Transfer Effect Of L1(Chinese) On The Acquisition Of Reflexives Of L2(English)

This thesis is designed to investigate how and to what extent L1 (Chinese) knowledge could exercise influences on the acquisition of L2 (English) reflexives. Do L1 Chinese learners of L2 English learn English reflexives based on their knowledge about Chinese reflexives? Does the transfer of Chinese knowledge exist throughout the whole acquisition process of English reflexives? At what stage or stages of acquisition does the transfer effect show itself most evidently? Is there positive correlation relationship between the parametric resetting of English reflexives and the exposure degree to English? Through the tests taken by L1 Chinese learners who are divided into three groups based on their English proficiency, this thesis is supposed to find out the potential answers to the issues mentioned above.Three hypotheses have been made in this thesis: 1) L1 Chinese learners of L2 English have some difficulty in acquiring the local binding feature of English reflexives and L1 Chinese learners of L2 English tend to transfer their native language settings into English; 2) Language transfer shows itself most evidently in the initial stage of second language acquisition and the effect of language transfer decreases gradually along with the improvement of English proficiency; and 3) The parameter resetting of English reflexives is positively correlated with English proficiency or exposure degree to English.The results of this test prove our hypotheses partially: 1) L1 Chinese learners of L2 English have some difficulty in acquiring the local binding feature of English reflexives and the subject orientation is evidently shown in these three groups of subjects, reflecting some evidence of language transfer; 2) The negative effect of language transfer decreases along with the improvement of English proficiency of the subjects. However, the stage at which language transfer shows its effect most evidently is the second stage of SLA, quite different from what we expected; and 3) The parameter resetting of English reflexives is positively correlated with the English proficiency but the ratio of parameter resetting shows a nonlinear upward trend.