摘 要

由于英汉两种语言在语法规则及思维表达方式上的差异，在学生学习英语的过程中，母语会对其产生一些负面影响，即负迁移。本文首先在讨论负迁移以及对比分析等相关理论的基础上，从词汇、句法及语篇等三个层面剖析了学生在英语写作中的常见错误。然后针对这些错误，提出了通过大量阅读增加目的语输入、对中英文进行对比研究、鼓励学生用英语进行思维等教学建议，以帮助学生提高他们的英语写作能力。

关键词：负迁移；英语写作；错误分析；建议

Contents

1. Instruction--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

2. Demonstration---------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

2.1 Related theories------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

2.1.1 Language transfer-------------------------------------------------------------------------2

2.1.2 Error analysis------------------------------------------------------------------------------3

2.2 Common negative transfer errors in students’ English writings----------------------3

2.2.1 Errors at lexical level---------------------------------------------------------------------4

2.2.1.1 Errors in part of speech-----------------------------------------------------------------4

2.2.1.2 Errors in lexical collocation-----------------------------------------------------------4

2.2.2 Error at syntactical Level-----------------------------------------------------------------5

2.2.2.1 Errors in subject-verb agreement-----------------------------------------------------5

2.2.2.2 Errors with set sentence patterns------------------------------------------------------6

2.2.2.3 Errors in tense and voice---------------------------------------------------------------7

2.2.3 Errors at discourse level------------------------------------------------------------------8

2.2.3.1 Errors in cohesion-----------------------------------------------------------------------8

2.2.3.2 Errors due to Chinese thinking mode-----------------------------------------------10

2.3 Strategies to avoid negative transfer-----------------------------------------------------11

3. Conclusion------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13

Notes---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------14

Works Cited-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------15

Bibliography-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------16

An Analysis of Negative Transfer in Students’ English Writing

1. Introduction

As one of the four vital elements of English study, writing is regarded as the most effective one which entails the comprehensive abilities of students. In addition, as the communicative skill is becoming more and more important nowadays, proper and fluent expression has been attached high value in both oral and written tests. However, most students are in fact not able to use coherent sentences to correctly express their thoughts. It is stated that the lack of fundamental writing skills and knowledge is a common phenomenon in Chinese college students’ writings and the current situation of English writing in China is far from being satisfactory. Therefore, it is of great necessity to collect and analyze the errors in the composition.

Since the students have been exposed to a Chinese-dominated environment for a comparatively long time, it may leave influence, also called language transfer, on their English learning later. This issue has been in the spotlight of second language acquisition (SLA) study for many years. In addition, it arouses a lot of discussions among scholars and professors from both China and other countries. In the light of the findings of Corder, transfer should be responsible for the errors taking place in the process of learning another language or culture. Scholars including Corder, Richards, and Freeman amp; Long have made comprehensive studies on transfer and they find that transfer often occurs at lexical, syntactic and discourse level. In China, English is regarded as the principle foreign language and many researchers have paid much attention to the teaching and learning of English from several aspects. Through making comparisons of words selected respectively from Chinese and English, some scholars try to find out the differences between those two languages from perspectives of part of speech and others. In addition, negation shows difference in the aspect of logical meaning in the sentences of Chinese and English. Furthermore, when students encounter some difficulties in English writing, they often tend to resort to Chinese to find if there are any similar rules which correspond to the one in English. Besides, the different thought patterns in both Chinese and English cultures will bring some impacts on the second language learning as they interact with each other.