A Study On Lexical Fossilization In English Majors’ Chinese-English Translation

The second language learners often suffer from certain kind of cessation evenregress in their interlangauge after a long time of development. We call thephenomenon “fossilization”, which was proposed initially by the well-knownAmerican linguist Larry Selinker in his article Interlangauge.In recently years, fossilization on lexis has attracted more and more attentionfrom numerous domestic researchers and been studied from various aspects. However,the research on the lexical fossilization in translation is rather scarce. Nowadays,teachers and students have noticed that there are quite a lot repeatedly errors in theChinese-English translation from the English learners even the English majors. Theirtranslation competence seems to be in a state of stagnation. As the target language inChinese-English translation, once the English words fossilize, the progress inChinese-English translation will be hard to make and finally cause the fossilization intranslation competence. On the basis of the above-all observation and thinking, theauthor then wants to explore and analyze the lexical fossilization phenomenon fromthe perspective of Chinese-English translation. And the research questions areaddressed as follows: firstly, what particular aspects of the lexical fossilization arethere in the Chinese-English translation from the English majors? Secondly, what arethe main causal factors for the occurrence of the lexical fossilization in the Chinese-English translation? Thirdly, what practical strategies can we take to eliminate orreduce these areas of lexical fossilization?In the thesis, the author reviews the relative theories of IL and fossilizationphenomenon to have a clear understanding for IL development. On the basis of this,the author tries to explore and analyze the lexical fossilization in the Chinese-Englishtranslation by the college English majors. The author firstly collects the fossilizedlexical items in learners’ Chinese–English translation and makes detail analysis.Then with the help of the vocabulary test and a questionnaire, she finishes her studyand makes the following findings：Firstly, lexical fossilization phenomenon truly exists in the English majors’Chinese-English translation. The fossilized lexical errors on the nouns, verbs,prepositions and pronouns account for the most part of all the lexical errors that exist.What to be particularly mentioned are the fossilized errors on prepositions, articles and pronouns, which are much more than those occurring in writing, speaking, etc.Then, the author finds that the great influence of negative transfer from L1andthe TL and the lack of input should also not be neglected for the occurrence of theabove fossilized lexical items in Chinese-English translation. What to be mentionedparticularly is the imbalance attention paid by the English majors in their Chinese-English translation to conveying meaning, which gives rise to the most fossilizedlexical errors on function words. And the bad lexical learning habits and the lack ofstrong motivation are also important causal factors.Finally, to avoid lexical fossilization, the learners should firstly be aware of itand pay enough attention, especially to function word in Chinese-English translation.And then they should pay attention to lessening the negative language transfer fromthe L1and the TL by overcoming bad lexical learning habits and gaininghighly-qualified input at the aid of proper learning and communication strategies. Theteachers should apply more effective lexical teaching strategies and provide timelycorrective feedback.The author believes that, in the process of conducting the thesis, the study for thelexical fossilization phenomenon in Chinese-English translation is highly necessaryand essential for revealing the phenomenon of IL fossilization. The strategies of thelexical de-fossilization would provide some implications for classroom vocabularyteaching and learning and complement SLA studies in China to some degree.