英语专业 (教育学方向).doc

1、Negative Transfer of Mother TongueThe Main Cause of Chinglish题 目： 母语负迁移中式英语的主要成因Contents1. Introduction.12. Language Transfer Theory.2 2.1 Concept of transfer.2 2.2 Positive transfer2 2.3 Negative transfer.33. The Representation of Negative Transfer in Chinglish5 3.1 The phonetic level5 3.1.1 The mi

2、staken addition of certain sounds.5 3.1.2 The mis-replacement of certain sounds.5 3.1.3 The mis-arrangement of stress6 3.2 The lexical level.6 3.2.1 Incorrect morphological change.6 3.2.2 Improper collocation.7 3.2.3 Redundancy.8 3.3 The syntactic level.9 3.3.1 Mistakes in word sequence.9 3.3.2 Misu

3、se of different parts of speech.9 3.3.3 Ignorance of certain fixed structures.10 3.3.4 Overuse of logical connectives.11 3.4 The pragmatic level11 3.4.1 Pragmalinguistic failure11 3.4.2 Sociopragmatic failure.124. Possible Remedies to Avoid or Reduce Chinglish.13 4.1 The perfection of Chinese.13 4.2

4、 The improvement of English.135. Conclusion.15Works Cited16Title: Negative Transfer of Mother TongueThe Main Cause of ChinglishAbstract: Chinglish refers to a kind of intermediary language resulting from the negative transfer of Chinese thinking pattern and expressing habit. It is the problem that c

5、ommonly exists in Chinese peoples learning and using English. It should be noted that Chinglish is abnormal English and is an obstacle in international communication. Thus, efforts should be made to seek the source of Chinglish and get rid of the negative influence. This paper makes a systematic and

6、 thorough discussion on Chinglish from the aspect of negative transfer, conducting a contrastive analysis on the phonetic, lexical, syntactical and pragmatic levels. The paper also offers some strategies to avoid or reduce Chinglish, aiming to help the readers refine their command of idiomatic Engli

7、sh.Key words: Chinglish; negative transfer; remedies 题目：母语负迁移中式英语的主要成因摘要：中式英语是指由汉语的思维模式和表达习惯产生的负迁移干扰而形成的一种中介语，是中国的英语学习者和使用者经常遇到的问题。应该注意到，中式英语是一种不合规范的英语，它的存在是国际交往中的一块绊脚石。因此，应该努力探求中式英语产生的源头，摆脱其负面影响。本文分别从语音、词汇、句法和语用层面进行了对比分析，从母语负迁移着手来系统、深入地探讨中式英语现象。同时，文章也提供了一些避免或减少中式英语的策略，旨在帮助广大读者掌握纯正地道的英语。 关键字：中式英语；负迁

8、移；补救措施AcknowledgementsOn the completion of my thesis, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks to Ms. , my supervisor, for her constructive suggestions, illuminative ideas, great patience and encouragement. Without her help, I would not have completed my thesis so smoothly and gained so much valuabl

9、e experience on thesis writing.I am indebted to all the teachers in the English Department. Their lectures and instructions have been of great help to my study.I am especially grateful to two of my high school classmates and Wang . They have both helped me gather a large number of relative materials

10、 by means of the Internet database in their colleges while such database is not so convenient in our school.I owe great gratitude to my friends for their constant concern, generous help, and meaningful comments on my study.Finally, my special thanks must go to my parents. Their love and encouragemen

11、t have been the greatest consolation whenever I encountered any difficulties. It is their continuous care and comfort that have contributed much to the final success of my thesis.1. IntroductionChinglish refers to the improper expressions that Chinese people make when they express their ideas either

12、 in oral or written form of English. According to the definition made by Joan Pinkham, “Chinglish, of course, is that misshapen, hybrid language that is neither English nor Chinese but that might be described as English with Chinese characteristics” (1). As an interlanguage, it is systematic, with i

13、ts own features, reflecting the interference of Chinese language structure and thought pattern. It is a continuum, in which the learners are moving closer and closer to the state of a native speaker, but never reach it. With the popularity of English in China, Chinglish can be found everywhere. It i

14、s not infrequent to find improper expressions of English in Chinese students writing and speaking, in their communication with native speakers and in numerous public signs around us. Of course, it is natural that when using English, different nations may mechanically follow the rules of their own la

15、nguages. In this sense, Chinglish is not something that deserves too much criticism owing to peoples learning environment and tradition. Nevertheless, such unidiomatic use may pose an obstacle to the successful communication in English. It can not only give rise to misunderstanding and embarrassment

16、 but also result in serious consequences. If Chinese English learners and users become used to these nonstandard expressions and make little effort to avoid them, they may easily fall slave to this fixed thinking pattern and never touch the essence of English. Especially with the frequent and all-si

17、ded international communication, the call for standard English among Chinese people is becoming increasingly urgent. Therefore, instead of ignoring such misuse, people should make effort to get rid of the negative influence of their mother tongue and master the idiomatic English.This paper tries to

18、explore the causes of Chinglish with regard to language transfer theory, aiming to dig up the elements of negative transfer that can lead to Chinglish at various levels and enable the readers to draw some lessons from the analysis so as to approach the most possibly idiomatic English.2. Language Tra

19、nsfer Theory Transfer and transfer theory could be traced back to as early as two hundred years ago. Yet, learning the transfer theory with regard to second language learning came into being just in the 1950s. First language to second language transfer (L1-L2 transfer) was first discussed in Selinke

20、r and other follow-up studies. These studies provided either evidences of transfer or the role of transfer in understanding the learners errors in particular. 2.1 Concept of transferThe word “transfer” could be used to mean “to carry-over or generalization of learned responses from one type of situa

21、tion to another, especially the application in one field of study or effort of knowledge, skill, power, or ability acquired in another” (“transfer”). Later, it was applied as “language transfer” or “linguistic transfer” in linguistics.In language, behaviorists define “transfer” as the process of aut

22、omatic, uncontrolled, and subconscious use of past-learned behavior in the attempt to produce new responses. Psycholinguists use the term to refer to the influence imposed by a learners possessed linguistic knowledge and skill upon the subsequent learning of new linguistic knowledge or skill. Terenc

23、e Odlin referred to “language transfer” as the “influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired” (27).For almost all the foreign language learners, they study the second language on t

24、he basis of their mother tongue. Thus, the acquired language knowledge will inevitably have a great influence on their second language learning. The native language will become a reference when they face the second language.Since there are similarities and differences between native language and tar

25、get language in linguistic structure, social culture and logic thought, the forms of transfer during the process of learning are different. That is to say, the past-learned knowledge can play two definitely different roles in the learning of new ones. “Transfer will be positive when the first and se

26、cond language habits are the same. In this case, no errors will occur. Transfer will be negative when there is proactive inhibition. In this case, errors will result” (Ellis 22).2.2 Positive transfer“Positive transfer occurs when the prior knowledge benefits the learning taskthat is, when a previous

27、 item is correctly applied to present subject matter” (Brown 201). The results of positive transfer go largely unnoticed, and thus are less often discussed.Nonetheless, such results can be profoundly instructive. Generally speaking, the more similar the two languages are, the more the learner is awa

28、re of the relation between them, and the more positive transfer will occur. “Similarities between native language and target language vocabulary can reduce the time needed to develop good reading comprehension and similarities in syntactic structures can facilitate the acquisition of grammar” (Odlin

29、 36).In consequence, the function of positive transfer cannot be ignored. Learners can take full advantage of the similarities between their native language and the target language to construct linguistic models in the process of second language learning. In fact, all learners and users of a foreign

30、 language are making use of positive transfer consciously or unconsciously. In this process, they are fostering their awareness of positive factors to facilitate their understanding and learning of the foreign language. 2.3 Negative transfer“Negative transfer occurs when the previous performance dis

31、rupts the performance on a second task. It can also be referred to as interference” (Brown 201). It refers to the impediment that the learned knowledge, skill or ability exerts upon the new learning.Within the theory of Contrastive Analysis (the systematic study of a pair of languages with a view to

32、 identifying their structural differences and similarities), the greater the differences between the two languages are, the more negative transfer can be expected. Proponents of Contrastive Analysis assumed that when L1 and L2 rules are in conflict, errors are likely to occur. This is the result of

33、interference between the two languages. This claim may overstress the effect of interference. Yet, it is understandable since this process has been so singled out that the mother tongue interference is the most immediately noticeable source of errors among L2 learners, especially beginners. Many res

34、earchers think that in second language acquisition, the negative transfer of L1 plays a more important role than the positive transfer because the culture, thinking pattern and other knowledge of the L1 can affect learners discourse organization.The errors resulting from negative transfer generally

35、fall into two types. The first type is under-production: learners may produce very few or no examples of a target language structure. There is good evidence for one form of under-production related to language distanceavoidance. “If learners sense that particular structures in the target language ar

36、e different from counterparts in the native language, they may try to avoid using those structures” (Odlin 37). Another type of negative transfererroneous production, is over-production which could be viewed as a consequence of under-production. “Learners therefore tend to over-produce various struc

37、tures in order to avoid using others which occur rather infrequently in their L1” (Odlin 37).Take the Chinese learners English acquisition for example. When Chinese people learn English, they are in a Chinese learning style, that is to say, they make three things together, which are English grammar,

38、 English words and their Chinese culture background. It means that they separate the relationship between language and culture. The language they produce under such influence is thus called Chinglish.3. The Representation of Negative Transfer in ChinglishThe causes of Chinglish are negative language

39、 transfer, infection of culture, application of social policy and so on. But negative language transfer is the most prominent one. The transfer of Chinese in English learning is inevitable because there are many differences in Chinese and English. Researches show that language transfer occurs in all

40、 aspects of language including phonology, lexicon, syntax and pragmatics, etc. This paper will make a contrastive study of the different characters between Chinese and English while analyzing the various mistakes in Chinese produced by Chinese English learners and users as a result of the negative t

41、ransfer from Chinese on all the four levels mentioned above. 3.1 The phonetic levelEnglish and Chinese respectively belong to India-European language family and Han-Zang language family. English is an “intonation language”. It mainly depends on the variation of intonation (falling, rising, fall-rise

42、 and rise-fall) to distinguish the meaning of sentences while Chinese is a typical “tone language”, using different tones (level, rise, fall-rise and fall) to distinguish the meaning of words. Thus, whether in terms of the number of phonemes or in terms of the modes of their combination, there exist

43、 considerable differences between English and Chinese. The negative transfer of Chinese at the phonetic level comes into being.3.1.1 The mistaken addition of certain soundsIn general, the Chinese articulatory pattern is Vowel or Consonant-Vowel, that is V/CV mode. While the phonetic pattern of Engli

44、sh words is Vowel or Vowel-Consonant or Consonant-Vowel-Consonant, that is V/VC/CVC mode. Therefore, when reading English, Chinese students are likely to insert a vowel between the consonant cluster. For example, students usually articulate the word “ground” /graund/ as /graund/, “fly” /flai/ as /fl

45、ai/.Likewise, since English words usually end with consonants while Chinese words typically end with a rhyme. Chinese English speakers tend to add a vowel after a consonant when they articulate English words. They say “please” /pli:zi/ instead of /pli:z/ and “mark” /m:k/ instead of /m:k/.3.1.2 The m

46、is-replacement of certain soundsAs is mentioned above, English is an “intonation language”, there is a clear boundary between voiceless and voiced consonants, but there is no such evident distinction in Chinese (任梅，241). Hence, errors are likely to take place among Chinese English speakers. For instance, there is no labio-dentals in Chinese, so Chinese students have great difficulty in pronouncing English words with labio-dentals. They often pronounce the voiced labio-dental /v/ as the voiced bilabial /w/.Another example is that the Chinese dialect makes it especially difficult for clea