A Study Of Conceptual Transfer Of Past Time In Chinese EFL Learners' Written Narratives

Language transfer is a noticeable feature learners demonstrate in the process of language learning.It has become a research focus for researchers from both the field of second language acquisition(SLA)and foreign language education.As the recent development of language transfer research,research on conceptual transfer has shown a rising trend both theoretically and empirically in recent years in China.Yet SLA researchers fail to reach unanimous consensus over the nature of conceptual transfer and valid validation for conceptual transfer in China and abroad.Therefore,this doctoral research attempts to explore the defining nature of conceptual transfer and proposes a model to investigate conceptual transfer by reviewing the theoretical foundation of conceptual transfer(namely Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis)and the development of conceptual transfer in the field of SLA.To validate a model of conceptual transfer,this research focuses on one of eight domains of conceptual transfer,namely temporal conceptual transfer.By applying a contrastive study of linguistic representations of past time in Chinese and English,the researcher advances the following hypothesis.English native speakers and Chinese L1 learners have different linguistic representation of past time and they may undergo different conceptualization of past time in language learning process.If Chinese L1 learners show intergroup variation from English native speakers and intragroup convergence with Chinese L1 learners,conceptual transfer should occur.To verify the hypothesis,an English narration task for a cartoon film was designed and maximum variation sampling was adopted.Chinese and English written narratives,out of which 217 narratives were valid ones,were collected from three groups of EFL learners,i.e grade two and grade three learners from a junior high school,grade two learners from a senior high school and sophomores learning College English.As a control group,20 valid written narratives from English native speakers and near native speakers from non-Chinese L1 background were collected as well.By a contrastive analysis of grammatical markers of past tense in written narratives produced by these four groups,followed by an analysis of focus group interview data about time and past time,it was found that conceptual transfer partially occurred.The doctoral dissertation is divided into six chapters.Chapter one is an overview of the theoretical motivation and pedagogical motivation for the present research.It clarifies the uniqueness of research,introduces relevant technical terms and the structure of the dissertation.Chapter two first introduces the philosophical foundation for conceptual transfer(i.e.the Linguistic Relativity)and relevant theories to the construct of conceptual transfer,then reviews and critiques seminal theoretical research and empirical studies on conceptual transfer so as to track the development of theoretical research and empirical studies on conceptual transfer in China and abroad.Research on the conceptualization of time is discussed in the end.Chapter three postulates a theoretical model for the analysis of conceptual transfer.The model composes of four general principles for conceptual transfer and the linguistic representations of past time in Chinese and English.In addition,by analyzing the linguistic representations of past tense in Chinese and English,chapter three proposes that the prototypical grammatical representation of past time in Chinese and English is Chinese le and regular and irregular verb inflection respectively.Chapter four is the validation of concept transfer of past time by clarifying the research questions and research methods and pointing out the validity of the animated film as prompts to elicit research data.Chapter five elaborates on the research findings and discusses possible causes of these findings.Chapter six is the conclusion of the research.It summaries the whole research,the significance and limitations of the research,and puts forward the prospect of research on the conceptual transfer of past time.The originality of the doctoral research is shown as follows:The first is the originality of a new research perspective.This dissertation is grounded on the theory of linguistic relativity and integrates dynamic complexity theory and sociocultural theory into discussion of conceptual transfer.It explores the possibility of conceptual transfer of past time in the linguistic representation of English and Chinese languages.By constructing a theoretical model of conceptual transfer,emphasizing the interaction between language and thought,and collecting narratives produced simultaneously by Chinese EFL learners of different English proficiency in comparison with written narratives by English native speakers or near native speakers from non-Chinese L1 background,the research verifies that conceptual transfer of past time has partially occurs.The new research perspective is theoretically complementary to the current domestic research emphasizing the unidirectional relationship between language and thought.The second is the originality of research methods.At present,researchers of conceptual transfer come from different professional backgrounds,including psychologists and linguists.As a result,most of the empirical studies of conceptual transfer at home and abroad are not conducted within the theoretical framework of second language acquisition research.There are few empirical studies on conceptual transfer in China,and the pioneering research on conceptual transfer has been corpus-based.In this study,the real-time writing by learners with different English proficiency is used as a means to collect narratives of Chinese(L1)and English(L2),and narratives produced by English native speakers and near native speakers from non-Chinese L1 background.In addition,focus group interview is conducted as well.Furthermore,natural language processing software is adopted to analyze learner language.The research methods are diverse and conducive to the discussion of the nature and realization of conceptual transfer.The last is the originality of language teaching philosophy.An overview of the history of language teaching informs us that no matter language teachers adopt the method of grammar-translation,audiolingual method,direct method,task-based teaching or communicative approach,language teaching focuses primarily on form,meaning or the mapping of forms and meanings.However,findings from SLA theories reveal that language learning demonstrates universality and it follows a rigid route on the one hand.On the other hand,language learning shows variation when correct linguistic forms and incorrect linguistic forms coexist at a particular developmental stage.So an optimal solution in language pedagogy is to translate findings from conceptual transfer research into language teaching practice so as to overcome the negative influence of L1 thinking and promote the development of learner language into accuracy and appropriateness.