Transfer Influences On Verbal Lexical Collocations In Chinese EFL Writing

Over a long period of time, mother tongue transfer has been a controversial issuein second language acquisition. The present study aims to examine language transferfrom contextual perspective of the Compensation Hypothesis. According to theCompensation Hypothesis, lack of authentic L2context compatible with L2incurs amismatch of L2forms with L1contextual knowledge, giving rise to L1transfer. Thatis, L1contextual knowledge mediates transfer from L1to L2. This conceptualizationdiffers from the traditional notion of language transfer in that L1transfer is due moreto contextual knowledge than to ignorance of L2forms. However, few attempts havethus far been made to investigate the process of language transfer from this contextualperspective.This study chooses89compositions finished by Chinese learners of Englishfrom three different learning stages as corpora and analyzes verbal lexicalcollocational errors resulting from L1and L1context to verify the CompensationHypothesis based on procedures of Error Analysis. The author attempts to code thedata according to different types of errors, retrieve data by using ConCapp software,and then analyze verbal collocational errors in terms of L1context-driven transfer.This paper mainly examines the following two questions:1) Are errors in verballexical collocations resulting from the influences of L1and L1context noticeable inChinese EFL writing?2) What are the relations between learners’ L2writingproficiency and errors in verbal lexical collocations resulting from the influences ofL1and L1context in Chinese EFL writing?The research results reveal that in their writings Chinese EFL learners have madea multitude of verbal lexical collocational errors arising from L1transfer, and that L1contextual knowledge actually plays an influential role in inducing L1transfer amongChinese EFL learners. The higher English level the Chinese EFL learners are at, thefewer verbal lexical collocational errors they will make due to the influences of L1 and L1context. Put it another way, compared with their intermediate and advancedcounterparts, elementary English learners are more liable to commit verbal lexicalcollocational errors in terms of L1context-driven transfer. We have also found that,while the advanced Chinese EFL learners tend to use more complicated verbal lexicalcollocations, their elementary counterparts prefer using simpler and more generalverbs such as de-lexical verbs in their writing.This study provides empirical evidence for the Compensation Hypothesis andverifies that the influence of L1contextual knowledge is likely to constitute aremarkable factor in inducing language transfer. Meanwhile, this study has somepedagogical implications on English teaching and learning: EFL learners should beexposed to sufficient and contextually appropriate L2input in their foreign languagelearning. Raising students’ awareness of L2collocational expressions, a moreimportant and repeatedly stressed point in this study, should never be neglected in thefuture EFL teaching process.