The Influence Of Mother Tongue Transfer On English Writing By Non-English Major University Students

The phenomenon of language transfer cannot be denied in the process of second languageacquisition. In the process of learning a second language, mother tongue is the most reliableresource to draw from because it is not reasonable to count on reaching a native languagelearners’ level without an English environment, which is the core of language acquisition.Native language’s transfer, both positive transfer and negative transfer, have been a hot topicand major concern of both teachers and students. Based on theories relevant to languagetransfer and the studies made in this field previously, this thesis focuses on the phenomenon oflanguage transfer, which is reflected in the sample writings collected from non-English majorstudents in the college. By analyzing errors caused by mother tongue’s negative transfer andfacilitation items owing to Chinese positive transfer, the author tries to seek an effective use oflanguage transfer in order to find more practical teaching methods for teachers and enhance thestudents’ proficiency level of non-English major students.Based on contrastive analysis theory, error analysis theory, and relevant theories, theauthor carried out a qualitative analysis on the statistical results of the compositions collectedfrom non-English major freshmen in Shandong Jianzhu University, and a quantitative analysisthrough questionnaires and interviews. In general, the thesis focuses on compositions’ differentlevels from vocabulary, syntax, and discourse. For the lexical transfer part, the most obvioustransfer phenomenon was found on the word order in a sentence, the absence of some words,and word collocations. As to the syntax transfer, parataxis and hypotaxis, coordination andsubordination, personal and impersonal orientation, overuse and avoidance of some sentencepatterns have been analyzed and positive transfer on syntactical level was also included. For thepart of discourse transfer analysis, focus has been on three levels, namely, the topic sentences,the text structure, and the cohesion mechanism.In the end, some pedagogical implications and suggestions have been brought up forEnglish teaching and learning aiming at making full use of positive transfer and reducingnegative transfer of Chinese. Contrastive study and intensive training can be an effective wayin taking an advantage of positive transfer while enhancing the intercultural awareness, broadening the vocabulary and grammar input and widening the reading input could be usefulin reducing the negative transfer. Besides, an effective feedback to writing practice may also beworth putting much emphasis.