The transfer of second language acquisition

Wang Yu Lu

【Abstract】Language transfer is a very important phenomenon in second language acquisition（SLA）， which many linguists and psychologists would like to research. People who learn second language must be familiar with the rules of their mother tongue， so they often transfer those rules into the second language unconsciously， and then transfers appear. Language transfer divided into positive and negative transfer. The article use Odlin' s definition of language transfer in SLA.

【Key words】language transfer； error； over-use； avoidance

Chapter 1 Introduction

For several years， language transfer is always a heat topic in second language acquisition and foreign language teaching. Language transfer is not only a simple language phenomenon， but a complex cognitive process in phycological linguistic and applied linguistic fields. Therefore， the linguists who in different fields and at different periods give different definitions of language transfer. We know that there are so many different explanations about language transfer， but I cannot elaborate it from all different aspects. Therefore， I just explain it by using Odlin' s definition， so it means that I will ignore the inter-linguistic influence in language transfer， but only focus on the influence from mother tongue to second language acquisition（SLA）. Therefore， we call language transfer as “L1 transfer” here.“L1 transfer” concludes positive transfer and negative transfer. The positive transfer facilitates the SLA， on the contrary， the interference from L1 to L2 acquisition is negative transfer.

Chapter 2 The positive and negative transfer in SLA

2.1 The transfer of pronunciation

The most direct L1 transfer is to use L1 pronunciation rules to replace target language pronunciation rules. Pronunciation transfer is caused by transferring L1 pronunciation to target language， so the pronunciation system of target language which learners formed is influenced by his L1 pronunciation. The pronunciation of Chinese characters and English words are all composed by syllables. Pinyin conclude initials and finals， finals have simple vowel and compound vowel， while English phonetic alphabet conclude vowel and consonant， vowel has monophthong and diphthong. The initials of Chinese syllable are same as the initial consonant of English syllable， finals are same as vowels of English syllable. There are many similarities in pronunciation between initials of pinyin and consonant of English phonetic alphabet. Therefore， most Chinese won't make a mistake when they pronounce these phonemes， like /p/、/b/、/t/、/d/、

/k/、/g/、/f/， because they can easily find the corresponding pronunciation. Therefore， it will easily caused positive transfer. However， because Chinese （Sino-Tibetan language family） and English （Indo-European language family） belong to different family of language， so there is no exactly same pronunciation of phonemes between them. In other words， although there are some similarities in some phonemes， little differences also exist in the place of articulation among them. For the Chinese learners who learn English， they have already adapted to the Chinese pronunciation， thus， they would like to use the similar Chinese pronunciation to replace some English pronunciation which don't exist in Chinese pronunciation， for example， they prefer to pronounce /s/ instead of /θ/. Furthermore， some beginners usually use some Chinese characters or pinyin to replace the pronunciation of English words. It is also an obstruction of SLA. In addition， English is the intonation language， which differentiate the meaning by intonation， while Chinese is the tone language， which differentiate the meaning by tone. There are primary stress and secondary stress， rising and falling tone in English， but beginners usually speak without the rising and falling tone， so they cannot speak native English. This is the negative transfer caused by L1.

2.2 The transfer of vocabulary

There are a number of meaningful radicals in Chinese， for example， 銀，銅，鐵，are all related to metal， which can help us to remember Chinese characters. These radicals are just like affixes in English， such as pre-（before）， vice-（deputy）， -less（without）， which also can help Chinese students to remember English vocabulary—positive transfer. However， there also exists negative transfer. Because some learners just know the basic meaning of English vocabulary and ignore their denotation and connotation， they often make some kinds of errors. What's more， some learners think that every English word has its corresponding Chinese meaning， so they often cannot choose right words by considering its context， and misuse some words. This is a kind of negative transfer. According to the classification，Chinese belongs to analytic language， but English is inflecting language. The Chinese word formation is totally different from English word formation. Chinese has no morphological change， but English always changes with its tense. Thus， some Chinese English learners make the grammar mistake by losing the inflectional affixes， such as number， person， finiteness， aspect and case. There are several common negative transfers： the misuse of synonymy， the confusion of collocation between verb and preposition， the misuse of inflection.

Chapter 3 How teachers help learners to defeat the negative transfer

3.1 Explain the positive and negative transfer correctly

During teaching L2， the teachers are expected to explain the positive and negative transfer correctly. There are some teachers who prefer to emphasize too much about the differences between native language and target language， so that they can stimulate the learners to learn English harder. However， actually they need to balance the emphasis of interlingual similarity and difference. Although there really exists more differences than similarities between Chinese and English that effect Chinese L2 learning， teachers still need to explain both similarity and difference of intralingual at same degree. Otherwise， if they emphasize too much about difference， it may add too much pressure to the learners to learn English， which can not help to promote learning. Therefore， only teachers make the balance can encourage learners to overcome the interference of L1， and facilitate the L1 positive transfer， thus improve learners' English.

3.2 Be patient to the errors caused by transfer

Now that the L1 transfer cannot be avoided in SLA， teachers should be patient to the errors in phonetics， vocabulary， syntax， and discourse which are caused by transfer. Making errors is inevitable for learners during learning second language. Generally speaking， there is also an order of making errors. Therefore， if they could be patient to these errors， they would find which phase the learners have reached， and help them proceed into next phase by correcting their errors. Moreover， they need to encourage learners to face errors directly， so that they can avoid the L1 negative transfer consciously in the following learning.

Chapter 4 Conclusion

The thesis has discussed the language transfer and mainly the L1 transfer， which decided into positive transfer and negative transfer. To sum up， language transfer is a very significant topic in SLA research. To know language transfer， learners can recognize the similarities and differences between their native language and target language， so they can try their best to avoid negative transfer and benefit a lot in the positive transfer.

作者簡介：王雨露（1989.7.8-），女，漢族，內蒙古人，碩士研究生，研究方向：外國語言學及應用語言學。