The Impact Of The Negative Transfer Of Mother Tongue On The English Writing Of Non-English Major Students

Among most colleges,English is selected as a major foreign language for students to study.In that case,the five fundamental skills——listening,speaking,reading,writing and translation should also acquire the balanced improvement.Admittedly,writing can not only mirror the basic linguistic level,but also the reflection of social interaction.However,influenced by the grade-oriented system,the ratio of English writing weighs relatively lower,while consuming more time and energy.Hence,both teachers and students pay little attention to it;at the same time,due to diverse differences between the two languages,technique of expression,as well as thinking mode,students' writing ability still cannot reach a satisfactory status.This thesis aims at analyzing the errors of English writing according to the negative transfer of mother tongue,together with the guidance of the comparative analysis,error analysis and interlanguage theory.Both quantitative and qualitative ways are adopted in this research.The author has selected 175 freshmen from six different classes as experimental subjects,which come from the academy of forestry,school of civil engineering and school of humanity and law of the Northeast Forestry University,adopting a questionnaire survey so as to obtain a basic cognition about students' writing level.Subsequently,the author undertook four different English writing tests,taking nearly 668 compositions as this research sample;at the same time,some interviews are also made to analyze the effect of the negative transfer to the English writing of non-English major freshmen.The research results have shown that: 1.most errors appeared in students' compositions are related to the effect of negative transfer of mother tongue;meanwhile,the limit between intralingual errors and interlingual errors are not so obvious;2.these errors brought by negative transfer of mother tongue are mainly embodied in morphology,vocabulary,syntax,discourse and idioms;3.major causes of such phenomenon can be concluded as follows——the differences between English and Chinese,thinking patterns and studying strategies.This study has enriched empirical research of the effect of negative transfer of mother tongue on English writing errors of non-English major freshmen,providing new methods for college students to strengthen their writing level.On this evidence,based on this empirical research,the author has also put forward some studying strategies for students,teaching suggestions for teachers,in order to reduce the negative effects of transfer of mother tongue and improve comprehensive English level and ability under the joint endeavor and provide new approaches for the non-English major freshmen to make English writing practices.