Conceptual Transfer In SLA

Within the cognitive linguistic framework developed by Lakoff (1987), that is, Experientialism or Experiential realism, this study investigated the semantic acquisition of English spatial prepositions by Chinese learners in attempt to find out how concepts that a person has acquired through first language experience might influence his or her use of an L2.This study examined the semantic acquisition of five related spatial prepositions "on, onto, on top of, over and above" by advanced and intermediate Chinese learners of English. Based on a fundamental assumption in cognitive linguistics that "semantic structure is equated with conceptual structure and meaning is assumed to equal conceptualization" (Smith, 1993: 531), the interference of L1-based conceptual system was identified in terms of the comparison between different semantic boundaries ascribed to each preposition under investigation by native speakers of English and by Chinese learners.Three groups of subjects participated in the study. They were 24 native speakers of English serving as a control, 36 post-graduate students of English major in GDUFS serving as advanced learners, and 39 non-English major freshmen in Shenzhen University serving as intermediate learners. Two measures were used to elicit data: a Sentence-completion Test and a Semantic-relatedness Test. The L1-based conceptual influence was analyzed in terms of conceptual contents and conceptual structure (i.e., prototypicality) respectively.The study has found out that: 1) Chinese learners of English differed substantially from the native speakers of Enghsh in the semantic boundaries they ascribed to each item investigated. 2) Both the conceptual content and the conceptual structure of Chinese played a role in the differences. The words that Chinese learners used were related to the degree of similarity in the linguisticclassification of corresponding meanings in the L1 and the L2 and the consequent conceptual restructuring required in the acquisition of the L2 words. The meaning ascribed to central members of the semantic category investigated more closely approximated that of native speakers than the meaning assigned to noncentral ones. Figurative meanings were found to be the most difficult part for the L2 learners. 3) The English conceptual system was interacting with Chinese conceptual system in deciding the difficulty degree of learning the second language. 4) Learners with higher L2 proficiency exhibited less conceptual influence of the native language than did learners of lower L2 proficiency.The findings are interpreted as a piece of evidence for the conceptual influence from mother tongue on the L2 acquisition. These empirical results in turn validate the experientialist perspective of language and meaning. This study also called for increased attention to the consistent conceptual system underlying the seemingly unrelated linguistic forms, which is believed to also benefit the field of foreign language teaching largely.