A Comparative Study On English Positive Transfer In German Acquisition

It is widely believed that with the development of globalization, grasping differentforeign languages play an important role in international cooperation and exchange. But thefirst language learning influences not only the second foreign language acquisition in almostall cases, and sometimes even can lead to some mistakes, including speech errors, grammarmistakes, syntax errors, etc., but also affects the cross-cultural communication and exchange.Therefore, it is necessary for the learners of a second foreign language to use the positivetransfer function of the first language and avoid negative transfer function, so as to promotethe second foreign language learning and cross-cultural communication. Based on thediscussion of several development stages of language transfer, important factors influence theforeign language acquisition and how to overcome the influence of negative transfer, thispaper focuses on the analysis of the positive transfer effect on guiding English majors tomaster German effectively. It attempts to illustrate how to use the effect of original knowledgeof English during the process of German acquisition through the comparative analysis of thedifferences and similarities between English and German from the pronunciation, vocabulary,syntax, etc., and improve the positive transfer effect of English on German learning and reducenegative transfer effect achieving the effect of bilingual learning and accelerating the learningof German.It consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduces the research background, includingresearch objective, research methodology and the layout of the thesis. Chapter two is literaturereview, which sets forth the transfer theory and the universal grammar. Chapter three is theresearch methods which elaborates the comparative analysis. Chapter four is the main body ofthis thesis. The fourth chapter is the main part of the paper. It mainly focuses on the similaritiesbetween English and German in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, tense and syntax which isbased on the comparative analysis theory, and points out that how to effectively make use of thepositive transfer of English to German acquisition. Chapter five summarizes this thesis andconcludes the discuss on the positive transfer function of English to German acquisition is atheoretical and practical topic, which promotes the German acquisition.