Language Transfer In EFL Writing--A Cultural Perspective

The thesis attempts, from a cultural perspective, to study the Chinese transfer in EFL writing (writing in English as a foreign language). The significance of Language transfer has long been a controversial topic. Much research has been done in relation to the first language (L1) transfer in foreign language learning (FLL), however, most research focuses on the comparing and contrasting the linguistic differences between the two languages. But importance of the cultural impact in FLL and foreign language (FL) writing needs to be further explored. This issue becomes the initial drive that encourages the author to take up the task to deal with it.The thesis is based on a detailed analysis of compositions written by non-English majors in a Chinese tertiary institution. The contrastive analysis (CA) approach is used to compare the differences between Chinese and English writing; the error analysis (EA) approach to analyze the errors in English writings by Chinese learners; and the contrastive rhetoric (CR) approach to track down cultural roots of the differences.We find that: 1) Chinese learners' mother tongue knowledge plays a negative role in their English writing; 2) this negative transfer is due to not only the linguistic difference between English and Chinese but the difference of rhetorical organizations and cultural conceptions in English and Chinese writing.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is a critical review of the controversy surrounding language transfer. Three phases of the development of the theory are mentioned here. Chapter two is a discussion of the current views of language transfer in EFL writing. In Chapter three, four and five, a cultural approach is adopted to examine some aspects of Chinese transfer at the lexical, syntactic and textual levels. The sample analyses we provide in these chapters are based on some compositions by non-English majors in Chinese tertiary institution.It is believed that the current research and discussion in this thesis are of some practical significance in the teaching of EFL writing, and the author will future the work in this field in the future teaching and research.