A Study On The Relationship Between College Students' Chinese Writing Proficiency And Their English Writing Proficiency

The effect.of the first language(L1) on second language writing has been a heated topic in foreign language teaching.However,most researches have been paying attention to the negative effect of a native language on second language(L2) writing.Few studies,if any,have touched upon the positive transfer.Therefore,to investigate the positive transfer of the Chinese language to the English language with regard to writing would be beneficial to English learners for their improvement of English writing and has an important implication in language teaching.Based on some relevant theories of language transfer,particularly Cumming's common underlying proficiency hypothesis,this paper attempts to explore the positive impact of Chinese on English writing It intends to address the following questions:Is learners' Chinese writing proficiency positively related to their English writing proficiency? If it is,would the learners who have a higher proficiency in Chinese writing also have advantages over these who do not perform well in Chinese writing in these aspects as use of words,grammar,coherence contents and organization in their English writing?Two research methods were adopted in this study:(1) composition writing both in Chinese and English;(2) questionnaires.The subjects of the study were 26 second-year students in Zhongyuan University of Technology in Zhengzhou City. Data were analyzed by employing Pearson correlation coefficient to measure the correlation between the students' proficiency in Chinese writing and their proficiency in English writing.Meanwhile,the aspects of contents,organization,use of words, grammar,and coherence were also measured in detail.Furthermore,information from the questionnaires was also collected and analyzed to provide further evidence to the research question.The final result of the Pearson correlation coefficient between the Chinese and the English writing turned out to be 0.43 at the 5%significant level,indicating some relationship between the Chinese writing and the English writing.In other words,the students' profidency in Chinese writing is positively correlated to their proficiency in English writing.The result of the questionnaires has also confirmed the result of the correlation analysis and the positive transfer of Chinese seems more apparent in the content of the English writing.Thus,it can be concluded that for English learners in the process of improving their English writing,the positive effect of their mother tongue,the Chinese language, should not be overlooked since it can facilitate their learning of English.