinds of sentences. If there is no suitable subject, we can also resort to the passive voice and “it” or “there” to create a subject. The subject in English cannot be omitted, and if omitted, there must be clear rules. In Chinese, noun phrases, verb phrases, prepositional phrases, adjectives, phrases about time, phrases about location and even a sentence can be placed in the subject position. But in English, except for nouns and noun phrases, there is no other choices for subject. Due to the influence of Chinese topic structure, students usually regard the topic as the subject, which results in the lack of subject and confusion of form. For example:

1) Wrong: Listen to music is a good method of relaxing when you are overwhelmed.

Right: Listening to music is a good method of relaxing when you are overwhelmed.

Analysis: In the above statement, the subject form is wrong because the verb phrase acts as the subject. So we can correct it by changing the verb into a gerund.

2) Wrong: She recovered from hospital made us relived.

Right: She recovered from hospital, which made us relived.

Analysis: In Chinese, sentences can be used as subjects. But in English, we must use a leading word to turn one sentence into one clause, and the clause can act as an element in the sentence.

3.2.3 Disorder of word order

In the respect of word order, English and Chinese share the same sentence pattern, of which the sequence is subject, predicate and object. However, the position of adverbials in English is different from that in Chinese. In Chinese, adverbials are usually placed in front of predicates, following subjects, while adverbials in English are mostly placed at the end of sentences, and few at the beginning and in the sentences.

1) Wrong: The pedestrian carefully walk across the street.

Right: The pedestrian walk across the street carefully.

2) Wrong: A terrible shooting incident happened on 2017, February 10 in Bermuda.

Right: A terrible shooting incident happened in Bermuda on February 10, 2017.

3.3 Negative transfer at the discourse level

Discourse refers to a linguistic unit that is practically used in reality. It is composed of a series of linguistic segments and paragraphs in the communicative process. As a whole, the discourse comprises more than one sentence or paragraph and it requires cohesion and coherence among its components. When it comes to the negative transfer in the discourse, the discourse structures of the East and West are not identical for the reason that the thinking modes of them are different from each other.

3.3.1 Discourse pattern

The people from the West and the East have distinguished patterns and habits of thought. The Chinese discourse pattern is very complex and it often starts from the periphery of the theme and then circuitously gets close to the theme. The English discourse mode is like a straight line. When expounding the viewpoint, it tends to put forward the point of view in the topic sentence, and then prove it step by step, so that it is clear-cut. When it comes to writing, people in English-speaking countries usually set out their conclusions or main points briefly and concisely. However, the Chinese often call for implication. Instead of directly arguing the subject of the passage, they always wander around the theme and lay the groundwork for the problem. Having formed the pattern of Chinese writing steadily in their minds, middle school students tend to make mistakes in their compositions. For example:

Wrong: Do you like getting up early? When it comes to this question, some people may say yes; some people may say no. I used to get up very late. But now I get up early. Because if I get up early, I can do some exercise and I can read English aloud and recite the text.

Analysis: This article is obviously written in the Chinese mode of thinking. It began with some groundwork and then gradually approached the topic to be discussed. According to the characteristics of English discourse, we should draw out the point of view in the beginning, then discuss between the paragraphs and finally summarize and draw a conclusion in the end paragraph. The above can be rewritten as follows:

Right: Getting up early has great benefits to us. First of all, getting up early can help to keep us fit. We can improve our health by doing exercise such as jogging. Secondly, getting up early, we can have sufficient time to do lots of things. We can recite what have been taught before in class. Thirdly, getting up early can help us to make preparations for the day. We will have sufficient time to read morning newspaper and enjoy our breakfast. If we can persist in getting up early, we will all have a brilliant life.

3.3.2 Expression pattern of Chinese paratactic sentences

In a Chinese article, a series of short sentences which express a series of meanings but have loose syntactic relation with each other are connected by commas to form Chinese paratactic sentences. In an English article, the subject-subordinate compound sentences appear frequently. Chinese sentences can be simply separated by commas and still express meaning, but English cannot be used like this. In English, two sentences can be transformed into a new compound sentence by using coordinating conjunctions. In addition, a subordinate conjunction is used to connect one of the sentences into a subordinate clause to form a subject-subordinate complex sentence, or one of the sentences is expressed with a non-finite verb. For example:

1) Wrong: He always steals. No one wants to make friends with him.

2) Wrong: You have finished your homework. Let’s watch a film.

Analysis: If add conjunctions to the above sentences and replace them with the following ones, it will be more in line with English habits.

1) Right: He always steals. Therefore, no one wants to make friends with him.

2) Wrong: Now that you have finished your homework, let’s watch a film.

3) Wrong: I am a boy. I am fifteen years old. I come from Shanghai. I am studying in a middle school. I study very hard every day. I always get good marks in all exams. But I am not good at sports. When we take the PE lessons, the boys always laugh at me. I sometimes hate myself. What should I do?

Analysis: This English article obviously organizes English sentences according to Chinese habits. The article is completely composed of short sentences. Although there is no grammatical mistake, it is lack of fluency.

3) Right: I am a boy aged fifteen and studying in a middle school. I spare no effort in my study so I always get good marks in all exams. But what worries me is my weakness in sports. When we take the PE lessons, I will feel embarrassed because the boys always laugh at me. Sometimes I hate myself. But I have no way to deal with it. What should I do?

4. The Suggested Solutions to Negative Transfer in English Writing

The people from the western and oriental countries have different thinking modes because of their distinguished culture, custom, history and so on. Before middle school students learn English, they have more or less inherited the thinking mode of their mother tongue, so most of them are apt to deal with English problems with the thinking habits of Chinese. Therefore, teachers should take the responsibility to help students avoid the passive influence of mother tongue in the process of teaching English. Above all, teachers need to comprehend the negative transfer and its causes thoroughly. And then try to find some appropriate solutions to handle with the negative influence on students’ compositions.

4.1 Improving vocabulary teaching

Vocabulary is the foundation of second language learning. If a person has a large vocabulary and a clear understanding of the connotation and denotation of words, he or she will undoubtedly reduce many errors caused by negative transfer of his or her mother tongue. Therefore, teachers should try to make some pedagogical innovations of vocabulary teaching to help students expand their vocabulary. Firstly, when explaining vocabulary, teachers should try to explain words in English instead of simply giving the corresponding Chinese meaning so that students can understand the exact meaning of the vocabulary in English. We are all clear that many Chinese interpretations tend to narrow or expand the exact English meaning. Furthermore, rather than giving words in isolation, teachers are supposed to connect words with the corresponding context by designing some situations and creating communication scenes. Finally, when teaching vocabulary, it is necessary for teachers to pay attention to expanding the input of idioms, proverbs and fixed phrases to cultivate students’ ability to utilize English in line with the western habits.

4.2 Expanding English input

In reality, sufficient knowledge of a specific language establishes a fundamental base for the acquisition of it. Just taking our mother tongue Chinese as an example, we have the ability of using it fluently in our daily life after we have heard, spoken and written it for many years. During these years of using Chinese again and again every day, we accumulate too much knowledge about it, including culture, history, custom, application of language and so on. Therefore, we are supposed to learn a second language, such as English, with the method and effort of learning our mother tongue. Therefore, teachers should manage to expand English input of middle school students during teaching English. To achieve the goal of expanding the English input, we can resort to the extensive reading and intensive reading because their combination really has great benefit. Extensive reading means that students can expand their English input generally by reading English literary works, reading English newspapers, magazines, watching English movies, listening to English songs, and listening to English programs. Meanwhile, intensive reading means that students should recite more essays and have a precise understanding and mastery of the vocabulary, sentence patterns and expression habits in the text. With the help of the combination of extensive reading and intensive reading, students’ language input will be greatly increased, which will establish a steady foundation for English learning.

4.3 Strengthening syntactic training

Sentences are the basic structure of a text. In the study of syntax, teachers can guide students to read a large number of English articles on various subjects, and learn to appreciate the beautiful usage of sentences in the text before consciously imitating them. During teaching, teachers can strengthen students’ ability to imitate and make sentences by rewriting sentences. With plenty of frequent training, students will flexibly use complex sentence structures to enhance the charm of the language in their exercises and make the sentences more in line with English expression habits.

4.4 Increasing discourse analysis

Discourse is a linguistic unit that is composed of sentences which are conceptually related and logically arranged. Teachers need to lead students to carry out more intensive reading and analyze the internal structure of the text in order to make students attain the understanding of different English textual structures and their differences with those of Chinese. Given an article, students need to grasp the main content at first, then comb the structure of the article, and finally study the difficult points in the article. Increasing such textual training, students can not only understand the content of the text more thoroughly, but also improve the writing ability gradually.

5. Conclusion

It has been a long time for middle school teachers to concern about English writing because English writing teaching has always been a weak spot in the process of teaching English. According to lots of statistics and researches, negative transfer of mother tongue has been proved to be the main reason for the poor presentation of middle school students in their writing. Therefore, it is urgent to find out some effective solutions to deal with it.

In a whole, this paper explores the negative transfer mistakes which are made by middle school students in their English writing from three levels of vocabulary, syntax and discourse, and concludes that most of the mistakes students made in English writing are caused by the negative transfer of mother tongue. Finally, some teaching suggestions are put forward with the aim to reduce the impact of negative transfer of the mother tongue.

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