A Study Of First Language Transfer In Non-English Majors' English Writing In Radio And TV University

It is a common sense that adults learn a foreign language on the basis of their knowledge concerning their mother tongue(or first language).This involves the influence of the first language on the second language acquisition(SLA).We have a term ?language transfer? to represent this influence.The theoretical study on language transfer has started since the 1940 s.Linguists and scholars in this field believe that the similarities between the two languages will facilitate and improve SLA(referred to as positive transfer),while the differences between them may be obstacles to SLA(termed as negative transfer),causing errors and misunderstandings in both speaking and writing.This phenomenon is also true for Chinese people learning English as a foreign language.And it is also true for adult students‘ English learning,especially their English writing in Radio and TV University.The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the students‘ knowledge regarding their first language on their English writing in Radio and TV University.It aims to find out the answers to the following questions:(1)What is the general situation of first language transfer in non-English major students‘ English writing in Radio and TV University?(2)What are the types and sources of errors made by the non-English majors in their English writing in Radio and TV University?(3)What may be the possible strategies to take advantage of positive transfer and to eliminate errors caused by negative transfer in the non-English majors‘ English writing in Radio and TV University?Two research instruments——English writing tests and an interview are employed in this study.Three writing tests are given to 54 Non-English Majors(majoring in Accounting and Law)in Grade Two in Jinan Radio and TV University in order to find out the general situation of language transfer in their English writing and the types and sources of errors made by them.And the interview is designed to find out the strategies of both all the 8 English teachers and 10 non-English major students with higher English writing proficiency in Jinan Radio and TV University to make full use of positive effect of language transfer and to overcome the negative influence of the mother tongue,and finally to help the non-English majors in this university improve their English writing competence.In the English writing tests,153 writing samples are collected.The author calculates and collates all the correct and incorrect sentences in the samples,and analyzes their causes on the basis of Terence Odlin‘s theory about language transfer.Particularly,she places emphasis on calculating and collating the errors in the samples,meticulously recording and analyzing them in EXCELs.She classifies the main errors into four categories——the substance error,lexical error,grammatical error and pragmatic error on the basis of James‘ classification of errors,and also she further analyzes and discusses the causes of the errors.According to the result of this study,the author finds that: the ?SVO? structure in Chinese has a positive influence(Positive Transfer)on students‘ English writing,which accounts for one third of the correct sentences in the writing.Students have directly applied this structure to organize simple sentences.Meanwhile,language transfer should take the main responsibility for the errors in the students‘ English writings since more than half of the errors are caused by negative transfer from their previous knowledge about Chinese.Among all the errors that the students commit in their English writing,the grammatical errors account for 43%,most of which are caused by the difference between English and their mother tongue.And in the interview,both the English teachers and the students in question in Jinan Radio and TV University put forward some feasible strategies that are worth trying to take advantage of positive transfer and to overcome negative transfer,reducing errors that appear in the non-English majors‘ English writing.On the basis of the above research,some remedial methods are proposed to shed some light on English teaching and learning as the implementations of the study.And some suggestions are also proposed to future studies in this field.