An Analysis Of Negative Transfer From Chinese In The English Writings Of Senior High School Students

Senior high school students' English writing competence is an important manifestation of their English proficiency.In fact,English writing competence of most high school students does not meet the requirements of the curriculum standards.In the current stage of English writing,it is found that many students often make spelling and grammatical errors in their compositions.Even though some advanced students do not make such errors,they will also have difficulties like incomprehensible expressions,poor logical thinking and etc.In all,Chinese negative transfer is one of the main causes of these errors.Since the 1950 s,negative transfer of language has been one of the objects that linguists have studied continuously.The transfer of native language means that learners' habits of using native language can affect the acquisition of second language.Transfer which can promote second language acquisition is called positive transfer,and the opposite one is called negative transfer.This study is based on comparative analysis and error analysis theory and focus on the phenomenon of negative transfer of Chinese in senior high school students' English writing.By classifying the errors in students' writing,the proportion of each type of errors can be found out.On this basis,the specific causes for each kind of errors are analyzed to help teachers take effective measures to improve teaching methods,to help students overcome the negative impact of Chinese and improve their efficiency of English learning.This study aims to answer the following three questions:1.What are the main types of Chinese negative transfer errors made by senior high school students in their writing?2.What are the main causes for the Chinese negative transfer errors in senior high school students' writing?3.What are the effective solutions to reduce the influence of Chinese negative transfer in senior high school students' writing?In this study,questionnaires and interviews are conducted.106 Senior Two students from Luoyang NO.1 Senior High School will take part in the survey and their 212 writing compositions will be collected.After the collecting of the student's compositions,students are asked to complete the questionnaires within a limited period of time.Then three experienced English teachers are interviewed to make sure whether they have the consciousness of the differences between Chinese and English,thus the validity of the study can be guaranteed.The results of the research are that: 1.70.5% errors in the students' English writing are caused by Chinese negative transfer,which are mainly reflected in three aspects: lexical level,syntactic level and discourse level.The main types of lexical errors include the misuse of verbs,plural noun,and parts of speech;The main types of errors in syntax are: disagreement between subject and predicate and errors in tense and voice;The main error in discourse is cohesion.2.The main reasons for these errors are: First,students are unaware of the differences between Chinese and English;second,students are used to thinking in Chinese first,and then translated in English.Third,the students' language input is not enough;3.The following three suggestions are proposed: First,teachers should emphasize the difference between Chinese and English in class;Second,teachers should improve the teaching methods of vocabulary and grammar to arouse students' interest in English;In the end,students should increase their language input by extensive reading.