A Cognitive Analysis On Language Transfer In Translation Learning

The influence of native language on the foreign language acquisition has long been a heated topic in the Second Language Acquisition research. Reasoning from error analysis to contrastive study, researchers are trying hard to identify that influence and root it out. Chinglish, however, still mushrooms in a wide range of circumstances, in which English is used in and about China. The language transfer theory offers a more comprehensive perspective for the study of the various kinds of transfer phenomena. Therefore, based on the theoretical framework of the cognitive approach to language transfer as well as the close relation between writing and translation, this thesis aims at exploring the impact of Chinese on English writing and translation through the investigations into the abundant negative transfer phenomena in College English learning. Three methods---data sorting in a corpus, questionnaire testifying and contrastive study---are employed in the research.Firstly, 40 compositions are chosen randomly from the rangefinder and samples of CET marking system in recent seven years. After a careful study all the phenomena of negative transfer scattered in them are recorded in categories and analyzed in detail. Then, these typical transfer phenomena are tested in the translation questionnaire designed by the author in two groups of college students: one is made up of 70 students who are in their second year of college English study but has not taken the optional translation course (control group); the other consists of 60 students of the same year and has completed the optional translation course.A contrastive study is conducted between these two sets of data from students'translation tasks to explore the effects of Chinese on their English performance in translation learning. As the analysis shows, the findings indicate that there are several kinds of significant negative transfer that correspond between their writing output and translation output, in terms of word misuse, grammar, sentence structure and the semantic meaning and so on. But two investigations into translation performance bear some significant differences in the frequency and distribution of negative transfer: the latter done by those who have taken optional translation course shows a dramatic reduce of the negative transfer. The retrospective report data from these students reveal that negative transfer exists in both writing and translation practice. But the phenomena will be greatly reduced if students have more exposure to translation theory and practice (such as taking optional translation course or translation related tasks in college English classes), and that not only could translation be improved but also writing ability elevated, through which students may enhance their English competence in a whole.Implications and approaches coping with the negative transfer from Chinese to English are suggested. The meaning of the study and its limitation are summarized in the concluding part of the paper.