A Study Of Transfer Errors In English Writing

Language transfer has been a central issue in Second LanguageAcquisition and language teaching for nearly a century. In the last few decades,its status in second language learning has been reassessed several times.Though its importance in second language learning has once been severelyplayed down especially in 1970s, language transfer has in recent years arousedpeople's interest again and received wide acceptance as a complex mentalprocess. It is considered to function in second language learning together witha number of other factors. This present study is an effort to explore the transferproblems in the written product of non-English majors through investigatingthe L1 strategy involvement in the English writing process as well as therelation between L1 strategy and transfer errors.Two theories, Contrastive Analysis and Markedness Theory, are used asthe theoretical background of the experiment. Previous researches on contrastsbetween English and Chinese and on L1 use in L2 writing at home and abroadare drawn on as the basis to design the experiment and to analyze the researchresults. 109 students of non-English majors from Jilin University participate inthis experiment, and the instruments are picture writing and questionnaire.The subjects are found relying heavily on L1 strategy in the Englishwriting process due to the specific stage (all of them are freshmen) andcommitting many types of transfer errors; and based on the data calculated, itis found that there is no direct relation between these two parts. Instead, thedata shows that high-strategy group commits less transfer errors thanlow-strategy group. Transfer errors in L2 writing may not be necessarily due to...