四川大学锦城学院
语言迁移现象对英语学习的影响
The Effects of Language Transfer on English Learning
学 院： 外国语学院 专 业： 英语 年级班级： 08级英语1班 学生学号： 080711005 学生姓名： 张雪峰 指导教师： 李光荣 起止日期： 2011年11月7日至2012年4月7日
制表日期： 2012年 3月7日
The Effects of Language Transfer on English Learning
Zhang Xuefeng
English 08-1
Li Guangrong (Professor)
March 7, 2012
摘 要
语言迁移现象一直为人们关注和探讨，并在第二语言习得理论和研究中占有重要地位，它与英语学习者能否学好英语有重大关系。在语言学习过程中，第一语言对第二语言学习产生影响的现象就是语言迁移。语言迁移分为正迁移和负迁移，正迁移是指个体已经获得的语言(通常为母语)，对第二语言的学习产生积极促进的作用；反之负迁移则是指个体先前习得的语言对第二语言的习得产生的阻碍作用。本文主要在回顾语言迁移理论的基础上，通过调查问卷的形式了解到汉语语言的正负迁移现象影响英语语言输入（听和读）和输出（说和写）的因素，并总结概括出一些能促进英语学习中语言的正迁移，尽量避免其负迁移的方法，希望能够帮助英语学习者更好地学习英语。
关键词：语言迁移；正迁移；负迁移；语言输入；语言输出
Abstract
Language transfer, which linguists have paid attention to, plays a significant role in theory and research of second language acquisition, and is closely linked with English learners’ English learning. In language learning, transfer is the influence of the first language on the second language acquisition. Language transfer can be classified into positive transfer and negative transfer. The positive transfer refers to facilitating effects of the language already obtained by individual, especially the first language, on the second language acquisition. Conversely, the negative transfer refers to detrimental effects of the first language on second language acquisition. Based on a review of language transfer theories, this study will probe the factors of the effects of positive transfer and negative transfer of Chinese on English input (listening and reading) and output (speaking and writing) through the questionnaire. And the dissertation will summarize some ways to promote the positive transfer and avoid the negative transfer in English learning to help English learners learn it more effectively.
Key words: language transfer; positive transfer; negative transfer; language input; language output
Contents
1. Introduction……………………………………………………..……………… 1 2. Literature review ……………………………………….……...………….….. 3 3. Effects of language transfer: A study based on a questionnaire….... 6
3.1 Questions to be answered in this study ……………………………………... 3.2 Design of questionnaire………………………………………………….……. 3.3 Data Collection and Data Analysis…… ……………………………….……. 3.4 Findings ……………………………………….……………………….……… 3.4.1 On input …………….…………………………………………………...
3.4.1.1 Effects of language transfer on English listening……………..
6 6 7 8 8 8
3.4.1.2 Effects of language transfer on English reading……............... 11 3.4.2 On output ……………………………………………………………….. 13
3.4.2.1 Effects of language transfer on English speaking……………. 13 3.4.2.2 Effects of language transfer on English writing……………… 15
4. Conclusion ………………………………………….………………………….. 18 Notes ………………………………………….………………………………….…. 19 Bibliography………………………………………….…………….………….….. 20 Acknowledgements…………….…………………….…………………….…….. Appendix………………………………………….…………………………………
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1. Introduction
It is not unusual to found that lots of English learners can’t apply English proficiently though they have studied English for many years or passed kinds of English tests, like PET, CET and TEM. But why? The reasons may be diverse and complicated. But language transfer, which plays an important role in English learning when learners are in a native language environment, is one of the main reasons.
Language transfer，which linguists have paid attention to, plays a significant role in theory and research of second language acquisition, and is closely linked with English learners’ English learning. Language transfer includes positive transfer and negative transfer. The former is the facilitating influence of cognate vocabulary or any other similarities between the native and the target language, while the latter is a falling back of difference between the native and the target language.1 Just like what Odlin said, “Transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (perhaps imperfectly) acquired”.2 Therefore when there are big differences or similarities between the native and the target language, the negative transfer in the process of acquisition of the target language will correspondingly appear.
Language transfer has been a central issue in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, and language teaching for at least a century. Although there have been a large number of studies on language transfer, the problems of language acquisition in daily life are in suspense, and more practical studies and methods to solve these problems are needed. So we should pay more attention to the effect of language transfer in the process of language acquisition, and make efforts to promote positive transfer and try to minimize negative transfer.
Behaviorist accounts of L2 acquisition propose a direct relationship between input and output.3 In the process of language acquisition, for any foreign language learners, to comprehend and assimilate the language, namely input, goes first. It means that first we must input the knowledge of the target language through listening and reading. And then we gradually develop the ability to output the target language.
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But what is input ? According to Ellis’ words, input is used to refer to the language that is addressed to the L2 learner either by a native speaker or by another L2 learner or language which learners are exposed to.4 More prosaically, input is a short word for \"sentences that you read and listen to\". Take English as an example, first an English learner gets input — he reads and listens to sentences in English. If he understands these sentences, they are stored in his brain. More specifically, they are stored in the part of his brain responsible for language. The acquisition of the symbols and structures of target language begins from our perception organs, ears and eyes, then the mind，which is the input of the target language, and such input is very important. An Fengcun said in his dissertation “For any language learner, to comprehend the target language is very important, the essence of language comprehension is the same, which is to grasp the meaning of the language.”5 Krashen and Long have argued strongly that SLA is dependent on the availability of comprehensible input before the learners’ internal processing mechanism can work. If one really wants to learn a second language well, first he has to have an abundant input.6 And output is the opposite of input, which means \"producing sentences by speaking and writing\". But how is it possible that one can speak his native language so easily? He want to say something (express some meaning), and correct phrases and sentences just come to him. Most of this process is unconscious: something just appears in his head. He can say it or not, but he doesn’t know where it comes from. When he wants to say or write something in that language (when he wants to produce output), his brain can look for a sentence that he has heard or read before — a sentence that matches the meaning he wants to express. Then, he imitates the sentence (produces the same sentence or a similar one) and he says his \"own\" sentence in the language. This process is unconscious: the brain does it automatically. We can speak and write in target language after we listen and read more. The essence of language expression is also important, which is a competence to apply the target language. When we began to learn a target language, first we must input the knowledge of target language through listening and reading. Listening and reading belong to the input category of language study. And speaking and writing belong to the category of output.
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These two categories are both key components in language study. When we study a second language, we just begin to use another language symbols and structures to express the meanings of the language we have acquired.7 But the acquisition of the new symbols and structures is influenced by the previous symbols and structures in our minds. Therefore, the rules of previous language are important in second language acquisition and we should acquire a second language by contrast between mother tongue and the target language, and try best to promote positive transfer and avoid negative transfer between languages.
This paper is composed of four parts: introduction, literature review, a study of effects of language transfer based on a questionnaire and conclusion. The purpose and significance of this study, as well as the definition of language transfer, language input and language output are presented in the part of introduction. Based on a lot of related documents, the second part reviews the previous studies and the current situation of the research at home and abroad, and confirms the research range of the thesis and research approach. The third part describes the progress of the questionnaire, states the causes and effects of language transfer, and summarizes some feasible and practical methods to help English learners learn English. And the last part reviews the findings of this study and concludes the shortcoming of this study. Through detailed description of the impact of Chinese transfer on English learning from the aspects of language input (listening and reading) and output (speaking and writing), this paper puts forward relevant measures for the promotion of the positive influence and the prevention of the negative influence of Chinese transfer on English learning.
2. Literature review
Language transfer refers to the effects of mother tongue on the second language acquisition, including effects on language, such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, semantics, etc. The effects of mother tongue also lie in extralinguistic aspects, such as thinking mode, cultural tradition and social history.
Transfer can be divided into positive transfer and negative transfer. Positive
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transfer, which plays a promoting role, arises when the rules of mother tongue and the target language are the same or similar to each other. But negative transfer appears, when there are differences between rules of mother tongue and the target language, especially those underlying differences which are similar to each other in surface. Those underlying differences may be taken as the interference of language learning and the causes of language errors.
Discussions of transfer often begin with the work of American linguists in the 1940s and 1950s.8 Yet while the work of Charles Fries, Robert Lado, and others was clearly a major catalyst for subsequent research, serious thinking about cross-linguistic influences dates back to a controversy in historical linguistics in the nineteenth century. The effects of cross-linguistic influence can often be distinguished through the use of the terms borrowing transfer and substratum transfer.9 Borrowing transfer refers to the influence a second language has on a previously acquired language. And substratum transfer is the type of cross-linguistic influence investigated in most studies of second language acquisition; such transfer involves the influence of a source language (typically, the native language of a learner) on the acquisition of a target language.10 Since transfer occurs in a wide variety of social contexts, a thorough understanding of cross-linguistic influence depends very much on a thorough understanding of those contexts. Dulay, Burt and Krashen have claimed that transfer will be significant in acquisition affected by formal instruction but will be less so in naturalistic second language acquisition. While transfer is primarily a psychological phenomenon, its potential effect on acquisition may be large or small depending on the complex variations of the social settings in which acquisition takes place.
Some linguists consider that language transfer is just because of the lack of knowledge of foreign language mastered by learners. But the cognitive school paid much attention to the study of restrictive factors of transfer and the research of cognitive criterion of transfer. And the study of restrictive factors of transfer mainly probed factors which make transfer wax and wane. In 2000, Ellis listed six constraints on transfer:(1) different levels of language (phonology, lexis, grammar, and
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discourse) ，(2) social factors (the effect of the addressee and of different learning contexts on transfer), (3) markedness(the extent to which specific linguistic features are ‘special’ in some way), (4) prototypicality(the extent to which a specific meaning of a word is considered ‘core’ or ‘basic’ in relation to other meanings of the same word), (5) language distance and psychotypology (the perceptions that speakers have regarding the similarity and difference between languages), and (6) developmental factors (constraints relating to the natural processes of interlanguage development).11 It is considered that the studies of language transfer in recent 50 years can be classified into three categories: (1) Contrastive Analysis Theory and researches of language transfer, (2) Markedness Theory and researches of language transfer, (3) Cognitive Theory and researches of language transfer.12 From the nineteenth century on, the standards of evidence for transfer have been rising, and the empirical support for the importance of cross-linguistic influences on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc., is now quite strong.
Despite the conflicting views on the significance of language contact in historical linguistics, the notion of language transfer remained uncontroversial among language teachers well into the twentieth century. As early as the schools of the ancient world, teachers were writing down contrastive observations about the languages students knew and the languages they wished to learn. And as recently as the schools influenced by figures such as Sweet, Jespersen, Palmer, Fries, and other proponents of new methods of language teaching, there was a widespread acceptance of the idea that native language influences could greatly affect second language acquisition. Challenges to assumptions about the importance of transfer did not have much impact on the history of language teaching until the late 1960s. The challenges that arose in that period were largely in reaction to two claims that American scholars had made about transfer in the preceding twenty or so years. The first of those claims was that the existence of cross-linguistic differences made second language acquisition extremely different from first language acquisition. And the second claim that came to be challenged was that the difficulties of second language acquisition could be determined through contrastive analyses. In the process of study, its
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importance has been reassessed several times, but its role in second language acquisition is widely accepted now and it has developed a wide range of theory with the efforts and continuous probe of large scholars.
Although discussion about this topic has been for half a century, we feel it seems to be just the beginning. Old debates have not yet been settled, and new perspective brings us new problems. Is distance between mother tongue and the second language proportional to difficulty of the second language acquisition? According to the point of view of traditional contrastive analysis, the answer to the question is yes. The doubt put forward by Zobl, is the problem that Lado and his proponents can’t solve.
As researchers of modern language, we should not avoid these problems. Is there any other possible except for explanation of Markedness Theory? Is there any change of effects of mother tongue coming with the improvement of the second language? What roles do mother tongue plays in cognitive process? How does mother tongue affect in the process of understanding the article written in the second language? The answer is still unknown. Similarly, effects of mother tongue in output process of the second language are to be discussed. I agree with the view that language transfer brings big effects on language acquisition.These unsolved problems remind us the language transfer is not a simple phenomenon, and it should be studied in multilayer in multilayer and should be explained by many theoretical and experimental models. Obviously, these efforts are not nearly enough.
3. Effects of language transfer : A study based on a questionnaire
3.1 Questions to be answered in this study
This dissertation is finished on the basis of union of theory probing and experiment study. This study probes the effects and reasons of transfer from Chinese to English from two aspects of English learning: language input (including listening and reading) and language output (including speaking and writing). Then it analyzes connection between the transfer phenomenon and reasons, especially reasons of
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effects on English listening. At last, the paper have consulted some related previous researchers’ results, and then compared with the questionnaire findings, and tried to find some feasible and practical methods to make best use of the positive transfer and subdue the negative transfer for improving the second language learning results. 3.2 Design of questionnaire
The questionnaire is composed of three parts: preface, questions and acknowledgements. The questionnaire is made up of 20 items and designed in the form of multiple choices. The questions in the questionnaire mainly consist of background questions and subjective questions. The background questions are designed for knowing the situation of the respondents’ language knowledge and language ability and contrasting the language ability of Chinese and English of the respondents. The background questions also involve the respondents’ English input quantity and their current English level. And the subjective questions are designed for knowing the respondents’ attitude to English and the reasons preventing their progress of language ability. Besides, the arrangement of the questions is logical, because the items are arranged by the nature of questions. The background questions are placed before the subjective questions, and all of questions are from easy to difficult, objective to subjective. The respondents are students in grade one to three in Dali University.
3.3 Data collection and data analysis
The questionnaire was finished in November 2011. It was administered to the students from grade one to three in different classes during the same week. The questionnaire was completed in class, supervised by the author, and then collected immediately. Totally, 110 copies of questionnaires were delivered. But some accident situation happen to the process of the arrangement of the questionnaire, and eight copies of them were mistakenly answered and thus were invalid. So, all the questionnaires were collected and 102 of them were found to be valid.
From the analysis of the questionnaire, some useful data are obtained. Firstly, from the study of the background questions, we find that about 70% of the respondents come into contact with English in their junior high time. It indicates that
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the majority of English learners have a late start of English learning, so to them, their childhood life is full of Chinese and lack of English. In addition to the late starting time, the questionnaire shows that about 80% of the students want English teacher give lessons in English, while only 30% of the English teachers use English to teach in class. 70% of the English teachers teach in class in Chinese. So it is clear that the majority of students always learn English in the environment of their mother tongue. It can be seen that the mother tongue environment plays an enormous hindrance role to the progress of the students’ English competence.
Another part of quantitative data collected will be presented in the following tables.
Table1-1Contrast Figures of Chinese and English Competence Listening Reading Speaking Writing comprehension speed Students with 88% 90% 80.81% 78.33% good Chinese ability (A) Students with 70%*A 72%*A 65.66%*A 53.33%*A good English ability (B) The above table indicates that, in the questionnaire, there are 88% of the respondents who have a good listening ability, and among them there are 70% of the respondents who are also good at English listening. And by this analogy, there are 72% of the 90% good Chinese readers who can do well in English reading. There are 65.66% of the 80.81% good Chinese speakers who can speak English well too. And there are 53.33% of the 78.33% good Chinese writers who can do well in English writing. It can be seen that, on the whole, the Chinese students do better in Chinese than English. And it can also be found that the English competences are positively correlated with the Chinese competence. Factors Table1-2 Factors Affecting English Listening Comprehension Pronunciation Language Mother Others and knowledge tongue intonation deficiency thinking 25% 35.67% 35% 4.33% Degree It can be seen that the three main factors which affect English listening
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comprehension are pronunciation and intonation, language knowledge and mother tongue environment.
3.4 Findings
3.4.1 On input
3.4.1.1 Effects of language transfer on English listening
From the view of linguistics, the medium of human communication basically can be classified into two kinds: speech and handwriting. In these two mediums, speech is antecedent to writing, because the language itself is articulate speech. And writing is just a set of arbitrary symbols invented by human to record words. At the same time if one wants to acquire a language, he must first master its sound system and then its writing system. For English learners, language acquisition also follows the same law. In English learning, many scholars have emphasized five basic ability of language application, namely, listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation. It can be seen that listening holds a very important position. Listening is the foundation and premise of language learning. If one doesn’t listen first, he can not speak out, let alone language communication. But in the case of Chinese English learners, listening is still one of the biggest difficulties in English acquisition. What factors affects the English learners' listening and what kind of strategies we can use to solve this problem become the real urgent problem needed to solve by present language researchers. According the above data analysis, the paper draws the following conclusion.
The first factor affecting English listening is language knowledge deficiency. Difficulties in English listening caused by language knowledge deficiency mainly lie in vocabulary, grammar, language cultural background. Firstly, vocabulary is the foundation of all language and all language training. Listening is no exception. If there is no certain vocabulary, he still can't connect it with things that vocabulary symbols represent and can’t know meanings that symbols represent, even in the process of listening one can discern the heard voice. Questionnaire shows that 84.67% of the students think that vocabulary is the most main factors affecting listening comprehension. So, to a great extent, the amount of vocabulary decides the extent of
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listening comprehension in theory. Therefore, it can be seen that vocabulary is of great importance and complexity in English listening. Vocabulary learning should not only have a certain amount of accumulation, but also should achieve a qualitative leap. That is to say one should assimilate the knowledge of vocabulary and use it proficiently. Only in this way can one identify any kind of listening texts under a complex scene.
For example, no matter how complicated the situation is, everyone can recognize father, mother, love and these similarly simple words. The fact that one can recognize these words is that they have been internalized as a part of people. Secondly, the lack of grammar increases the burden of listening comprehension and slows down the speed of understanding, so that the auditor misses much important information in later listening text. So learners should strengthen their grammar learning. Along with the progress of the education teaching, the listening materials’ contents often involve the current political affairs, economic, history and culture, geography, customs and life common sense of developed countries, like Britain and the United States, and such developing countries as China. It is difficult to believe that one can have a good listening when he is ignorant of culture of language background. In listening learning, on one hand, one should grasp international political change in time, and compare the differences of eastern and western culture and British and American national cultural background in a planned way. On the other hand, one should read widely and work hard to grasp and accumulate various cultural backgrounds so as to increase the familiarity with listening materials. As the increase of difficulty of listening, the influence of cultural background on the listening comprehension is more and more obvious. Therefore it can be seen that cultural background plays a big role in listening comprehension. To some degree, it can reduce the listeners’ dependence on voice and enhance his describing and reasoning strategy competence, and then help listeners understand listening materials correctly.
The second key factor is mother tongue thinking. A fundamental issue in the study of semantic transfer is the relation between language and thought.13 Expressions such as ‘learning to think in English’ reflect a common belief that
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learning a particular language requires adopting a worldview which, to some extent, is unique to that language. From the psychological perspective, the process of listening can be divided into three stages, namely, stimulating and perception, decoding and application. In process of English listening comprehension, first the external listening materials stimulate one’s brain. And then one decodes and analyzes the text he heard according to the corresponding language knowledge. Finally, he connects the decoded content to comprehension of materials. In this decoding process, the listener deals with the oral discourse on the basis of implicated meaning or characteristics of structures which are made up by words and information. The strategies used by listener to dispose units of information deicide the strength of listening ability. And the learner with good listening ability, who is familiar with the segmentation rules of language section, can cut words into larger units, listen according to the groups of words, guess the meaning of unknown and key words for accurately, and understand the whole piece from contexts. The difficulties in listening comprehension caused by language knowledge embody in vocabulary, phrase, sentence patterns and grammar, etc. The language organization structures are different between English and Chinese.
For example, the position of clause in English composite sentences is more flexible than Chinese sentences, because Chinese sentences often arrange the words order according to the sequence of things. And listening is a fast psychological process needed to be finished in a moment. However, when Chinese students listen to English materials, most of them used to convert the contents that they heard to their mother tongue, and then return to the materials’ understanding. There was one who surveyed students in the university and found that most 78% of the students in English learning will often unconsciously process English into Chinese to understand. And this transformation will invisibly slow down the speed of materials’ understanding. Therefore, to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of understanding listening sentences, paragraphs and discourse, one has to master the relevant knowledge of English grammar and understand the grammar structure regularity, and learn to think in English rather than in Chinese.
Pronunciation and intonation are the last but not least factors concluded in this
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paper. Language is defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbol used for human communication. First, language is for the purpose of human communication. And the main medium of human communication is words, vocal words. So the most essential physical form of language is pronunciation and intonation. Learning a language, if one’s pronunciation is not accurate and he can't correctly grasp the intonation, he will lose ability to distinguish some pronunciation. In the same way, if one is not familiar with pronunciation and intonation, his whole listening comprehension also will be definitely affected. And this is why one who first listens to English text feels frustrated. In the questionnaire there are 25% of the students who think pronunciation and intonation is one of the main factors affecting listening comprehension. Visibly, the standard pronunciation and intonation play important roles in English listening. Therefore, English learner should not only exercise standard pronunciation but also attach importance to develop the ability to adapt the speed and tone. 3.4.1.2 Effects of language transfer on English reading
English learning can be divided into two levels: acquisition and application, which can be decomposed into input (listening and reading) and output (speaking, writing and translating). Between these two levels, input goes first, so reading is as important as listening as a learning method in English learning. An intensive reading is the secret of learning English well. In a sense, English is acquired by reading. First of all, reading is first. A psychological study found that a normal person takes in outside information among which 60% is from visual sense, 20% is from auditory sense and 20% is from other organs, which showed the importance of reading and reading is the first input method in English learning. Second, the quantity of one’s reading is very important. As the old saying goes, “Having pored over ten thousand volumes, one can write with godly power”. So the quantity of reading is in positive proportion to learning efficiency. And reading is one of the main forms of getting in touch with English. Reading is so important. But do you know what influence reading comprehension, especially the higher levels of comprehension? It can be seen from the questionnaire, the Chinese reading speed is positively correlated with the English reading speed. Combined the data with the previous researchers’ findings, the paper
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summarizes three factors affecting reading. And they are reading skills, reading habits language competence.
In recent decades, the Chinese and foreign scholars have reached an agreement on effects of English competence and background knowledge on English reading ability. However in reading skills, in nearly 20 years, the researchers have been interested in whether foreign language reader who has already had the reading ability in his mother tongue will transfer it to foreign language reading or not. In fact, any kind of language has some universality, commonalities. And human's thinking itself also has a certain general character. Therefore, one who has very good reading skills in mother tongue reading can transfer these skills to foreign language reading. Currently what is widely recognized is that one possesses mother tongue reading ability will tend to transfer it to foreign language reading.
For Chinese students, the difference between English and Chinese in aspects of letter symbols, speech rules, grammar rules and pragmatic principles are very big. These differences may hinder English reading. Foreign language competence, reading skills and reading habits of mother tongue affect the transfer of reading speed. On the one hand, one who has developed mechanical reading habits of interpretation word for word in mother tongue reading will be likely to take these habits into foreign language reading, resulting in slow reading speed. Questionnaire shows that 90% of respondents can read Chinese quickly, and 72% of them can read English quickly. So, it is clear that English reading speed is positively closed with Chinese reading speed. Even if one can read quickly in mother tongue, the speed of reading English is quite slower than Chinese. Its reason may be the unsuccessful transfer of reading skills and reading habits. If one has developed skimming and skipping or more good reading habits in mother tongue reading or he can read mother tongue at speed, he read English more slowly, because these reading skills are limited and difficult to work in foreign language reading. On the other hand, if one’s foreign language and mother tongue reading are both in low level; he will tend to rely on native language habits to read foreign language. With the improvement of foreign language, this kind of dependence will be weakened. But now, for Chinese students, their foreign language
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competence has not reached the degree of getting rid of influence of mother tongue. This needs learners to overcome the negative transfer of mother tongue and make good use of the positive transfer, according to the learning occasions, learning purpose and their actual needs, and appropriately use Chinese, so that it can improve and guarantee the learners' reading efficiency.
Good reading skill means that the reader establish assumptions willingly and find out relevant cues to approve and disapprove the previous hypothesis, rather than just passively understand the meaning of article, word for word according to one’s syntactic and semantic knowledge in reading. In fact, this kind of reading skill is not unique for a language, and it exists in the process of reading of any language. Thus learning English can not only stay in the transmission of language knowledge level. One should improve English capability and strengthen reading skills training. And at the same time, he should make full use of the positive transfer of mother tongue on English learning and try to avoid negative transfer in discourse learning organization, so as to read and understand article fast and accurately. 3.4.2 On output
3.4.2.1 Effects of language transfer on English speaking
The key to learn English well is that one can speak good English, so spoken English is particularly important. The effects caused by negative transfer of Chinese on spoken English are so great that one can not ignore them. Only when one understands these influence, can he weaken these negative effects, and learn spoken English better. In the process of learning English, speaking is the most difficult learning task for most students. This kind of phenomenon is normal, just as the questionnaire shows that 50% of the respondents think spoken English is influenced most by mother tongue.
Chinese speech and English pronunciation are two different phonetic systems. Voice is the physic form of language. Learn to master any voice is a primary task of language acquisition. But there is a very big difference between Chinese and English system. Chinese syllable is usually based on a vowel, united with consonants, and the boundary between syllables is clear; whereas the syllable of English, except vowels,
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still can be made up of two or more than two consonants. This difference is a difficulty of pronunciation for English learners. The negative transfer of Chinese phonology, directly relating to the accuracy, standard and fluency of pronunciation of oral English, which will further affect the interest and study progress of English learners, usually appears at the initial stage of learning English. From the cognitive perspective, this is mainly caused by the developed pronunciation habits of mother tongue or dialect.
Each language has a special sound system and a set of specific pronunciation rules. It is completely different on the number and the way of their combination between Chinese and English phonemes. And the differences of phonological systems often caused the negative transfer of voice. For example, there are no /θ/, / ð/, / ʒ/ and /ʃ/ in Chinese phonemes, so some freshmen can not pronounce these four sounds well. And they involuntarily use /s/ to substitute /θ/ and /ʃ/, so that they will pronounce ‘sank’ when they pronounce ‘thank’ actually. The questionnaire shows that only 15% of the answers can totally differentiate these pairs of sounds / ð/-/ ʒ/, /s/-/ ʃ/, /θ/-/ ʃ/ and /l/-/ ŋ/. Besides, there are many English learners in China who can not distinguish blade-alveolar /z/, /c/, /s/ and retroflex /zh/, /ch/, /sh/. Also the questionnaire shows that only 28.33% can completely distinguish these pairs of sounds.
At last, the influence of the thinking mode is one of the important factors. The thinking and language are dependent on each other and promote each other. Language is the real thinking and the carrier of thoughts. The exterior of the language always contain the content of the thinking. The development of thinking promotes the development of language which also conversely promotes the development of the thinking. Generally speaking, the development of language signifies the development of thinking. But, thinking is not equal to language because they have their own isolated independence and special laws. Thus it can be seen, it is impossible to refrain from thinking difference in English learning. The way of thinking of westerner is straight pattern. And affected by this, the structure of English discourse appears a straight line with the subject in front and rest contents focused on the topic. However, Chinese are implicative and humble, who emphasize a comprehensive of intuition on
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the whole, and so the thinking mode of Chinese is spiral. The expression of discourse structure is via the indirect method to state meaning of words with the most important information in the end, and so foreigners in China often feel confusing when Chinese talk to them, and they consider Chinese use too much trashy words and won’t get down to business. This also is the reason that foreigners can’t understand what Chinese say. And according to questionnaire, 65% of the respondents can’t make foreign friends or teachers understand what they talk.
Therefore, in later process of English acquisition, learners should eliminate this phenomenon to a certain degree. And learners should regularly contrast the difference and similarities between Chinese and English, talk in English in daily life and create good English language environment, increase English input and get rid of the disturbance of mother tongue, strengthen the background knowledge of British and American culture.
3.4.2.2 Effects of language transfer on English writing
English writing is a relatively weak point for Chinese English learners. How to write good English articles becomes a difficulty for English learners. In China, English is learned as a second language, so, Chinese also produces influence on English writing. Questionnaire shows that not every excellent Chinese writer can write a good composition in English. There are 78.33% of the respondents who can write excellent essays in Chinese, but only 53.33% among them can write good English papers. After the summary, the reasons and influence of Chinese transfer on English writing are mainly reflected in the following aspects: the effect of the text, the influence of syntax, and semantic effects.
It is undoubted that readers should accept the author’s idea in Chinese writing, while the main pages of English article is dominated by the statement of objective facts. So, in the eyes of Chinese English learners, English writing doesn’t need objective and persuasive rhetoric. Chinese English learners tend to quote famous quotations to demonstrate their point of views to make their argument more persuasive. This is closely related to Chinese learners' learning argumentation writing from their earliest years. This kind of writing mode edified by Confucianism and
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trained since youth was also used mechanically to English writing. However, in western readers’ opinion, the article written by that way is lack of authentic feelings. Chinese English learners also tend to instill personal emotion in the rhetoric. This is because that the author should be to establish a direct communication with readers, a face to face communication to readers in excellent Chinese compositions. A good vivid Chinese paper should be full of affection and also connect the works with readers. Therefore it is no wonder that Chinese learners use figures of speech in English writing. But in western readers’ opinion, this kind of rhetoric is lack of objectivity and the author should use more facts and data to convince readers.
There is big difference between Chinese and English syntax. Chinese sentence is looser, while English sentence is more logical, using clause form, connecting one sentence with another. There is evidence that it is difficult to acquire complex syntactic, when two kinds of language is not the same as the directions of main branches. Since Chinese belongs to the left to right direction of branch, it is particularly difficult to acquire the model of direction of branch in the English language. Different Branch of the direction sometimes will lead to difficulty in output. The difficulty in output means learners do not make or make few sentences similar with the structure of target language. When learners are aware of that there is a big difference between the particular structure of target language and the native language structure, they will try to avoid using the structure. Therefore, Chinese English learners usually avoid using the clause in English writing and tend to use short and loose sentences which are similar to Chinese syntactic structure. Although there are a few grammar mistakes in these English compositions, the frequency of clause in their essays is far less than in a native English speaker’s essay. The low frequency deviating from the standard of target language is considered as the lack of output. However, what is worth mentioning is that Chinese learners largely use adverbial clause of concession leaded by although, though and even though to introduce background information.
The key problem of semantic transfer is the relationship of language and thought. Although human cognitive process is universal, cross-cultural differences in
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cognitive process do exist. In Wolff’s point of view, language may have an important—but not absolute—influence on cognition.14 “In certain cases, cultural traditions may encourage or discourage certain types of thinking, and those cultural patterns may be reinforced by the structural characteristics of particular language.”15 For example, in Chinese, people are capable of talking about unreal states of affairs. However, the syntactic structure of Chinese dose not explicitly encode some semantic differences associated with unreality; in contrast, the English verb system explicitly codes differences, such as those seen in the sentences ‘If you cut your hair, you would regret’ and ‘If you had cut our hair, you would have regret’. The syntax of Chinese allows for one type of sentence construction to apply to both types of conditions described in the two English sentences. Therefore, there is no special syntactic device in Chinese to signal the difference between a hypothetical state of affairs (in the first sentence) and a counterfactual state of affairs (in the second) in which an event that did not take place (e.g. ,hair cut) is talked about as an imaginary event in the past. The absence of such an overt distinction is consonant with certain Chinese intellectual traditions.16
4. Conclusion
One cannot avoid the effects of Language transfer on English learning, but not all language transfer is a bad phenomenon, because language transfer includes positive transfer and negative transfer. Why a language acquirer can’t produce positive transfer may be that both his competence of mother tongue and target language are finite. “A learner’s proficiency level seems also to be a relevant factor in determining when transfer will occur.”17
Thus it can be seen language transfer is important to English learners in the native lingual environment, especially for Chinese English learners. According to the reasons of effects of language transfer on English listening, learners should assimilate the knowledge of vocabulary, grasp international political change in time, strength grammar learning, learn to think in English not Chinese and compare the
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difference of eastern and British or American culture. In the process of English reading, speaking and writing, to sum up, Chinese learners should enhance their own language competence of both Chinese and English, pay attention to background knowledge of British and American culture, study English in the process of contrasting the differences and similarities between Chinese and English, create a good environment in which one exposes to a real language environment and speak English in daily life as much as possible to get rid of the effects of negative transfer and promote the effects of positive transfer on English learning. If learners can make full use of positive transfer properly and subdue negative transfer effectively, they can master English proficiently. The full use of the positive effect of the native language transfer and the utmost elimination of the negative effect of the native language transfer would bring about a great advance in English quality improvement of the learners. The methods presented in the paper are finite, so it needs more efforts of researchers to find more feasible and practical methods to accomplish the formidable and complicated process of eliminating interference of mother tongue.
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Notes
1. Terence Odlin, Language Transfer Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. (Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press,1989), 26
2. Ibid, 27
3. Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition, 243 4. Ibid, 243
5. An Fengcun, The Bilingual Basis’s Effects on English Listening and Reading, Journal of Language and Literature Studies12 (2010):90
6. Diane Larsen-Freeman and Michael H. Long, An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research.(Beijing, Foreign language teaching and research press,2008),139-140
7. An Fengcun, The Bilingual Basis’s Effects on English Listening and Reading, Jounal of Language and Literature Studies12 (2010):90
8. Terence Odlin, Language Transfer Cross-linguistic influence in language learning,6
9. Ibid,12
10. Ibid,12
11. Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition. (Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press,1994),315
12. 王文宇，语言迁移现象研究的回顾与思考，外语教学1（1999）:6
13. Terence Odlin, Language Transfer Cross-linguistic influence in language learning,71
14. Ibid.,73
15. Ibid.,73
16. Ibid.,74
17. Diane Larsen-Freeman and Michael H. Long, An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research, 105
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