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, transfer 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：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. Introduction
In 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 naturally use 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 transfer
Transfer 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 of transfer. 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 seen 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]P62-63
From 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 transfer
3.1 The transfer of language knowledge
3.1.1 The transfer between English letter and Chinese Pinyin
Most 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 making 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 Chinese 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 transfer
For 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]P124-125
3.1.3 The lexical transfer
Word 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”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, because for Chinese, ‘hong’ seems to have the same meaning with ‘red’. But in fact, it is not exact. 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]P146-148
Except 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]P125
3.1.4 The transfer in grammar
Grammar 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 words
If 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 sentence
Passive 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.
e.g. (3) It can find in the room.
(4) The door will close at ten o’clock.
(5) The book wrote by Liu Ming.
In Chinese, when an active sentence changes into a passive one, it is ok to add a word ‘bei’ or ‘you’. But in English, except for adding a marked word “be” (Be can be changed into a proper form according to the person in the sentence.), the verb after ‘be’ should changed to passive voice too. In this area, as a result of different grammatical habit between Chinese and English, transfer would appear. Look the following sentence:
(6) You are allow to go home now.
(7) The window has been broke.[5]P125-126
(III) The transfer in negative sentence
Not all the meanings that negative sentences express in English are the same as that in Chinese. In English, negation can be divided into full negation and partial negation. Generally speaking, if such words as ‘all, both, everyone, everything, everywhere, whole, always, altogether, etc.’ is combined with the word ‘not’, the sentence is expressing partial negation. If such words as “none, no one, neither, nobody, nothing, nowhere, never, nowise, etc.’ is combined with the word ‘not’, the sentence is expressing full negation. For beginners, it is a little difficult to adjust this rule, so they might make mistakes in this area.
e.g. (8) All men can not move the stone.
Maybe many beginners would translate it as a full negative sentence according to the literal meaning. But in fact it is a partial negative sentence. This is the difference between Chinese and English.
Another example:
(9)I don’t think you are right.
In this sentence, ‘not’ is not used to modify ‘think’, but ‘right’. This is a mistake the beginners may easily make.
The third difference in negative sentence between Chinese and English is that Chinese permit pre-verbal negation, while English permit post-verbal negation. For example, Chinese people may use this sentence “I not am a student” to express the meaning of ‘I am not a student’. [5]P126
3.1.5. The discourse transfer
After the contrastive study for the discourse, people find that why the transfer occurred in the discourse (esp. in people’s manners) is because of different concepts of different people who come from different Countries. Now let’s see the following examples:
(I) In request
The manner that Chinese and English people used in request is different. In English, people like to use more euphemistic words when they have some requests. This can be shown in the daily life. For example, in English, when they ask their family members to do something, they must use an indirect and tactful language.
e.g. Father: Jim, can you open the windows?
Jim: Sure!
Father: Thank you!
This dialogue will not exist between father and son in Chinese. The reason is that in Chinese only the elders, superiors, teachers, parents and employers have the right to perform ‘directive’ acts to youngsters, inferiors, students, children and employees. On the contrary, inferiors, youngsters, students, children have no right to perform directive acts such as ‘ordering’, ‘requiring’, ‘warning’, ‘threatening’ etc. Regardless of these nominations, one will be condemned by society, and even if in performing the similarity directive acts, one must follow the maxim of ‘depreciating oneself to respect others’ (9) to show the difference between the superior and inferior or to show the power difference. So in performing ‘directive’ acts, one does not need to be tactful, indirect and roundabout; he can simply speak out his instructions (usually using imperative sentences). But for the individual-concerned, and equal and parall-oriented western society, individual interest and individual freedom are regarded as sacred and can not be infringed upon. So ever if the superior, the parents, the teacher perform directive illocutionary acts such as ordering, suggesting, requiring, etc. to the inferior, the children, the students, these are regarded as infringement upon the individualism. As a result of it, the transfer appears when people make a request. In the above situation, Chinese father would say in this way: “open the window, Jim.” He would never use “can you”. In contrast, English father often choose more euphemistic way “can you open the window.” Sometimes they would also say “open the window”. However, that usually means order, and people usually do not like to use it. In a word, English people like to express themselves in more tactful and indirect way than Chinese.
(II) In apology
When to express apology and which apologetic words should be chosen are also problems for English learners. In the study of 1981, Cohen and some other people compared the speech acts of Hebrew, Russia and English. They found that English people used the apologetic words most frequently. Otherwise, people of different countries use the apologetic words in different ways. This would cause errors in using those words. For example, some Chinese students would confuse the usage of “excuse me” and “I’m sorry”. One of the reasons is that they equal the concept of apology in Chinese to that in English. e.g. “Excuse me, is anybody sitting here?” In this sentence, Chinese people usually like to say it in this way: “I’m sorry, is anybody sitting here?” Although “I’m sorry” and “excuse me” have the same meaning in Chinese, they are used in different contexts.[7]P91-92
3.2 The transfer in culture
Sociologists think that: All of the culture is unique. They are different from each other. All kinds of culture form all kinds of language. In the other side, language is the carrier of culture, and it is the main tool to show and spread culture. Therefore, culture and language can not be separated. China and England are different countries, so they have different culture and language. As a result of it, when Chinese people learn English, they may use their own culture to understand English. In this condition, transfer can not be avoided. Now we will discuss the cultural negative transfer of mother language in the following two aspects.
Culture can be shown by language, especially by its lexical aspect. In cross-cultural communication, the usage and understanding for the cultural lexical is the core of communication. If the usage and understanding is right, the communication will be successful. In contrast, if the usage and understanding is wrong, the communication will fail. Chinese students know little about the difference in cultural words, so they would make some mistakes in the communication.
(I) The Lexical Transfer in English study
It is easy to understand the literal meaning of a word in English study, but difficult to understand the cultural meaning the word contains. It is a difficult point in English study.
Some words are similar in their literal meaning, but different in the culture. Maybe it is commendatory in one language, while it is derogatory in the other. Sometimes the same thing can be expressed by different ways in two languages. All of these would cause transfer in culture.
For example, in Chinese, “the east wind” means “warm and vital force”. But in English, it means “nip and melancholy”. “the west wind” in Chinese make people feel detest, while in English, it means the warm spring breeze coming from Atlantic, which will give vitality to everything on earth and bring the Spring.
There is another example. In Chinese, “crane” means “longevity” and “cat” means “femininity”. But in English, they means “wanton” and “blackness or cattiness” respectively. Therefore, if we use our culture to understand English, mistakes will often be made. [8]P50
(II) The Lexical Transfer in trope
Chinese and English use different words to express the same meaning sometimes. This difference is caused by the difference of social, history, culture and geography between two countries. Many Chinese students do not know it completely so that they meet some barrier in their communication.
For example, for the idiom “雨后春笋”, Chinese students may translate it to “ like bamboo shoots”. It can not be understood when an Englishman read it, because there is not bamboo in English. However, the climate in English is fit for mushroom. After the spring rain, mushrooms spread everywhere. Thus, we can use “like mushrooms” to express the above meaning.
In Chinese, people compare “strong people” to “cattle”, while English use “horse” to compare it (as strong as a horse). This is because the main function of cattle is to be eaten in English, and horse is considered as a tool of farming and delivery. It is opposite to that of China. In southern China, the function of cattle is farming. Therefore, if learners lack of culture knowledge of two countries, they would use the wrong image. And the English they write would not be understood by native language people, and even may make a foolish figure.
More examples:
Chinese English
一贫如洗 as poor as a church mouse
挥金如土 spend money like water
精力充沛 full of beans
扼杀在摇篮中 nip something in the bud
掌上明珠 the apple of someone’s eye
All these idioms can not be translated according to their literal meaning, or mistakes will occur. But there are some other idioms that have the same images in Chinese and English. For example:
Chinese English
火中取栗 pull chestnut out of fire
扎根 take root
没有不长刺的玫瑰 There is no rose without a thorn.
These are the positive transfer that Chinese make in English study. The Chinese meaning of them is helpful to understand and remember their English expression. (8)P50 (10)
(III) Different values in different languages
The values of Chinese people are different from those of English. And many English people do not agree with the values of Chinese people. As a result of it, those words showing the values will cause transfer in communication.
For example, Chinese student might write this sentence: “Individualism among some young people is harmful.” When a Chinese English teacher read this sentence, he or she would not find any problem. But when a foreigner read it, he or she would feel puzzled for the reason why the individualism is harmful. This is the difference between Chinese and English in concept. The team spirit in Chinese can be traced back to thousand of years ago. In the original society, hominid worked together and ate together. They lived in a small group. All the things they did were all for that group. Until today, Chinese people still advocate team spirit, which is thought to be a successful condition in the work. In the other side, individualism, the opposite side of team spirit, is depreciated by people. However, in the western countries (esp. in America), individualism is the centre of culture. The individual need is always placed ahead of any others. The attitude the American had to individualism has its historical root. When the pioneers arrived in American, they met great difficulty. They can live there at last just because of the fortitude and struggle of themselves. For that reason, individualism has an important position in American and will never be depreciated.
Another example is about the expression of “job market”. Chinese students may translate it into “talent market”. Some westerners once questioned for it that should all the people go to that market be talents? According to the custom of western country, that market is just for hunting a job. However, in Chinese, that market is for providing a place for graduate to find a suitable job. So that in many Chinese people’s eye, it is not a place that anyone can go and find a job. [8]P50-51
3.2.2 Pragmatic transfer
Besides the transfer in lexical, there is a transfer in pragmatics. Now let’s see some transfers in the pragmatics.
(I) Modesty
Modesty is a virtue of Chinese people, while in English it is only a tactic to reduce preening themselves. From the traditional point of view, the purpose of the interpersonal communication in the Chinese society is to achieve harmony. Chinese people emphasize modesty maxim of ‘depreciating oneself to respect others’ in their daily life. And the maxim is also embodied in a special expression of “Li” peculiar to China in the communication, which means minimizing oneself and maximizing other. However this maxim is different from that of Leech (minimizing praise of self and maximizing dispraise of self). The difference between two cultures cause transfer in daily life, and the transfer would cause jokes sometimes. There was once a report in South Daily: it is about a westerner who did not understand the Chinese self-modesty remark “where, where”, and caused laughter. When the westerner was invited to take part in a Chinese wedding ceremony, he complimented on the bride’s beauty, the bridegroom made a Chinese reply for the bride: “where, where!” which completely flabbergasted the western friend who thought that perhaps his praising was too general. So he cited examples to show what he said: “her hair, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth are all beautiful!” And the people in the ceremony beat their sides with laughter. However, in this situation, the western people will reply in this way: “thank you”. In their eyes’, in this way, they not only accept other people’s phrase with modesty, but avoid hurting other people’s face.
(II) Greeting
The customs of greeting are different between Chinese and English. In Chinese, when people meet, they like to say the following words. “Do you have a lunch?” “Where are you going?” These questions are thought to be common. For asking the affairs of other people is an expression of caring them. It accord with the Chinese culture. Therefore, people will ask the questions on age, marriage, career, and so on even when they meet each other for the first time. On contrast, privacy is very important for English people. They often talk about weather when they meet. Age, salary, experience, belief, and so on are all considered as personal affairs. If someone refers to that in the public situation, it is considered as an impolite way. So in communication, English learners must pay attention on it to avoid embarrassment in the communication. [11]P27
(III) Goodbye
In Chinese, when the guest is going to leave, the host likes to say the words such as “Go slowly”, “Walk slowly”, “Take care” and so on. But if the guest is an Englishman or an American, he or she would feel angry. They will think “Why should I go slowly? I am strong enough!”. The usual goodbye words in English is “Bye, drop in again”. And the guest would answer that “Yes, I will. Bye.”, or “Ok, bye”, or “See you”, “So long, I’ll be seeing you” etc. [11]P27-28
(IV) Expressing appreciation
Chinese students always like to use the sentence “It’s my duty to do so” to reply “thank you”. However, in English, “It’s my duty to do so” has a meaning of “having to so something, or to do something unwillingly”. If a person gives his or her hand to other people just because of his or her duty, the beneficiary will feel that it doesn’t matter to express appreciate or not. [11]P28
(V) Appellation
The appellation between Chinese and English has great difference. It is an area that learners will make mistakes easily.
When we call our family members in Chinese, we usually use “二姐”, “三哥”, “四婶”, “林大伯”, and so on. But these words can not be translated into English directly, because they are not fit for the English expressing way. In English, people can call other people’s name directly, no matter that the person is a male or a female. However, they can not call their parents’ name directly. It is impolite. They should call them “Dad”, “Mom”, “Mother”, and so on. In the school, they should greeting to the teacher with “Mr.”, “Mrs.” and “Miss” in front of the teachers’ family names, e.g. Mr. Chen, Mrs. Lin, Miss Zhou. “Morning, teacher” is a wrong way to greet to the teacher.
And in Chinese, people like to add “lao” ahead of other people’s names and posts, for example, “lao Li”, “lao Zheng”, “lao Shifu”, “lao tongzhi”, etc. They use “old” to express the honor to those people. But in English, “old” means “dote, useless”. The western people avoid using this word, or using it in a direct way. For them, being called as “old Mr. Green” or “old Mr. President” is a hurt to their heart. Using “senior citizen” to call the old people is also an expression of avoiding the word. [11]P28
There are still many other transfers in pragmatics, all of which can not be shown here. But it is clear that the different culture between two countries is the reason that causes transfers.
In a word, no matter the transfers in language knowledge or the transfers in culture, the root of them is the differences between Chinese and English. As long as learning a foreign language is concerned, there will be transfer, because never a country is the same as the other completely.
Therefore, the transfer of mother tongue can not be avoided. All we can do is to find it and deal with it. In the next part, we will talk about how to deal with the transfer and make it useful for teaching.
4. The treatment to the mother Language transfer in English teaching
The learning of mother language and foreign language are both a progress of language acquisition. They have many similarities. However, they still have great differences. The age of learners is different; the environment of learning and using language is different; and the purpose of learning is different too. The learning of mother language is based on daily life, and mother language has been a part of people’s life. Yet second language acquisition is based on the mother language. It is learned in the classroom. Therefore, people have to learn it under the help of mother language. For that reason, the cognitive habit of mother language will be used in the second language acquisition and make some influences for it. Such influences take an important position in English teaching, so we have to envisage it. The following passage is some personal opinions:
4.1 Using and accelerating positive transfer, reducing negative transfer
The commonness of different languages is that they all use the fixed sound and font style to express certain meanings. Furthermore, the psychological process of language learning all follows these rules: learning from sound to form, from easy knowledge to hard one, from sensibility to logos. All these commonness provide an external possibility for mother language’s transferring to second language. Therefore according to the knowledge the students have learned, language teachers can link that knowledge with English together and use the commonness in their teaching process, which would get twice the result with half the effort.
In the other side, we have to notice that differences still exist in pronunciation, lexical, grammar, culture and communication. Most of students like to transfer the rules and thinking way of mother language into English study so that some chronic and systematic mistakes are made. Thus, we can use contrastive analysis to reduce the influence L1 make.[12]P48
4.1.1 In learning letter
English teachers can contrast the difference between Chinese “pinyin” and English letter, making students to aware the difference between them and avoid the transfer consciously. They may ask the students to read the letter many times and choose someone to say the difference.
4.1.2 In learning words
When teaching the new words, teachers can explain the words careful. Because the first impression is important for a learner, teacher should explain the word in details. If the word will make any transfer, teachers can ask students to pay attention to it. If the word has any special meaning in English culture, they should introduce the culture to students. For example, “whether” and “if” have the same meaning in Chinese, but they have some differences.
(I) Similarity
When they use to introduce an objective clause, they can be substituted by each other.
(II) Differences
①“whether” can introduce a subjective clause, while “if” can not. E.g. whether he will come is not known yet.
②“whether” can introduce an appositive clause, while “if” can not. E.g. The problem whether we should do the operation has not been settled.
③“whether” can be used with “or not”, while “if” can not.
④“whether” can be used with “to do”, while “if” can not. Please advise me whether to accept the offer.
⑤“whether” can be used after a preposition, while “if” can not.[13]P73
4.1.3 In grammar.
English grammar and Chinese grammar have some differences. For example, in Chinese, an adjective (used as an attribute) should be placed in front of noun. However in English, the position of the adjective can be not only in front of noun, but after noun. Where does an adjective should be placed is decided by the noun it modifies. For example, there is something wrong. Here “wrong” is an adjective and used as an attribute in the sentence. However it is placed after the noun it modifies. It is different from Chinese. In this time, teachers should make the students be aware of it.
4.1.4 In culture
In this area, the foreign culture should be taught by contrasting with Chinese culture. There are so many differences between Chinese and English so that culture transfer will often happen, especially in the communication. As we know, the main function of learning English is for communication. If we don’t know the other country’s culture, we would make some jokes just as that story mentioned above. So the introduction of foreign culture is quite important. Now many of people have been aware of the importance of culture and the cultural knowledge has been added to students’ book. However, the time in the class is limited, so adding some knowledge after class is necessary. Furthermore, we can introduce the cultural knowledge by playing some English films, reading English novel, and so on. In recent time, there are many ways to know foreign culture. Teachers should emphasize the importance of culture and encourage students to know it by themselves.
In all, in the teaching, teachers should do their best to make full use of the positive transfer and reduce the influence of negative transfer.
4.2 Provide more chances to make students practice more
Enough language input is very important for learning a language. The reason we can acquire mother language easily is because we use it every day. However, in Chinese, we are not exposed to English for a long time. Except in the class, students have little time to speak English. Because of that, setting a real practicing scene in classroom for students is important. Teachers should try their best to make the scene close to the real life and make students feel the real communication in English.
In the other side, teacher should pay attention to students’ language ability. If the scene beyond students’ ability, they may feel discouraged. Then they may be afraid of English, never to have any interest in it.
4.3 Using mother language properly
Although some teachers think that mother language should not be used in the class for it will go against English teaching, in fact, it is a misunderstanding. If teachers teach in English completely, there will be two consequences. One is that students’ English improves quickly for longtime exposure in English. The other is that students feel disliked for English and their marks drop quickly for their making little understanding of the English they heard. Therefore, we should accord students’ ability with the quantity we speak English in the class. We should know that using some mother language to explain English is necessary. We should not ignore the position of mother language.
5. Conclusion
Second language acquisition is based on grasping mother language. Therefore, the transfer will appear certainly. All we can do is to find it and then make full use of positive transfer and reduce the negative influence of it.
Bibliography
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