A Survey Of The Effect Of Native Cultural Negative Transfer In The Acquisition Of English Proverbs

In order to help promote Chinese students’ acquisition of English proverbs and reducethe effect of naive cultural negative transfer, this thesis conduct a survey about the effect ofnative cultural negative transfer in the acquisition of English proverbs. As different nationshave different cultures, students may encounter many problems during their acquisition ofEnglish proverbs. As an important part of culture, proverbs reflect different geography, history,religion, and customs among different nations. The acquisition of English proverbs is helpfulfor students’ improvement of culture competence, and it can reduce communication problems.In addition, it can improve students’ writing ability. However, with the difference of cultures,it is easy for students to be influenced by their naive culture. And it maybe more difficult forstudents’ acquisition when there is a big gap between native culture and target culture. So withthe help of this survey, some useful suggestions are given to teachers and students to helpenhance their learning of English proverbs.This thesis has five parts. The first part mainly introduces the research background, thesignificance of this study, and the organization of this thesis. The second part views somerelated theories and studies which includes the theory of transfer, the theory of conceptualmetaphor, cultural relativism theory, and the principle of linguistic relativity. The third part ismethodology. The research design is introduced in this chapter, including research questions,subjects involved in the investigation, instruments, and the process in which the investigationwas carried out. There are three research questions:1) How does cultural negative transferwork in Chinese students’ acquisition of English proverbs?2) Why does cultural negativetransfer influence Chinese students’ acquisition of English proverbs?3) What can we do toenhance Chinese students’ learning of English proverbs? The subjects are two hundredsophomores of both sexes in Liaoning Normal University. They come from four differentmajors. The instruments include two questionnaires: one questionnaire is about Englishproverbs and another questionnaire is about current status of English proverbs’ teaching inChina. The forth part is results and discussion. In this chapter, the data are analyzed and theresults are discussed in detail. And the last part is the conclusion. By analyzing and discussingthese data, I find out that native cultural negative transfer has an effect on Chinese students’acquisition of English proverbs, which results from people’s different views of the world,different values, and different modes of thinking. In order to help promote Chinese students’acquisition, both teachers and students should pay more attention to English proverbs, andthey should realize the importance of learning them. Then, they can use the method ofcomparison during their learning, which is help for them. And at the same time, they should obey the principle of tolerance and respect other cultures.