论文总字数：28917字

摘 要

在二语学习过程中，母语负迁移是一种不可避免的的现象。对于高中生而言，写作中的母语负迁移现象尤为突出，主要表现在词法、句法、表达方式等方面的差异。本文主要研究句法负迁移现象。

本文以语言迁移理论,错误分析理论为理论基础，采取作文取样的实证研究方法。本次研究收集到的高中生英语写作中句法负迁移主要表现在4个方面：1.主语省略错误；2.连接词的误用；3.否定转移错误；4.“there be”句型错误。

本文希望可以为其他的研究者探求句法负迁移的原因以及探索有效的解决方法提供一些帮助，以提高高中生的写作水平。

关键词：句法负迁移；错误分析；英语写作

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Language Transfer 1

2.2 Error Analysis 2

2.3 Research Home and Abroad 3

3. The Research Design 4

3.1 Research Targets 4

3.2 Research Subjects 4

3.3 Research Materials 5

3.4 Research Methods 5

4. Research Results 6

4.1 General Descriptions of Errors 6

4.2 Classifications of Errors 7

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 11

Appendix I 12

Appendix II 14

Appendix III 15

Appendix IV 16

1. Introduction

The role of mother tongue in second language has been an important problem of the linguistics’ research. In English learning, four language skills are needed: speaking, listening, reading and writing. It usually tests the language learners" comprehensive ability even though writing is just one of these four skills. Writing ability is a very important aspect of communicative competence, which reflects the students" actual language level. An English language expert also said, “Writing plays a specially important and irreplaceable role in English study.” (Ding Wangdao, 1994: 12）High school students are in the early stages of foreign language learning. In English writing process, they often rely on the native language. They are trapped in a native language thinking and use native language grammar rules. Translating Chinese thinking directly is a method they usually use in English writing, and this leading a lot of Chinese style English in many aspects of the language. That is to say, this cause a phenomenon of negative transfer.

In English teaching, writing has always played a very important role. We can learn from NMET (National Matriculation English Test) that writing accounts for 17% (25 points in total 150 points) in the total score, which is a large proportion. In recent years, the research on negative language transfer has made a great process inside and outside. Among these studies, negative transfer mainly appears more in vocabulary, discourse, syntax, and form. The thesis does a key research on negative transfer on syntax. Taking the error analysis and language transfer theory as a theoretical basis, the study explores the syntactic negative transfer of English writing in high school students.

2. Literature Review

In recent years, many domestic and overseas linguists have done a lot of researches to language transfer. In this paper, some theories used will be introduced.

2.1 Language Transfer

Corder though that transfer is a kind of communication strategy, which is “borrow”. He stressed that behavior of borrow is a kind of language phenomenon. And language transfer belongs to the transfer on structure (Corder,1981: 67).

Ellis defined “transfer” as a kind of suppose that studying task A may affect the study of task B. Also he thought language transfer may be the most important concept in the theory and practice of education (Ellis,2000: 76). Ellis classified “transfer phenomenon” into positive transfer, negative transfer, overuse and so on.

Based on the summary of researching language transfer for decades, Odlin defined language transfer as an influence made by commonality and difference between target language and any other acquired language (Odlin,2001: 35). And he classified language transfer into positive transfer, and negative transfer. Positive transfer occurs when the prior knowledgeable benefits the learning task,that is, when a previous item is correctly applied to present subject matter (Odlin,2001: 149). When the second language and native language have the same sentence patterns, the same grammar rules or the same expressions, the transfer benefits the learning. Negative transfer occurs when the previous performance disrupts the performance on a second task. It can also be referred to as interference (Odlin,2001:150). When the native language and the target language have the totally different expressions, rules or patterns, while the learners apply them to learn the target language, it will still interfere with learning.

2.2 Error Analysis

Errors mean language learners product an unacceptable form of language as they lack the ability to achieve a set of real or imagined standard, but mistakes mean those that Learners have the ability to correct in language use (James,2001: 273).

Errors refer to a kind of systematic error caused by learners’ not mastering the language system, but mistakes are a kind of language using error caused by learners’ fatigue, stress, distraction,etc. (Luo Xiaojie,2003: 69 ).

Corder is the modern sense pioneer of errors analysis. He said, “Error is a significant part that reveals the differences between transitional language syntax and the target language grammar in second language acquisition.” (Corder, 1981: 21 )

Errors refer to a part of the language which is not successful. James said, “Error analysis is a progress that researches the appearance, nature, facts, and outcomes of unsuccessful language.” (James, 2001: 62)

Corder thought that the language of learner was systematic, and had its own syntax. Learners didn"t mean to make mistakes, so we could not judge their language as errors. Nonetheless James refuted that “ungrammatical” referred to the grammar out of the target language, which  phenomenon in nature is wrong.

Error analysis reflects mainly in writing and speaking. In the writing English of learners, teachers can use error analysis to take different methods and ways to guide and teach students in allusion to different types of errors and factors.

“Errors can be classified to 3 kinds: Interlingual error, Intralingual error and other errors; Interlingual error is also called native language transfer. It refers to learners’ transferring on the meaning, rules and usage of the native language to foreign language learning improperly.” (Li Zhe, 2000: 37)

Error analysis only pays attention to learners" linguistic performance and the use of language deviation, but neglects the analysis of language understanding and the correct and fluent language form.

2.3 Research Home and Abroad

Through researching the process of students’ looking at the picture composition by audio thinking, Wen Qiufang and Guo Cahunjie found that students who have high foreign language writing ability (28% dependent in mother tongue) is less dependent in mother tongue than those with small ability (80% dependent in mother tongue) (Wen Qiufangamp;Guo Chunjie, 1998: 45). Because most of the students have firmly grasped the mother tongue when they involved in English, their ability of mother tongue make them use native language strategy to produce the article content and discourse structure in the English writing, and they express the content of the native language conception in English.

When learners are beaten in a second language syntactic structure using, they will use native language syntax structure. For them, it is very convenient to use their native language structure to organize and process language. Many researchers such as Flynn also believe that learners second language usually use native language syntax organizational principle and the target language vocabulary to build the second language grammar. 55% of high level students and 87% of low level students use native language thinking in writing more than half of the time (Flynn,1988:34).

However, they did not pay much attention to the interference of the mother tongue. Combined with some differences between Chinese language and English language, this paper analyzes the main performance of native language interference in the aspect of syntax, and the frequency of the occurrence, according to the high school students" English composition,

3. The Research Design

After presenting related theoretical basis and literature review, this chapter carries on the detailed analysis of the research purpose and the research questions, research subjects and research materials, research tools and research steps credibility and effectiveness, and data statistics and so on, to make the design of this study much clearer and easier to operate.

3.1 Research Targets

This thesis mainly focuses on the negative transfer on syntax in Chinese high school students’ English writing, to offer some effective information to later researchers. This research particularly analyzes: (1) The general features of errors in negative transfer on syntax of high school students English writing; (2) The classification of errors in syntactic negative transfer.

3.2 Research Subjects

This paper takes 120 people (2 classes) of Grade 2 in Shuyang Senior High School, who (the author is their practice teacher). And there are 2 features of these 2 classes: one is that they have the same English teacher and almost the same English level; the other is that they have the same sexual proportion.who have learned English for at least 5 years and know about 4,500 English words. All of these features’ purpose is to improve the effectiveness and credibility of research.

3.3 Research Materials

The author collected 240 pieces of English composition written by 120 high school students in grade 2 from Shuyang Senior High School. The compositions were completed in the midterm and final English exam in 2014. Their English teacher Mrs chen read and commented all the writings in accordance with the evaluation standards of composition in NMET (National Matriculation English Test) (Appendix I). Then the writer drew 70 pieces of writing at random from 7 score batches, i.e. 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120 points (10 pieces each point).

The two compositions’ topics are “ Modern relationship between teachers and students” and “Which do you prefer, film or book?” (Appendix II). There are 2 reasons for choosing these 2 topics: one is that compared with other ordinary tests, the design of midterm and final paper topics is more scientific and reasonable; another one is that students relatively attache great importance to the midterm and final exam, and the composition in midterm and final exam can more reflect the real English writing level of students.

3.4 Research Methods

With reference to Research On English Writing written by Wen Qiufang and Wang Lifei, the author handed out 120 copies of questionnaire about mother tongue transfer to the 2 classes, and took back109 copies, in which there are 100 valid copies. (Wen Qiufangamp;Wang Lifei,2003:235) The questionnaire contains 11 questions concern about mother tongue strategy. (Appendix III) The percentage of the questions reflects that mother tongue negative transfer has great influence on the high school students’ English writing. (Appendix IV)

Besides, interview is also a tool used in the study. Its purpose is to know the testers’ thinking when they go wrong in English writing, in order to define and analyze types of errors.

4. Research Results

This chapter talks about the results of the research, including the general description of syntactic errors and the classification of them. This paper also tries to analyze the factors of the formation of the errors.

4.1 General Descriptions of Errors

After analyzing sample composition statistical and interviewing the testers, the paper collects statistics of syntax based on James’ classification of interlanguage errors. Of course, among all types of errors, there are a few other types of errors in addition to interlingual error and intralingual errors. Based on the theory above and research purpose, the paper has classified the syntactic errors and process the data as following

There are 785 errors in total among the 70 writing papers, among which 523 errors are caused by negative transfer in native language. And there are totally 341 syntactic errors, accounting for 65%. This inflects that the syntactic negative transfer affects students’ English writing a lot.

Table 1. Syntactic errors in English writing of high school students

From Table 1, we can see that there 127 errors(accounting for 37%) in omitting the subjects, which account for the most in syntactic errors; 82 errors of the misuse of conjunctions, accounting for 24%; 68 errors in negative word’s transfer, accounting for 19%; 52 errors in “there be” structure, accounting for 15%; and 12 other errors, accounting for 3%, which are not analyzed here as they are too fewer.

4.2 Classifications of Errors

Viewing the data listed in Table 1, we know the impacts of mother tongue negative transfer on syntax in English writing of high school students mainly include the following 4 forms.

4.2.1 Errors in omitting the subject

In an adverbial clause of time, conditions, ways and compromise, if the main clause and subordinate clause have the same subject, and the subordinate clause contains the “be”, then the subject in the subordinate clause and the “be” can be omitted at the same time. (Zhang Daozhen,2011: 610)

In China, students always omit the clause’s subject. When this phenomenon transfers to English, subject vacancy error or verb overhang error usually takes place. For example:

Sentence 1: Walking into the classroom, the class become quiet  immediately.

Sentence 2: After adapted from the book, more and more people like watching the film.

In sentence 1, subject in subordinate clause “the teacher” is omitted, but the main clause’ subject is “the class”, not “I”. The correct sentence should be written as “Walking into the classroom, the teacher finds the class become quiet  immediately.” or “When the teacher walks into the classroom, the class become quiet immediately.”. In sentence 2, subject in subordinate clause “film” is omitted, but the main clause’ subject is “people”, not “film”. The correct sentence should be written as “After adapted from the book, more and more people like watching the film.” or “After it is adapted from the book , more and more people like watching the film.”.

4.2.2 The omission of conjunctions

Simple sentence contains only a subject-predicate structure. Complex sentence is divided into compound sentence and subordinate compound sentence. Compound sentence is connected with coordinating conjunctions: and, or, but; Affiliate complex sentence consists of main clause(Principle Clause) and one or more than one clause(Subordinate Clause). So, in a simple sentence, there should only be one verb. Otherwise,some links should be used. But students always loose them. (Zhang Daozhen,2011: 678) For example:

Sentence 1: Some people like reading books, some people like watching films.

Sentence 2: Some teachers are friendly to students, some teachers are not friendly enough.

In sentence 1, there are 2 separate sentences without links. The correct sentence should be written as “Some people like reading books and some people like watching films.”. In sentence 2, there are 2 separate sentences without links. The correct sentence should be written as “Some teachers are friendly to students but some teachers are not friendly enough.”

If there is some causal relationship or twist relationship between 2 sentences, the conjunctions on behalf of causals or adversatives ay be used. In English, the most commonly conjunctions used to say causal and twist are : because; so; although; but. Instead of 2 conjunctions used together in Chinese, the conjunction must be used alone in English. That is to say: “because” and “so” can"t exist at the same time; “although” and “but” can"t exist at the same time. But a lot of students always use them in one sentence. For example:

Sentence 1: Because films are colorful, so more people like watching films.

Sentence 2: Although he was careless, but the teacher didn’t blame him.

In sentence 1, there are 2 conjunctions at the same time. The correct sentence should be written as “Because films are colorful, more people like watching films.”. In sentence 2, “although” and “but” are use in one sentence. The correct sentence should be written as “ Although he was careless, the teacher didn’t blame him.”.

4.2.3 Errors in negative words’ transfer

When a sentence satisfies three conditions, the negative word in this sentence need to transfer:1. The subject must be “I or we”；2.The predicate of main clause is present tense; 3. The predicate verb should be one of “think, believe, suppose, imagine, expect...”. But some students often can not implement the negative transfer correctly. For example:

Sentence 1: I think that teachers should not pay attention only to the scores.

Sentence 2: I think films can not completely interpret the original books.

In sentence 1, the sentence meets 3 transfer conditions, but it doesn’t happen. It should be corrected as “I don’t think that teachers should pay attention only to the scores.” In sentence 2, the sentence meets 3 transfer conditions, but it doesn’t happen. It should be corrected as “I don’t think films can completely interpret the original books.”.

4.2.4 Errors in “there be” Structure

The structure of “there be”in English is used to express “there is something somewhere”, with “there” as the formal subject and the prepositional phrase as the adverbial of place. In English, “have” is used to express someone having something, indicating “owning”. “There be”and “have” correspond to “owning” in Chinese. When students use “there be”, they often put “there be” and “have” for overlap use. In addition, they often add verbs following the subject in the ``there be" sentence, rather than the attributive. For example:

Sentence 1: There have more and more films adapted from books.

Sentence 2: There have many students liking to refute teachers nowadays.

In sentence 1, ”there are” is replaced by “there have”. The sentence lacks a verb “be”. The sentence should be corrected as “There are more and more films adapted from books.”. In sentence 2, ”there are” is replaced by “there have”. The sentence lacks a verb “be”. The sentence should be corrected as “There are many students liking to refute teachers nowadays.”.

5. Conclusion

According to the analysis of high school students" English composition, it can be seen that native language transfer effects on the syntactic level of students" English writing in a great degree as a result of the difference sentence structure between Chinese and English. Taking composition as the research object, this thesis explores the negative transfer on syntax in high school students’ English writing based on Language Transfer Theory and Error Analysis theory.

The main findings and problems are concluded as follows:

(1) The syntactic negative transfer in high school students’ English writing mainly includes the following four kinds:errors in omitting the subject, the misuse of conjunctions, errors in negative words’ transfer, errors in “there be” structure, .

(2) While this article discusses negative transfer from the point of syntax in students" English writing, native language transfer involves various aspects and levels,such as vocabulary, discourse, thinking,etc..

(4) The paper analyzes the syntactic transfer and the factors in high school students’ composition. Then,what factors does the transfer caused by? What effects does the research of syntactic transfer have in English writing teaching? How can English teachers eliminate the interference of negative transfer to reduce the influence of negative transfer to a minimum? These are challenging problems teachers face in writing teaching.

All above are what the author intents to research. Because of limited materials and limited ability, there are still some problems which should be completed more perfect. For example, the research object is relatively limited, so the errors in writing can not represent all the errors in the high school students English writing. And the collected compositions are not be analyzed exactly. I hope more English teachers and linguists can engage in the research about this aspect based on the reality, in order to promote Chinese English teaching to come to a better prospect.

Works Cited

[1]Corder, S. The Significance of Learners’ Errors. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1981.

[2]Ellis, R. Second Language Acquisition. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000.

[3]Flynn, S. Nature of Development in L2 Acquisition and Implication for Theories of Language Acquisition in General. Dordrecht；Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988.

[4]James, T. Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Errors Analysis. Beijing: Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001.

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