Analysis Of Interlanguage In Chinese College Students' English Writing

In Selinker's (1972) view, the languages used by second language learners should be seen as an internal language system, not mere linguistic errors. This language system is called by Selinker "interlanguage", which structurally features both native language and target language. Interlanguage is always in its development and is approaching to the target language. The development of interlanguage of the second language learners is a process in which second language learners make hypothesis on the target language and test them in the learning process. Interlanguage has three features: systematicity, variability and fossilization (Yip, 1995). As to the factors affecting the construction of interlanguage, Selinker (1972) considered them as processes working in the mind. They are: (1) Language transfer; (2) Overgeneralization of L2 rules; (3) Transfer of training; (4) Strategies of L2 learning and (5) Communication strategies.Second language writing (SLW) is one of the linguistic skills which must be mastered by learners. Second language writing is in fact the development of the written form of interlanguage in which it progresses for the target language. "Interlanguage is a developmental language system constructed by L2 learners in their learning process, and it has the features of both native language and target language. Interlanguage is usually regarded as a strategy for accelerating the development of learning and trying to break away from the interference of the native language. " (Liu, 1998) Chinese college students' English writing ability is subject to the English proficiency and the interference from the native language. Besides, Chinese thought pattern exerts great influence on the English sentence making and the arrangement of English discourse in their writing. With an interlanguage perspective, this thesis tries to have a study of the interlanguage influence on Chinese college students' English writing from three levels: lexical, syntactic and discourse. At the end of the thesis, the conclusion is formulated: to use the method of Contrastive Analysis to look into the nature of the two languages and to cultivate students' cross-cultural consciousness are the therapy for students' interlanguage in their English writings.