A Study On Chinese Negative Transfer In Chinese Senior High School Students’ English Writing Based On Contrastive Analysis And Error Analysis

Errors in Chinese senior high school students’English writings are one of the most significant productive ones that most English as foreign language teachers (EFL teachers) in China may encounter during the language teaching process. Those errors become a hard nut to crack for the students in their English learning.This thesis, based on Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis, aims to analyze the errors made by Chinese senior high school students in their English writings so as to find an effective way to solve the problem. The results from the data analysis of the collected sample writings justify that cross-linguistic influence, i.e. language transfer is the dominant interferential factor. Furthermore, the actual existence of the differences between Chinese and English languages mainly accounts for the difficulties as well as errors in Chinese senior high school students’English writings.This thesis will largely focus on Chinese negative transfer in senior high school students’English writings, in which their errors are classified and presented in terms of substances, lexis, grammar, syntax and culture. The analysis of the causes for Chinese negative transfer is also presented in this thesis.Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are adopted in this thesis. Quantitative analysis of the collected sample writings accounts for the greatest proportion. Besides, questionnaire and interview are employed as supplementary instruments to further complement the results from the analysis of the sample writings. The results all contribute to confirming that the original differences between Chinese and English languages such as differences in lexis, grammar, sentence structures and modes of expression, as well as different ways of thinking patterns cause difficulties and errors in Chinese senior high school students’ English writings.Taking into serious consideration of the findings from this thesis, greater efforts need to be made to seek implications for EFL teaching in China, especially in the respect of English writing teaching in senior high school. Through the study on language transfer in this thesis, the students together with the teachers can be led to pay more attention to the differences between Chinese and English languages and the interferential factors of language transfer in English learning and teaching. In this way, the influence of Chinese negative transfer can be put under control on the one hand; and on the other hand, Chinese positive transfer can be taken advantage of to help improve the students’English writing abilities and enhance the teachers’ English writing teaching efficiency.