论文总字数：26762字

摘 要

随着全球化进程的不断加深，学习外语对于人们的生活和工作都变得越来越重要。那么我们每个人在学习二外之前一般都是学习了母语，一直生活在母语的语言环境下。母语不可避免地在我们外语学习的过程中会产生一定的影响。

不论是在积极的方面还是在消极的方面,母语迁移在二语习得的过程中扮演着非常重要的角色。自1957年开始，就有着许许多多的语言学家和学者对母语迁移这一个外语学习现象进行了大量的研究。本文首先介绍了母语迁移的定义，定义的过程中对“迁移”这一名词进行了详细的解释。母语迁移在二语习得的过程中不仅有积极的影响，可能更多的部分是消极的影响。本文主要是对写作方面的影响进行相应的分析，其中消极方面主要从语序、否定句和关系从句三个方面来进行分析。我们研究母语迁移的影响主要是为了让学生和老师知道在中国学生的英语写作学习和实践过程中会遇到什么样的问题，这样能让老师在教学和学生在学习的过程中避免再发生同样的问题。希望这些研究结果能对老师和学生起到一定的作用。

关键词：母语迁移，英语写作，教学，学习

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements iv

English Abstract v

Chinese Abstract vi

Table of Contents vii

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background Information

1.2 Aims of this study

1.3 Research Methods

Chapter Two Literature Review 2

Chapter Three The Definition of Mother Language Transfer and its Positive Transfer in Students’ English Writing 3

3.1 The Definition of Mother Language Transfer 4

3.2 Positive Effects of Mother Language Transfer 4

3.2.1 Grammar 5

3.2.2 Vocabulary 5

Chapter Four Negative Transfer in Students' Writing 6

4.1 Wording 6

4.1.1 Wrong forms of words 6

4.1.2 Wrong collocation of words 7

4.2 Grammar 7

4.2.1 Word order 7

4.2.2 Relationship clauses 7

4.2.3 Negative sentences 8

Chapter Five Conclusion 9

5.1 Applications of mother language transfer in teaching 10

5.2 Applications of mother language transfer in learning 10

References 11

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background Introduction

Nowadays, more Chinese students are learning English as a second language due to the development of globalization. The acquisition of English can enhance their competence. English can be of great help during their process of applying for further study or jobs abroad. During the learning process of second language, the function of mother language has been under great challenge. To the learners of a second language, especially to those who are at the beginning stage, they would use the mother language to help them understand or master the new knowledge of the newly-learned language. Learners can use the mother language to acquire the foreign language in some aspects where they have similar principles and ways of use.

The mother language transfer is diving into the positive and negative kind according to their effects. The negative effects of mother tongue on second language are called ‘negative transfer’. The positive effects of mother tongue on second language, like helping learners form the habits of using second language, are called ‘positive transfer’. Many researchers have revealed the fact that the mother tongue distraction, in other words, the negative transfer, is a common scene in the process of language learning. And also it is a challenge that the second language learner should overcome during the learning. For example, it is easy for someone to translate Chinese sentences into English after learning some words. This is a kind of positive transfer during the beginning stage of language learning. It can help learners use the second language practically to a great extent. However, as students learn more and more about the second language, students will find that although many Chinese people can speak English fluently, they still have some problems in not only the understanding but also language output. When we get down to it, it is mainly because we are using the foreign language according to the thinking style and habits of Chinese. So Chinese actually plays the role of negative transfer in this progress.

Many researchers and scholars have studied the function of mother tongue transfer. However, most of them focus on big issues. In this paper, I will mainly focus on function of the language transfer of Chinese on the writing of Chinese college students.

1.2 Aims of Study

On the reflections of our own experience of English learning, Chinese, our native tongue, does have significant effects on our second language learning. This study is not only beneficial to the second language learners but also beneficial to the teaching of the second language. I will discover the problems that we meet up during our learning and the solutions to these problems. I hope what I have learned from the study can help with both teacher’s teaching and students’ learning.

1.3 Research Methods

This paper mainly focuses on the study of different papers of previous scholars. Language transfer is a very important aspect of language learning. There have been great numbers of people exploring this phenomenon. This research will be done based on the former materials.

Chapter Two Literature Review

Mother language transfer has always been a focus of linguistic study. Due to the increasing demand of second language, study on the function of Mother language during the second language learning keeps increasing. Many great linguists like Odlin, Lado, Gass, Selinker, they all did great contribution to the development of theories on mother language transfer. The linguist Odlin (1989) thought that transfer is the effects caused by the similarities and differences between the target language and other learned languages. Language transfer refers to the phenomenon where the mastery of one language has effect on the learning of another language. In order to conduct this research, I have studied the findings done by Odlin and other foreign researchers. During the 1950s, the study of mother language transfer had a dominant position in the field of second language acquisition study. We had many kinds of theories like the ‘contrastive analysis hypothesis’ of Lado and ‘mentalistic minimalist theory’ of Dulay. The theory of Gass and Selinker (2001) divided the transfer of mother language into negative and positive parts. They hold the point that when the learners meet up something which is similar to their mother language in the second language, the positive transfer of mother language would happen. It means that the similarities between two languages would help with students’ learning. In contrast, the differences between the mother language and other languages would have some bad effects on students’ learning process.

Many Chinese scholars have done several studies on mother language transfer. First of all, Bai (2007) proposes the psychological definition of ‘transfer’. In Wang’s (2014) paper, he holds the view that mother language has some positive transfer in the learning process. In these works, I have learned a lot about the background information of mother tongue transfer. There are also researches which mainly focus on negative transfers of mother tongue during the second language learning process. Wu Qun and Wu Huihua ( 2007) conduct research on different aspects of negative transfer in English writing. They hold the opinion that negative transfer includes wrong selection of words, semantic transfer and language thinking transfer. Specific types of mistakes that Chinese students make during their writing are cited. Their studies are mainly based on the view of human race. I would like to do some practical study based on theoretical frameworks worked out by previous researchers.

Chapter Three The Definition of Mother Language Transfer and its Positive Transfer in Students’ English Writing

3.1 Definition of Mother Language Transfer

Psychologically, the term ‘transfer’ refers to ‘the phenomenon of knowledge transfer between the old and new knowledge. For example, the knowledge of remembering one thing can help someone remember or learn another thing.’(Lado,1957) It is very common especially in the acquisition of different languages. Therefore L1 would account for the influence of mother tongue during the learning process of a second language. Accordingly, many common errors during the learning process are due to the interference of mother tongue since there are differences between mother tongue and second language. Interference as such are called negative transfer. On the other hand, the effects of mother tongue are just like the two sides of a coin. We also have some positive transfer because there are likely to be similarities between two languages. It is often the case that differences between mother tongue and second language cause learning difficulty and result in errors, while similarities facilitate learning. Owing to the different language systems that Chinese and English belong to, Chinese mostly plays a negative role in Second Language Acquisition.

In the second language learning field, linguists and psychologists found the fact that learner’s mother tongue plays an important role in the process of learning a second language. It is very common to find that when a second language learner uses his unfamiliar second language to express himself, he would like to turn to his mother tongue for help. Some of the mother language which can also be called L1 structural knowledge and principles may register in the learners’ mind gradually and unconsciously. Such knowledge and principles may lead second language learners to produce wrong or unidiomatic sentences. Just as Lado (1957) said, “Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture--both productively when attempting to speak the language and to act in the culture and receptively when attempting to grasp and understand the language and the culture as practiced by natives.” Most Chinese students who choose English as a second language have been learning Chinese for a long time. This will make Chinese students use the knowledge of Chinese to learn English. So the influence of Chinese during the process of learning is unavoidable.

3.2 Positive Transfer in Students’ English Writing

Positive Transfer refers to the positive effects of mother language on the learning of second language. Firstly, the mother tongue system is the first language reaction system, and the second language system is built on the basis of people’s mother language system. Every learner tends to use his or her knowledge basis when he is learning something new. So the learning of a second language is based on the original knowledge and skills of learners. In the common sense, the learners will use the mother language to think, analyze, compare and use the experience of learning their mother tongue to instruct oneself to learn a new language. So it is impossible to learn the second language without the effect of the mother tongue. Secondly, common things between different languages can help learners learn the second language quickly and well. As people’s thinking habits have generality, so the languages which are used to express the thinking also have the generality. There are various kinds of languages belonging to different language systems, and although they have many differences, they all act as the most effective ways of expressing human’s thoughts and feelings. Due to the development of linguistic study, researchers have revealed many generalities between different kinds of languages. Everyone in the world has learned something about the generalities between languages. It is well-known that language actually belongs to thinking.

To some extent, learners’ background learning of mother language has set up the basis for the second language. So let us examine the positive effects of Chinese in English learning. On the one hand, we may use Chinese to learn something about the grammatical knowledge of English. Since the grammatical rules of English are all very abstract and unfamiliar to Chinese students, we can use the Chinese to explain or to understand the principles of English grammar. On the other hand, Chinese can help us in acquiring the meanings of different words. It is known that an English word can have several different meanings in different sentences. It is difficult for beginners to understand a difficult sentence. In order to save time and improve both the instructional quality and learning effects, teachers can use Chinese to explain and understand the different meanings. Teaching in this way can help decrease the risk of leading to misunderstandings. Last but not least, it is common to have the emotion of resistance when students are learning something new. They will feel afraid instinctively. So using the mother language to teach and learn can help raise our interest in English learning. These are the positive effects of mother language in the process of second language learning.

3.2.1 Grammar

Chinese can have some benefits on the learning process of English especially in the aspect of Efficiency. Since there are still some similarities between these two languages, like both of them have the sentence structure of ‘Subject Verb Object’. So this can help students understand the English sentence structure more efficiently. Using the Chinese to understand the complex grammar principles and rules can help Chinese students save the time spent on studying. During the teaching process, teachers can use Chinese to explain those terms to help students study. Teaching in Chinese can make students understand those sophisticated principles more quickly.

3.2.2 Vocabulary

Learners can also use the positive transfer of Chinese to help themselves remember vocabulary. Firstly, learning about the Chinese meaning can help students understand the words and remember quickly. Secondly, we can use the Chinese words pronunciation to remember English words pronunciation. For example,like ‘Thank you.’ We can use the Chinese pronunciation like ‘三克油’ to help us remember the pronunciation. But we have to pay attention to the pronunciation.

Thirdly, the roots in English are similar to Chinese character component. They both have the function of understanding words. For example, in Chinese, the left part of Chinese character ‘河’ means ‘water ’ in Chinese. In English, the root ‘vis’ in ‘visible’ means ‘see’. This is one kind of similarity between these two languages. This can help students get some tips on understanding the difficult words. Transferring the pronunciation of English words into Chinese words can help the learners remember how to read the words more quickly. This method reflects the positive effects of Chinese in the learning of English vocabulary.

Chapter Four Negative Transfer in Students' Writing

4.1 Wording

Vocabulary is an essential and basic part in putting together sentences. Vocabulary, acting as the most active part of a language, is not only a carrier of social culture, but often reflects the changes in social lives. People who do not have a good command of continuously updated vocabulary tend to have a tough time making their voice heard in the ever-changing social context, characterized by spurts of development in science and technology. It is often the case with many Chinese learners of English, who have a pitifully small vocabulary due to limited exposure to the language in a predominantly Chinese-speaking community. Even worse is that their wording is negatively affected by their mother tongue.

4.1.1 Wrong Forms

Here we are talking about the characteristic or property of a certain word. There are many Chinese students who use the wrong forms of words in wrong places. There are no changes of words’ forms in Chinese. Wording poses a great problem in Chinese learners' use of words and expressions in their language output due to different ways they are used in the two languages. There are many Chinese students who use wrong forms of words in wrong places or improper contexts. In Chinese, there are basically no changes of word forms. However, in English, different forms of a word may be used on different occasions. For instance, Chinese students may produce sentences like "I eat a big apple this morning." instead of "I ate a big apple this morning." In Chinese, verbs do not change in form, so the verb "吃" is used to talk about the act of eating in the past, at present or in the future. Things are very different in English. Different verb forms of eat are used to indicate different times when people do the act of eating. Therefore, Chinese students tend to make mistakes in tense when they use a verb for lack of the verb changes in Chinese.

4.1.2 Wrong Collocation

Collocating words is another big problem for a large number of students. When one word is used in a specific context, it is often the case that we can only use a certain word to match it or go together with it. If words are not chosen properly to match one another, the sentence may sound unnatural, awkward or unidiomatic. For example, to express the idea of ‘雨很大’ in English, some Chinese students would say, ‘The rain is very big,’ which does not conform to the English way of expressing the idea. Native speakers of English would say ‘The rain is very heavy.’ For another example, as for the expression ‘路上交通非常繁忙’，some students would say, ‘The traffic is very busy on the road.’ This is an example of using wrong collocations in English, as traffic does not go well with busy in the language. The idiomatic way of expressing the idea in English is ‘There is very heavy traffic on the road.’ It seems that Chinese students are heavily influenced by the collocation typical in their mother tongue, thus producing Chinese-style English expressions. Due to such differences, it is only too natural that students make wrong choices of words in their language output.

4.2 Grammar

Learners misuse the rules of a target language due to the effects exerted by their mother language. A large number of Chinese students make mistakes in sentence structures. This problem is mainly because they do not know well enough about both the two languages. The negative effects of Chinese can be analyzed from three perspectives.

4.2.1 Word Order

In English sentences, the word order is mainly determined by grammar. However, the word order is more influenced by meanings in Chinese sentences. This causes the differences of word orders between two languages. For example, in Chinese, someone may say, ‘我每天去山上看日出’，someone would say in English something like, ‘I everyday go to the mountain to see sunrise.’ In Chinese, the adverbials are usually placed in front of the verbs. However, in English, the adverbials are usually placed behind the verbs. Another example is that, in Chinese, someone would say, ‘你大学期间最想做什么？’ In English someone would say, ‘what you want to do most in your university?’ We can see the problem is that the sentence is in lack of auxiliary verbs. We do not have auxiliary verbs in Chinese, and we also do not have syntactic movements. In Chinese, declarative sentences have the same structure with interrogative sentences. But in English, we need to invert the word order to put the auxiliary verbs in the front to form a question.

4.2.2 Negative Sentences

In negative Chinese sentences, students usually put the negatives in front of the verbs. While due to the customs of English usages, the negatives can only be put in front of the verbs of main clause. That’s why Chinese students always make mistakes due to the effects of Chinese. For example, in Chinese, someone say, ‘我认为他是不对的’，some students may say, ‘I think he is not right.’ Actually ,students should say ‘I do not think he is right.’

4.2.3 Relative Clauses

The mistakes in relative clauses are very common to see. To Chinese students, the attributive clause has often been a problem both in learning and using. This problem is mainly because that students do not have attributive clauses in Chinese. When students are writing English sentences, in order to keep the balance of sentences, students ought to put a complicated part of a sentence at the end of sentences. This is a common principle in English. But there is no such rule in Chinese. So teachers can see many sentences with a weird structure. For example, ‘getting high grades in TOFEL examination is becoming more and more difficult for Chinese students’. It is a correct but weird structure. Natives would prefer to say something like this, ‘it is becoming more and more difficult for Chinese students to get high grades in TOFEL examination’. Students or learners tend to copy Chinese sentence structures to their English writing.

Chapter Five Conclusion

First of all, teachers should make students be aware of the differences between Chinese and English from different aspects. They should especially focus on the comparison and analysis of Chinese-English culture. This can help students get out of the restriction of Chinese culture. Also, students can start the good habit of using native English and accurate words to express their opinions.

One important reason for students’ mistakes in writing is that they are not aware of the differences between two languages. Getting students to be familiar with the second language can help students get rid of the dependence on Chinese. It can also help students change the bad habit of using Chinese as a major way of learning English. Teachers should emphasize English ways of thinking.

Secondly, teachers also need to make use of Chinese reasonably during the teaching process. As we have discussed above, Chinese does have some positive effects during the teaching process. Teachers can use Chinese to explain the complex grammar principles and rules to students. Besides this, using Chinese in classes can help save class time and reduce students’ resistance to English.

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