The Influence Of The Native Thinking Patterns On The Writing Of English Of Students At Different Levels

Three categories of errors in the English compositions the Chinese non-English freshmen reflect the negative transfer of the Chinese thinking patterns. Contrastive analysis of different thinking patterns in these two languages should be applied in English teaching to help the students raise awareness of the English thinking patterns to improve their writing proficiency.To start with, the paper introduces the definition of transfer by Odlin(1989) and four types of transfer. Views about negative transfer have undergone considerable change. Initially, negative transfer was viewed as interference. It was assumed that errors produced by the learners were caused by interference. However, the empirical tests proved that not all errors were caused by interference. The tests showed that interference played little role in L2 learning and it was just a communication strategy and should be ignored. However, this point minimized the role of Ll. A cognitive view stated that L1 as previous experience existed in fixed probabilistic patterns in learners'cognitive schema. L1 was more easily activated than L2. What's more, in learning L2 the students'cognitive schema was reorganized on the basis of the original schema. They tended to extend existing L1 rule categories and then L 1 negative transfer appeared.The author of this thesis tries to discuss the negative transfer of the first language thinking patterns from the perspectives of writing process and writing product, combining with quantitative and qualitative analysis. The aim is to figure out the relationship between the Chinese thinking patterns and English writing of the students'and the common features of the errors committed by the students at different English levels.First of all, based on the empirical data, the thesis analyzes the negative transfer of the first language thinking patterns in Chinese students'writing from the standpoints of lexis, syntax and discourse. According to the results from the table, the author has the following findings: (1) Negative transfer of the Chinese thinking patterns is present at all language levels. (2) With the students'English level increasing, the less influence of the L1 thinking patterns they are under. (3)The errors in the aspect of the location of the topic rank first, which indicates the students are not familiar with the English thinking and writing patterns. Since this is quite easy to explain and understand, the students make quick adjustment in their writing. (4) For all of the students in the research, Chinese sentence patterns are the biggest obstacles in their writing process, as they made the many errors in this part and it's hard for the students to understand the differences between the sentence patterns in a short time. (5) What distinguish the higher-level students from the others are the aspects of Chinglish expressions and the location of the topic. Since the students with higher writing proficiency made much fewer errors in these two parts than the other students. After analyzing the data, the author carried out interviews in the classroom and made notes. The results reveal that almost all of the students employ the first language thinking patterns in conceiving, choosing words, and arranging the composition.Finally, the author suggests some pedagogical implications to avoid negative transfer, including (1) introducing contrastive analysis, (2) acquiring vocabulary, (3) encouraging the students to read and write, (4) correcting of the writing and (5) using dictionary. In this way, students are guided to know the differences between Chinese and English languages and what the proper way to learn English is so that their writing proficiency will be improved.