Negative Transfer Of Native Language On The English Writing Of Senior High School Students And Its Practical Enlightenments

The transfer of native language is a phenomenon that cannot be denied in the process of a learner's second language acquisition due to the fact that the learner has had a rather developed prior L1 system in his or her mind. Therefore, native language's transfer, especially negative transfer has been a major concern of both language teachers and language researchers. The phenomenon of native language transfer can be clearly traced in Chinese senior high school students'English writing and it is the native language's negative transfer that has mostly been the obstacle to English writing for Chinese language learners. Based on the language transfer theory and the studies made in such a field previously, the thesis focuses on negative transfer, which is shown in the numerous errors that the students committed. By analyzing typical mistakes in students'English writing caused by native language's negative transfer, this paper intends to reduce mistakes of these aspects and seek for more effective teaching method of English writing, thus enhance students'proficiency of English writing.To start with, this thesis gives the definition and classification of transfer. The thesis also introduces the concept and the source of language transfer theory: Error Analysis, Contrastive Analysis and Interlanguage. Then subjects, method, instrument and procedure are introduced. After that the thesis concentrates on listing errors due to the negative transfer. The errors are categorized into substance, lexical, syntactic and rhetoric errors with examples provided. The study shows that negative transfer of native language is one of the major sources of the errors, and the main reason is the difference between the two languages. Thus, some pedagogical implications are drawn about what should be done in order to reduce negative transfer of native language in the fourth chapter. First, English teachers should give their students English definition when teaching words so that students can foster English thinking. Second English teachers should also increase the input of English resources by various means so that students can develop English sense. Third, emphasis should be laid on the contrast between Chinese and English to reduce native language's negative transfer. Finally more attention should be paid to analyze the organization of the discourse so that students can improve their writing skills.