The Influence of Negative Transfer of Mother Language on Syntax in Students’ English Writing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/cyfntr96Keywords:
English Writing, Mother Language, Negative Transfer, SyntaxAbstract
The language transfer theory postulates that a learner’s mother language would either positively or negatively impact his acquisition of a foreign language as a second language. When there are similarities between the native language and the target language, the transfer functions positively, while in case of differences, it functions negatively. Writing is one of the five basic skills of English learning, which is the most intuitive reflection of students’ overall ability level. This paper first analyzes the phenomenon of negative transfer of mother language and English writing, and then analyzes the impact of negative transfer of mother language on students’ English writing from the syntactic level. Based on the analysis, this paper proposes countermeasures from four aspects: strengthening comprehensible language input, enhancing the comparison of Chinese and English, applying the diversified writing evaluation feedback methods, and guiding students to develop writing strategies, in order to help students overcome the interference of mother language and improve their writing ability.
Downloads
References
[1] Friederici, A. 2011. The Brain Basis of Language Processing: From Structure to Function [J]. Physiological Review (4): 1357–1392.
[2] Kosslyn, S. & Osherson, D. 1995. An Invitation to Cognitive Science [M]. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
[3] Ellis, R. 2013. The Study of Second Language Acquisition [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
[4] Dai, Weidong & Zhaoxiong He. 2016. A New Concise Course in Linguistics for Students of English [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
[5] Ellis, H. 1965. The transfer of learning [M]. New York: Macmillan.
[6] Odlin, T. 1989. Language Transfer [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[7] Wang, Wenyu & Qiufang Wen. 2002. Mother language thinking and bilingual writing [J], Journal of the PLA Foreign Studies Institute (04),64-67.
[8] Yang Yuchen & Wen Zhaorong. 1994. Sentence types and analysis of Chinese students’ English writing [J]. Modern Foreign Languages (1).
[9] Bi, Jiwan. 1994. Culture and Communication [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
[10] Zhu Rongying. 2005. Negative transfer of mother tongue to college students’ English writing and teaching countermeasures [J]. Journal of Lujiang Vocational University (3): 107-111.
[11] Zhang Yanyan. 2016. Negative transfer of mother tongue at the syntactic level of English writing [J]. Journal of Northeast Agricultural University: Social Science Edition (6):71-76.
[12] Jiang Shan & Huiping Zhang. 2023. The acquisition of English long passives by Chinese learners from the perspective of syntax-pragmatics interface[J]. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages (1): 96-103.
[13] Guo Jia, Lei Yang & Shuang Wang. 2022. A study on the relevance between L2 Writing Complexity and L1 transfer [J]. Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies (3): 140-148.
[14] Wang Dandan. 2023. A study on the error types and influencing factors of negative transfer of mother tongue in English writing [J]. English Square (13):124-128.
[15] Stephen D. Krashen. 1988. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning [M]. London: Prentice Hall.
[16] Ma Jing. 2012. A survey on the current situation of English writing ability of senior high school students in Panzhihua City and teaching countermeasures [J]. Overseas English (8): 53-55.
[17] Zhang Mei. 2022. The influence of negative transfer of mother tongue on college students’ English writing and its countermeasures [J]. English Square (31):35-39.
[18] Liu Qiyu. 2021. The effect of the negative transfer of mother Language on the wrong combination in English writing [J]. GaoKao (9): 109-110.
[19] Cen yue & Xinyu Zhang. 2023. A study on negative transfer of mother tongue in college students’ English writing [J]. Overseas English (23):7-10.
[20] Wang Chengxia. 2013. Analysis and countermeasures of negative transfer of mother tongue in English writing [J]. Journal of The Chinese Society of Education (S1): 85-86.
[21] Fan Xiaodi. 2014. Negative transfer of mother tongue in English writing and its teaching implications [J]. Journal of Teaching and Management (3): 118-120.
[22] Wang Taofeng. 2020. The influence of negative transfer of mother tongue on college students' English writing and its countermeasures [J]. Journal of Suzhou Education Institute 23(1):84-86.
[23] Zhou Guanqiong. 2011. An empirical study of negative transfer errors in English writing [J]. Adult Education (8): 113-114.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Journal of Education and Educational Research

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.









