论母语迁移对中国学生英语学习的影响

论母语迁移对中国学生英语学习的影响Abstract] Language transfer is a universal phenomenon in second language acquisition. Before language learners learn a foreign language, they have been using their mother language to communicate with each other for a long time, so that they have been very familiar with the rules of mother language. In addition, there are similarities in language learning. Therefore, when they learn a new language, they transfer those rules into the second language unconsciously, and then transfers appear. However, there are similarities and differences between two languages in their usages, rules and so on. For that reason, two kinds of transfers form. They are positive transfer and negative transfer. This essay firstly illustrates the definition of transfer and the importance of mother language for second language acquisition. Then it discusses the reason that causes transfer. Next, it illustrates the manifestation of transfer in language knowledge and culture separately in detail. In language knowledge, tr ansfer will appear in English letter’s learning, phonetic, lexical, grammar and discourse. In culture, transfer will appear in two areas: lexical meaning and pragmatics. Finally, this easy will give some practical suggestions of the right treatment to the mother language transfer in language teaching.[Key Words] mother language; negative transfer; positive transfer; language knowledge; English teaching【摘要】语言迁移是二语习得中的一种普遍现象。

因为在语言学习者学习语言之前，他们就一直使用母语与他人进行交流。

因而，他们对于母语的规则已经非常熟悉。

又由于语言学习之间存在着共性，所以，在学习者学习外语时，他们就会不自觉地将母语的一些习惯迁移到他们所学的外语中去。

而后，迁移就发生了。

然而，两种语言之间在使用习惯，规则等众多方面存在着异同。

这就使语言在迁移过程中发生了两种变化：正迁移和负迁移。

本文首先对迁移的定义以及母语在第二语言习得中的重要性进行阐述。

然后讨论了迁移产生的原因。

接下来，分别就迁移可能出现的两大方面（语言知识方面和文化方面）进行详细的描述。

在语言知识方面，从五个方面描写母语的迁移的表现：英语字母的学习，语音方面，词汇方面，语法方面和语篇方面。

在文化方面，则从两个方面来描写：词汇文化方面和语用方面。

最后，本文提出一些认为在教学中可以采取的正确对待母语迁移的方法。

【关键词】母语；负迁移；正迁移；语言知识；英语教学1. IntroductionIn the field of Second Language Acquisition, linguists and psychologists found that mother language had a great influence on the acquisition of target language. Very often, when an L2 learner intends to express himself in the target language, his L2 production may sound unnatural, with a flavor of L1 influence. Some of the L1 structural knowledge may be transferred to the learners’ mental state unconsciously. And this would make the learners produce an incorrect sentence. Just as Lado said “Individual tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture-both productively when attempting to speak the language and to act in the culture and receptively when attempting to grasp and understand the language and the culture as practiced by natives.”[1]P52-53 Many of Chinese students have already acquired some Chinese before they learn English, which make them naturallyuse the knowledge of mother language to learn English. As a result, the influence of mother language in the English learning is unavoidable.In psychology, transfer refers to ‘the phenomenon of previous knowledge being extended to the area of new knowledge, i.e. the influence which the learning or remembering of one thing has on the learning and remembering of another thing’.[2]P12 Therefore first language (L1) refers to the influence that learner’s L1 exerts over the acquisition of an L2. [3]P51 Accordingly, errors in L2 learning are explained as the interference of learners’ mother tongue (or the first language/L1) in learning the target language because of differences between the two. Interference as such is called negative transfer. Similarities between L1 and L2, on the other hand, are believes to facilitate the learning of L2. Facilitation as such is called positive transfer. In other words, difference between L1 and L2 cause learning difficulty and result in errors, while similarities facilitate learning. [2]P12-13 Owing to the different language systems that Chinese and English belong to, L1 mostly plays a negative role in Second Language Acquisition.2．The reason of causing transferTransfer would not happen without any condition. So does the transfer in languages. “L1 is considered as a kind of ‘input from the inside’. This ‘input’ will occur just under some conditions. There are some cognitive constraints that govern the transfer of L1 knowledge. One such constraint identified by Kellerman (1983) is as follows:‘I want now to examine one factor that will act as a constrainer or a trigger oftransfer. This is the learner’s notion of the relations between the L1 and L2… if L1 and L2 were very different, the lack of available correspondences would, in the initial stages at least, act as a bar to transfer, since the learner is unable to make the necessary cross-lingual tie-ups.Transferability is to be see n as a theoretical notion, which derives from native speakers‟ own perception of the structure of their language. If a feature is perceived as infrequent, irregular, semantically or structurally opaque, or in any other way exceptional, what we could in other words call …psycho linguistically marked‟, then its transferability will be inversely proportional to its degree of markedness. … it is important to emphasize that the relative transferability of structures is determined by the L1 and is thus independent of the nature of the L2, though they will interact with the learner‟s perception of the L1-L2 distance.‟[4]P62-63From the above words Kellerman said, we can find that transfer will occur when the two languages have some correspondences between each other. For if we can not find any correspondences between them, we would not connect them, and the transfer would not happen. For example, some kids may confuse …tangerine‟ and …orange‟, because they are all fruits and their appearances look alike. They would never confuse …orange‟ and …shoe‟ for they are two different things completely. Such difference makes people to avoid the transfer. It forms a bar to transfer and prevent the transfer happen. Therefore it is just the commonness between two things that cause transfer but not specialty. So does the transfer appear in Chinese and English. There do have commonness between them actually, for example in letter, in syntax, in culture. (Although the differences between them are the main part, there still have the commonness. That is a special commonness between languages. For example, in English and Chinese, the main part of a sentence is the subject and the predicate. This is the commonness.) When the learners are aware of the existence of that commonness, they would transfer the rules of L1 into L2 unconsciously. Furthermore, if the rules between two languages are completely alike, the positive transfer appears. If the rules were different in some areas (Maybe we can call it the specialty in the commonness.), the negative transfer would appear.In a word, it is the commonness of language that leads to transfer.3. The Manifestation of language transfer3.1 The transfer of language knowledge3.1.1 The transfer between English letter and Chinese PinyinMost of foreign language learners like to learn foreign language with the help of mother tongue. In Chinese, people like to learn English letter with the help of Chinese “Pinyin” because there are some similarities between them. Firstly, they are similar in writing form. It would make beginners confused easily. For example, the English letter …u‟ is the same as the Chinese Pinyin …u‟ in the writing form. But they are different when they become the capital letter. If we write the capital letter of …u‟ as …U‟, we are makin g a mistake. Therefore, when Chinese students learn the English letter firstly, they may make some mistake in the writing form. It is the negative transfer that Chinese has made on English.Anther negative transfer that Chinese Pinyin has caused is in the pronunciation of the English letter. Because of the similarity in the writing form, as well as a little similarity in pronunciation, beginners may confuse in some letters‟ pronunciation. Here are some examples:“i” in English is read as [ai], while in Chin ese it is read as [yi:].“b” in English is read as [bi:], while in Chinese it is read as [bo].“a” in English is read as [ei], while in Chinese it is read as [a].Most of Chinese students will meet such transfer when they begin learning English letter. It‟s because that they grasped Pinyin prior to English letter. Therefore it is impossible to avoid the negative transfer that Pinyin cause in English letter.But besides the negative transfer, Pinyin also plays a positive role in learning English letter. Having the same reason mentioned above, the similarities increase the learning speed of Chinese people when they learn English letter.3.1.2 The phonetic transferF or English learners (esp. beginners), the most difficult part in the pronunciation is [θ] and [ð]. Because there is not dentilingual in Chinese, many learners pronounce them as [s] and [d]. For example, thing [θiη] is read as [siη], and they [ðei] is read as day [dei].Without long and short syllables in Chinese, English learners usually make such mistakes: reading a long syllable as a short syllable, or a short syllable as a long one.e.g. it [it] ------ eat [i:t]Full [ful] --------- fool [fu:l]Naught [nο:t] -------- not [not]Daughter [΄do:tə] ------ doctor [΄dotə]Augment in pronunciation is a second mistake that learners would make in the beginning process of learning English. For example, they will read bike [baik] as [΄baikə], and print [print] as [pə΄rint]. [5]P124-1253.1.3 The lexical transferWord is the basis of a language. Before people make a sentence, or read a passage, or express themselves, they have to learn the words firstly. If they don‟t know the words of a language, they can not use that language well. So word is very important for people to learn a foreign language. As for Chinese, we learn the words in our daily life. After a long time learning, we have combined the words with the given images or conceptions. When we hear or see a word, we will reflect the concept or the image immediately. But in English, many words have more than one meaning. And a word of the same literal meaning may be different from Chinese in the real meaning. For this reason, the transfer (mostly negative transfer) may occur.Beginners often make mistake in translating these words: “黄色电影”、“黄色书刊”、“黄色音乐”etc. When they see these words, they want to use the word …yellow‟ to translate them. But in English, …yellow movies, yellow books, yellow music‟ is wrong expression.The word “yellow” is not the equivalent word of …huangse‟ in these situations. In English, …pornographic, trashy, obscene, and vulgar‟ are the right expression of that meaning. Therefore, “黄色电影” can be translated to …pornographic pictures‟ or …obscene movies‟; “黄色书刊”to …filthy books‟; and “黄色音乐” to “vulgar music”.In Chinese, people usually use “眼红” to express the meaning of …envy‟. But in English, we should say …green-eyed‟. Of course, beginners would feel strange when they meet it at the first time, beca use for Chinese, …hong‟ seems to have the same meaning with …red‟. But in fact, it is notexact. In some situations, …hong‟ can be equivalent to …red‟, i.e. …Her face is red now.‟ …This is a red apple.‟ However, there are some other situations we can not use red to explain. For example, “红茶” should be expressed as …black tea‟, “红糖” should be expressed as …brown sugar‟, not …red sugar‟. …black sheep‟ does not means …a sheep which is black‟, but means …member of a family, group, ect. regarded as a disgrace or failure‟.I.e. He is the black sheep of family. [6]P146-148Except the transfer in meanings, there is a transfer in word morphology. Chinese has no change in its form, while English verbs can change in tense, voice, and person; adjectives has comparative degree and superlative degree; and nouns are divided into single form and plural form. These changes always make learners feel difficult and lead to many mistakes.e.g. I go to work yesterday.He is back tomorrow.Further more, there are different ways in collocation between Chinese and English words. Many learners like to combine English words according to the Chinese rules. This will easily cause transfer.e.g. (1)get progress (wrong collocation)make progress (right collocation)In English, “progress” is usually collocated with “make”. So the first one is wrong and the second one is right.(2) The teacher called you to clean the blackboard.Here “call” should be corrected to tell/ask because “tell/ask someone to do something” is a fixed phrase.[5]P1253.1.4 The transfer in grammarGrammar is an important part in language system. There are similarity and difference in the grammatical rule between English and Chinese.English and Chinese all have subject and predicate in a sentence; adjectives are used to modify nouns; adverbs are used to modify adjectives. All of these are the similarities between English and Chinese. And these similarities facilitate to English learning. Learners can use these similar rules to learn English more quickly.However, negative transfer is a general phenomenon in English study. It happens in the following areas:(I) The transfer in the order of the wordsIf there is an adverb in a sentence, the order in Chinese is: subject—adverb—predicate—object, while in English is subject—predicate—object—adverb. With the influence of Chinese word order, many learners will make such a mistake: …I very like English.‟In Chinese, the attribute is usually put ahead of the modified word. But in English the position of attribute is flexible. It is placed before the modified word sometimes; or it is placed after that. Learners always want to place the attribute before the modified word while they translate a sentence, e.g. …the here teacher‟. Here …here‟ should be placed after the modified word. This phrase should be changed to …the teacher here‟.In the hyperbatic sentence, there is also transfer. In Chinese, the hyperbaton can be found in the colloquial speech. And it has the fixed order. But in English, hyperbaton can be divided into entire hyperbaton and partial hyperbaton. Many learners often confuse how and when to use them. E.g. Seldom I go to the cinema. (The right expression should be: Seldom do I go to the cinema.)(II) The transfer in the passive sentencePassive voice is an expressive way that people like to use, especially in English. In Chinese, the passive voice is marked with a word “bei” or “you”. If this word appears in a sentence, it means that this sentence is a passive sentence. And in Chinese people use more active voice than passive voice. Sometimes people will use active voice to express the passive meaning. But in English, passive voice is used more often than in Chinese. Therefore, when Chinese people learn English, they may ignore the right expression of passive voice in English.。