Spatial Conceptual Transfer:Evidence From Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition Of English Adverbials And Prepositions

Language transfer is one of the most important factors that influence second language acquisition.Over the past half century,different theories in transfer research have been developed as the research paradigms are changed in second language acquisition studies.The focus of transfer research has shifted from linguistic structure in the theoretical framework of contrastive analysis to cognitive factors of L2 learners from a cognitive linguistic perspective.Conceptual Transfer Hypothesis(henceforth CTH),one of the latest transfer theories,postulates that “the concepts and patterns of conceptualization that a person has acquired as a speaker of one language will have an effect on how the person uses all of the languages that he or she knows”(Jarvis 2007:56).CTH is committed to exploring the effects of cognition on language use,highlights the bidirectional effects of transfer,and thereby constructs a new theoretical framework for cross-linguistic influence research.Extensive empirical studies have been conducted abroad so far within the scope of conceptual transfer in several foundational domains,such as space,time,and motion etc.By contrast,there are a very few empirical studies in this field in China,although interests in CTH have been aroused.Therefore,this study intends to identify the differences in terms of spatial cognition between English and Chinese native speakers,and examine their influences on English learning by Chinese EFL learners from the perspective of conceptual transfer.The aims of the study are to testify the CTH,reveal the underlying mechanism for conceptual transfer,and explore pedagogical implications for dealing with transfer in second or foreign language teaching and learning.First of all,I have reviewed the theoretical developments of transfer research and discussed the general principles of the theoretical transitions.Based upon the review and discussion,I have defined the major theoretical concepts of CTH and pointed out that,by drawing original ideas from cognitive linguistics and neo-linguistic relativity,CTH incorporates the social-cultural factors into the examination of relationship between languageand thought and extends the effect of language and culture on thought to the level of general cognition.Then,a contrastive analysis of the spatial cognition has been made between English and Chinese.It is identified that the two languages differ considerably in perceiving spatial frame of reference and spatial relation.On the one hand,despite the fact that both English and Chinese adopt the spatial frame of reference composed of FIGURE and GROUND,the two languages have contrasting patterns of conceptualization,that is,Chinese consistently follows the GROUND→FIGURE order while English predominantly takes the reverse order.In turn these two distinctive habitual patterns of conceptualization have a direct bearing on their respective syntactic order,especially the positioning of adverbials.As to simple sentences,spatial and temporal adverbials(GROUND)in Chinese predominantly occur in the initial position,while native English speakers typically put them in the final position.When it comes to adverbial complex sentences,subordinate clauses(GROUND)tend to precede main clauses(FIGURE)in Chinese,while it is in the reverse order in English.On the other hand,the identification of spatial relation in English typically involves an obligatory judgment on dimensional features of the GROUND object,or landmark.Accordingly,spatial prepositions in English are categorized into three dimensional types(Quirk et al.1985).By means of spatial metaphor,temporal prepositions are also classified into three dimensional types(Lindstromberg 2010).Conversely,Chinese is less rigorous and systematic in the identification of spatial relation as well as in the linguistic encoding of it.Following the theoretical literature review,I have summarized the empirical studies across diverse domains within the scope of conceptual transfer and made a thorough review of empirical studies on the cross-linguistic influence in terms of spatial cognition.Based on the theoretical and empirical literature review,I have raised research questions of this study as to investigating the positioning of English Adverbials and acquisition of English prepositions by Chinese college students and constructed a theoretical framework of spatial conceptual transfer.Since the English adverbials and prepositions per se are very complicated,it would be unlikely to take all the parameters into one study,so the present study has chosen the most prototypical items from adverbials and prepositions as case studies,i.e.temporal-spatial adverbials,temporal adverbial clauses and temporal-spatial prepositions AT,ON,IN.Specific research questions raised in this study are:(1)What are systematicfeatures in positioning English temporal and spatial adverbials used by the Chinese learners in question? And how are these features influenced by the cognitive differences between English and Chinese spatial frames of reference?(2)What are systematic features in positioning temporal adverbial clauses used by Chinese learners in question? And how are these features influenced by the cognitive differences in English and Chinese spatial frames of reference?(3)What are systematic features in the use of temporal-spatial prepositions AT/ON/IN by Chinese learners in question? And how are these features influenced by the cognitive differences in English and Chinese spatial relations? Furthermore,this study also examines the relationship between conceptual transfer effects and different types of output tasks(speaking tasks and writing tasks),as well as the issue of transferability(i.e.factors that determine the likelihood of transfer).This study employs a corpus-based approach and the learners’ data are from Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners(SWECCL 2.0.)(Wen et al.2008).Two types of contrastive analyses are made by means of frequency counting and probability computing,with one between learners’ data and English native speakers’ data,and the other between learners’ spoken data and written data.Based on the analyses,systematic features are identified,underlying causes are explored and general mechanism for conceptual transfer are discussed.The major findings of this study are:(1)The cognitive differences between English and Chinese in spatial frames of reference have a significant influence on the positioning of English adverbials used by the Chinese learners.As far as simple sentences are concerned,temporal adverbials tended to be used by the Chinese learners in the initial position which is much closer to that of Chinese,whereas it is in sharp contrast with the English adverbials’ position.This indicates that the Chinese learners are neither fully aware of the dominant order of the target language nor the motivation behind it.On the contrary,the Chinese learners are unconsciously subject to L1 pattern of conceptualization and consequently negative conceptual transfer occurred.The spatial adverbials tended to be used by the Chinese learners in the end position which comes closer to that of the target language,but nevertheless it is still significantly different from the English dominant order.This indicates that these features of the Chinese learners are still subject to negative conceptual transfer to some extent.It is argued that the higher relativefrequency and the consequent syntactic salience of spatial adverbials in the end position facilitate learners’ better acquisition and help tackle the negative conceptual transfer.As far as adverbials complex sentences are concerned,temporal adverbial clauses used by the Chinese learners preceded main clauses consistently.This feature suggests that the Chinese learners are highly susceptible to negative conceptual transfer.The influences of conceptual transfer vary among different types of temporal adverbial clauses.These results are interpreted in the framework of competing motivations for the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses.The competing motivations involve iconicity principles of spatial sequence,iconicity principles of temporal sequence and syntactic salience,etc.(2)The cognitive differences between English and Chinese in spatial relations also have a significant influence on the acquisition of prepositions AT/ON/IN by Chinese learners.On the one hand,the Chinese learners have mastered the temporal meaning and spatial meaning of AT/ON/IN quite well and this owes much to the positive conceptual transfer.The cognitive similarities in spatial relations between English and Chinese are very likely to result in positive conceptual transfer,which in turn enhances the acquisition of prepositions.On the other hand,the Chinese learners made errors with the temporal meaning and spatial meaning of AT/ON/IN in varying degrees and these features could be largely accounted for by negative conceptual transfer.The cognitive differences in spatial relations between English and Chinese greatly contribute to negative conceptual transfer,which in turn hinders the acquisition of prepositions.On the whole,L1 intra-lingual cognitive factor,L2 intra-lingual cognitive factor and inter-lingual cognitive factor interact with each other so as to affect the acquisition of L2 prepositions.(3)Conceptual transfer influences vary between different types of output tasks.Relative to L2 writing,the positioning of temporal adverbials and temporal adverbial clauses used by the Chinese learners in L2 speaking was more susceptible to L1 conceptual transfer.These variations are mainly affected by the Chinese learners’ different degrees of access to implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge.While speaking tasks(i.e.on-line processing)require more time resource and higher cognitive load than writing tasks(i.e.off-line processing),and consequently learners rely more on implicit knowledge,writing tasks allow for the use of explicit knowledge as well.In other words,the L2 explicit knowledge of the Chinese learnershas not been fully converted into L2 implicit knowledge.(4)Conceptual transfer influences are also affected by the factors of input frequency,salience and classroom instruction.Although the cognitive similarities and differences between source language and target language are the fundamental factors that contribute to positive and negative conceptual transfers,nevertheless,not all cognitive differences would result in negative conceptual transfer.Input frequency,syntactic salience and classroom instruction are identified as major factors that restrain transfer.These factors can not only serve to tackle negative conceptual transfer,but they can also help L2 learners acquire new concepts regardless of conceptual gap.This study provides the following implications based upon these findings.Theoretically,this study largely supports the Conceptual Transfer Hypothesis,sheds light on the underlying mechanism for spatial conceptual transfer,and reveals the factors that affect transfer.The findings of this study also contribute to the enrichment of second language theories and provide important implications for the research of bilingualism and cognition.Pedagogically,this study suggests that effective second or foreign language teaching and learning should attach equal importance to implicit learning and explicit instruction,and also strike a balance between L2 input and output.On the one hand,teachers ought to encourage students to get maximum exposure to English.By means of implicit learning,students are likely to overcome negative conceptual transfer incidentally with the effects of input frequency and salience.On the other hand,it is necessary for teachers to give systematic instruction as to the motivations between linguistic forms and their meaning of both source language and target language.With the help of explicit instruction,negative conceptual transfer effects can be resolved intentionally.What’s more,emphasis should also be laid on the output of L2 speaking since it is the key for L2 explicit knowledge to be converted into L2 implicit knowledge.