Language Transfer In Second Language Acquisition: A Cognitive And Psychological Perspective

Language transfer can have an important impact on second language acquisition (Ellis, 1994; Odlin, 1989). It has received more and more attention from researchers and teachers in this field. A review of the studies on language transfer shows that there have been considerable advances made in the study of language transfer. However, there are still a number of problems faced by transfer researchers: (1) the problem of how to distinguish communication and learning transfer, (2) the problem of how to compare two languages, (Ellis, 1992: 340) and (3) the theoretical understanding of how and when learners draw on their L1. The author of this thesis just attempts to probe into the third proble1m of language transfer. On the basis of Kellerman's theory of "prototypicality" and "psychotypology" and another basic and important theory: markedness theory, the author proposes her own theoretical framework so as to predict the language transfer from a cognitive and psychological perspective.The framework proposed focuses on the interaction of learner's prototypicality and psychotypology. This interaction between psychotypology and prototypicality results in an extremely complex process, especially as learners' psychotypologies change with experience. The author focuses on the cases of learners who begin to learn certain language items, trying to decode the complex process in light ofpschotypology, prototypicality, and markedness theory.In order to verify and validate the framework, the author analyzes language transfer in terms of some syntactic structures in context of Chinese students learning English as L2. The framework is supported by the analysis: in respect of certain linguistic property, when the psychotypology of learners is distant, there will be no transfer occurring on the one hand, and on the other hand there will be underproduction or even avoidance; when the psychotypology of learners is close, it will be divided into two cases. (1) When the psychotypology accords with the actual language distance, there will be positive transfer of the correspondent L1 item. (2) When the psychotypology differs from or even contradicts the actual language distance, there will be negative transfer of the correspondent L1 item.