The Influences Of Chinese Children's Vocabulary Of The Native Language On English Vocabulary Acquisition And Learning Strategies Training

Words are the bases of a language. The lack of vocabulary is a bottle-neck" which prevents students from raising their English lever, especially for children. Language transfer is a universal phenomenon in the second language acquisition. It refers to the influence imposed by a learner's possessed linguistic knowledge and skill upon the subsequent learning of new linguistic knowledge or skill. According to the effect that the native language has on the foreign language, transfer is classified two types: positive transfer and negative transfer. Generally, positive transfer takes place where there are similarities between the two languages and will facilitate foreign language learning, while negative transfer results from their differences and will lead to errors.Belonging to two different language families, English and Chinese are different from each other besides some similarities in all aspects including vocabulary. Inevitably, English vocabulary learning by Chinese children is also influenced by the Chinese language. The researches at home and abroad show that children possess an instinctive language acquisition device .With the popularity of learning English in Chinese children, it is getting more and more necessary to research the influences of Chinese on children's English vocabulary acquisition.For years, Most experts have emphasized the negative transfer in foreign language learning(FLL)and neglected the positive role of the native language. Little has been discussed on transfer of Chinese vocabulary on children's English vocabulary learning. Therefore, intending to make up for this limitation, this thesis aims more especially at the transfer of Chinese on the English vocabulary acquisition by Chinese children and effective vocabulary acquisition strategies.This thesis intends to make a tentative inductive and experimental study by taking the theories of language transfer, linguistic universals, children's language development, foreign language acquisition and connectionism as its rationale, and to probe into the features of Chinese influences on English vocabulary learning by Chinese children are presented with an experimental study. Here the students of two classes from Chaoyang Primary School in Yueyang City were taken as subjects and the survey lasted 13 weeks. We found the relationship between Chinese and English vocabulary as well as the effects of English vocabulary learning strategies from the data.The thesis consists of an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. The introduction briefly reviews of the study topic, concerning the definition of language transfer, the historical development of language transfer, the types of language transfer and the importance and the reason of raising the study topic. Differentiating some terms which either are going to be used in this thesis.Chapter One presents in detail previous research and finding by the researchers home and abroad as well as the arguments and studies relevant to the thesis topic.In Chapter Two, theoretical framework and views on language transfer the vocabulary acquisition strategies are explicated in detail as theoretical foundation of the empirical study, including the theories of language transfer, connectionism , linguistic universals, children's language development, foreign language acquisition.Chapter Three provides an experimental study on how Chinese vocabulary is transferred into English vocabulary learning by Chinese children and the effect of the corresponding vocabulary learning strategies.Chapter Four discusses the reasons for the positive and negative transfer in children's English vocabulary learning, and provides some effective vocabulary learning strategies on the Chinese children so as to make full use of positive transfer and reduce the negative influence of it as much as possible.The last part draws some conclusions on the base of the result and analysis. That is, Chinese vocabulary threshold has influences on children's English vocabulary acquisition and be able to facilitate English vocabulary learning; corresponding vocabulary learning strategies training can make full use of the positive transfer and reduce the negative influences of it as much as possible.