Positive Effects Of First Language On Adult Second Language Writing

Studies on English writing have attracted great interest in recent years. In those researches the role of first language (L1) is usually underestimated. Therefore it turns out that the research focuses are on errors in compositions. How to avoid the negative effects of Chinese is of great significance for a long time. With the development of cognitive linguistics, people come to concern the mental process of second language (L2) writing, but the focus is still related to the negative effects of L1 on L2 writing. That is, researchers usually keep eyes on the L1 thinking mode that interferes with the L2 writing. The purpose of this thesis is to reevaluate the role of L1 in L2 writing for different learners in China, in more specific words, to observe on what specific points that L1 influences second language writing. The value of L1 in L2 writing should be reconsidered and reevaluated. Besides the negative effects, some unknown positive effects of L1 would be hopefully perceived in my research.My research question focuses on two aspects.The first aspect is to observe if L1 can play a positive role in English writing and how the positive role works. Specifically speaking, the effects of Chinese on English writing are investigated from eight aspects: correction of grammar, transition, varieties of sentence patterns, variety in vocabulary, proper use of rhetoric, context organization, clarity of point, richness of points. By comparing the writings on the direct method and the translated one, specific data and the subsequent discussions are generated.The second aspect is to see if the impacts of transfer on English learners at two different levels are different? That is to say, if L1 transfer promotes certain point of advanced learners' writing, does it do the same for the poor learners?This research is an experimental study. Direct writing (write directly in English) and translated writing (write in Chinese first and then translate the Chinese version into English) will be used to observe the differences caused by different writing approaches. Software SPSS will be used to do the statistical analysis so as to obtain my finding(?)in this experiment.The major findings are based on the analysis of the data collected from compositions of different learners.First, for the poor learners, Chinese exerts positive effects on six aspects: transition, varieties of sentence patterns, variety in vocabulary, context organization, clarity of point, richness of points. For the six aspects, the compositions written through the translated method are scored highly. With the help of their first language, Chinese, their writings are smoother with various sentence patterns and vocabulary used in their compositions; moreover, their ideas are clearer and richer and organized more reasonably. However, as for the aspects of grammar correction and proper use of rhetoric, it is unexpected to find that Chinese does not influence English writing positively.Second, for the advanced learners, Chinese exerts positive effects on the following seven aspects: grammar, transition, varieties of sentence patterns, variety in vocabulary, context organization, clarity of point, richness of points. Through the translated method, the advanced learners' performance of the seven aspects is better than that through the direct method. Their first language, Chinese, does affect their English writings positively. However, it is found that Chinese does not affect English writing positively in terms of the rhetorical aspect.