A Study Of Verb Misuse In Junior School Students’ English Writing From The Perspective Of Conceptual Transfer

Language transfer has always been an important research content in second language acquisition.As the latest development of language transfer research,conceptual transfer has attracted much attention of scholars and researchers both at home and abroad.This study of conceptual transfer aims to explain the language transfer phenomenon of second language or foreign language learners from the perspective of conceptual representations.Due to the differences of verb conceptual categorization between Chinese and English,Chinese students often make mistakes in the process of English learning.In particular,the use of verbs is a major problem for students.At present,research has shown that conceptual transfer has an effect on learning a second language for people in different countries.Scholars at home and abroad have done little research on the relationship between verbs and conceptual transfer.In the process of writing in English,students can be influenced by the conceptual categories,thinking habits,and expressions of Chinese,resulting in conceptual transfer and writing errors.Verb is the core of discourse and sentence construction,and its meaning and usage are very important for the conceptual and grammatical meaning of a sentence.Analyzing the misuse of verbs in junior high school students’ English writings will not only help teachers understand students’ acquisition of English verbs and take timely measures to improve English teaching,but also promote the development of the research on second language learners’ verb misuse and conceptual transfer.This research adopts the perspective of conceptual transfer as the theoretical framework for studying the phenomenon and the potential causes of verb misuse injunior high school students’ English writing.The specific research questions are:(1)What is the current situation of Chinese junior high school students’ verb misuse in their English writing?(2)What are the possible causes of their verb misuse in English writing from the perspective of conceptual transfer?(3)What countermeasures should be taken to reduce the phenomenon of verb misuse in junior school students’ English writing?Through research,the author finds out that:(1)The verb misuse in English writings by junior high school students is systematic and regular,and both collocational and grammatical conceptual transfer exist.The junior high school students commit verb misuse to varying degrees when they use verb-noun collocations,verb tenses,voices,and non-finite verbs.Among all the verb misuses,the highest is the rate of tense misuse.(2)The similarities and differences between English and Chinese in conceptual system cognition cause learners’ three kinds of conceptual transfer: language transfer based on mother tongue concept,shared concept and second language concept.(3)In English teaching,teachers should properly impart some knowledge of the differences between English and Chinese concept systems to students,while emphasizing the conceptual meaning of English verb inflections in different situations.Foreign language learning usually requires a large amount of target language input,but when exposed to a large amount of target language,learners need to pay attention to grasp the conceptual differences between the mother tongue(or the first language)and the target language,and choose words and sentences when learning English writing.It is necessary to consider semantics and grammar,as well as English thinking habits and differences in English and Chinese concepts.From the perspective of conceptual transfer,this research investigates the verbmisuse in junior high school students’ English writing.This is an attempt by the author to use the conceptual transfer theory in junior high school English teaching.The author tries to explore some inspirations that are beneficial to junior high school English teaching and help teachers value the problem of conceptual transfer in English writing and adopt effective strategies to help students improve the correct use of verbs in English writing.