Study On The Positive Transfer Of Chinese In English Writing Of Senior High School Students

Language transfer is a common phenomenon in the learning of a foreign language. The transfer in language learning means the influence of a learner's possessed linguistic knowledge to the target language. The positive performance from mother tongue to target language is called positive transfer while the negative role that native language plays in second language learning is called negative transfer. According to the view of traditional linguistics, our mother tongue can only have"negative"influence or"interference"towards the second language acquisition.Although it was in the early time that language transfer had been divided into positive and negative, positive transfer of mother tongue was seldom mentioned, and this has been neglected in the research of second language acquisition for a long time. So many common features of different kinds of languages make it possible that there can be positive transfer from native langue to second language learning. Therefore, this paper emphasizes that native language can play a very important role in the process of second language acquisition (SLA).On the basis of previous research, this paper is using questionnaire, writing and interview to make a detailed exploration on the positive transfer of native language. Results from the questionnaire and the interviews confirm that native language can really have a positive role in foreign language learning and also the results from interview prove that the teachers'positive attitude to native language is in accordance with the results of the survey.The paper concludes the important role native language plays in foreign language writing class, it points out that teachers should take advantage of the similarities between languages and use the positive transfer of native language properly to teach, only by doing this can help the learners to improve their writing abilities.