Mother Tongue Influence On The Process Of L2 Production

Language transfer has been a central issue in applied linguistics, second langue acquisition, and language teaching for at least a century (Odlin, 2001). As the core of the study of language transfer, the influence of the mother tongue in second language acquisition has long been a controversial topic with many problems remaining unsolved. The previous study proved that the influence of the mother tongue on L2 learning is being "either negative or positive". During the recent 2 decades, attention has been shifted from the study with the focus on the results of L2 production to the process of L2 production. However, few researches have been conducted in this new perspective. The present writer has tried her hand to conduct a pilot investigation with a breakthrough of the influence of the mother tongue on the process of L2 production. The study is set to examine the influence of the mother tongue on Chinese students' L2 learning with the empirical investigation of the writing process of the college students and help answer the question whether mother tongue is the facilitator or the obstacle in this process. To this end, the flowing issues are addressed:1. What is the general situation of the writing process of the subjects and what is therelation between the amount of the mother tongue use and the language proficiency of the learners?2. What is the relation between the amount of the mother tongue use and the quality ofthe compositions?3. Is the mother tongue irresistible and why?4. What kind of role dose mother tongue play in L2 learning? Being either positive ornegative?The participants involved in this study were 12 students (from 4 grades, 3 for each) from Foreign Language and Literature Department of Shengda College of Zhengzhou University. Think aloud method was adopted to record the process of the argumentation writing of the subjects to examine the influence of the mother tongue on L2 production. The analysis of the verbal protocol and observation of the experiment showed that the mother tongue influence is irresistible and dynamic in that it is positive mainly in the levelof content and structure organization and negative in the language output especially the words choosing and sentences building. The mother tongue mainly acts as the macro-control and the medium between the LI and the target language. The results are consistent with the PDP theory in cognitive science maintaining that human brain has the instinctive feature of searching for and establishing relationship among things. Moreover, mother tongue influence is a process rather than a result and it is not the mere interference or dependence on the LI (YU Liming, 2004). Therefore, the mother tongue is wronged to be regarded as the major obstacle of L2 learning. The key point is that it should be make clear under what condition it functions positively and in what cases it is negative.It is hoped that the present research can make some contributions, if any, to the theoretical development of the corresponding field and give some inspiration to the language teachers in making the most of the mother tongue influence with an appropriate and objective attitude toward it rather than the mere ignorance of it. Meanwhile, they should guide the learners to minimize the negative influence of the mother tongue in L2 learning.The present writer maintains that more attention should be concentrated on the specific environment of the English learners in China. The advanced theories and research methods in SLA of the western counties could be adopted by the Chinese researchers and more empirical investigations and quantitative data are still demanding in this field. Based on the achievements of the previous investigators, the present writer will be very happy if her efforts can make the least bit of contributions in shedding light on the further researches.