An Analysis on Mother Tongue Transferin Second Language Acquisition

李可喻

【Abstract】Mother tongue transfer is a common phenomenon in learning the second language. Its tends to produce two-side influences upon Second Language acquisition， namely， positive transfer and negative transfer. This paper firstly dwells on the background of Linguistic transfer， and then analysis the positive transfer and negative transfer in phonological and syntax， finally gives some suggestion for second language learning and teaching.

【Key words】mother tongue； positive transfer； negative transfer

1. Introduction

English has become a universal language. Therefore， Teaching English in school is a world trend. In the English courses， it is often seeing that English teacher talking English from the beginning to the end. But whether they can understand what the teachers mean or not. On the contrary， teacher speak Chinese during the whole class， students can understand the teacher completely. But its unhelpful for students English listening ability. Whether teacher should use mother tongue in English language class， there has been a hot discussion in our society. The discussion makes me to think about the mother tongue Transfer in Second Language acquisition. Linguistic transfer is a controversial problem in language teaching. The study about it can date back to 1940s. Many linguists believed that second language acquisition is influenced by the learners mother tongue strongly. When learners study second language， they will use their native language unconsciously. Before learning second language， the learners have been learned their mother tongue many years and almost formed a system， which will root in their mind and affect learning other language.

2. Mother Tongue Transfer in Second Language Acquisition

Language transfer includes positive transfer and negative transfer. It is assumed that when native language and foreign language have some similarities， transfer will occur and help learners to learn the second language. On the other hand if mother tongue and foreign language have too many differences， negative transfer will happen and become a barrier for learn the second language. This transfer reflected in many aspects， such as phonological， syntax， pragmatic， and so on.

2.1 Phonological Transfer

Most of Chinese students will use Chinese to describe the pronunciation of English words. Because it have some similarities between the Chinese“Pinyin”and the English phonetics. These similarities can help student to quickly master English pronunciation. In this way we can remember the pronunciation of some words， such as， sting—“死叮”，balk—“罷課”. It can also use in the Russian learning， such as， улица—“屋里擦”，идти –“一季”. It can see， this method is widely used in the Second Language Acquisition.

On the other hand， its sometimes will cause the negative transfer. Chinese Pinyin does not exist some phonetic symbols， such as / v /and/ f / ， so if learners still use this way to remember these phonetic symbol，they will make mistake. This method may affect the accuracy of students' English pronunciation in the future. In addition， the Chinese language has four tones； this difference has certainly brought some difficulties for students learning English. In order to avoid mistakes， we should pay special attention to these differences.

2.2 Syntax Transfer

There are a lot of similarities between English and Chinese in syntax. The basic sentence patterns are roughly same， such as， s+v+o and s+v+p . For example， we are listening music—我們在聽音樂 . Therefore， learners can explore this similarity to improve the efficiency of learning.

English and Chinese belong to different language families， which resulted in the negative transfer in the tense， word order and expression of structure etc. Firstly， in English， there are different kinds of tense. It is easy for beginners to make such a mistake： Jack cook the fish. Secondly， English use more passive sentences. Taking one sentence as an example， “中國很多地方種植稻米” It should be translated as “Rice is grown in a lot of place in china.” rather than “ In china， a lot of place grow rice.”finally，the word order is often misused. In Chinese， the phrases or clauses is usually placed on the front of the noun. But in English， it should be put after noun. If we ignore the differences of grammar between in English and Chinese， that will affect the accuracy of Second Language Acquisition.

3. Summary

To sum up， the function for the second language acquisition of Chinese student is also very prominent， has both positive and negative transfer. So teachers should take effective teaching measures to maximum reduce interference of negative transfer on English learning， to promote the positive transfer of language.

References：

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