Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research background
English acquisition as a second language acquisition (SLA) is different from the firstlanguage acquisition. SLA researchers show that first language (LI) transfer is one of themost important factors that influence SLA. Transfer was originally used in psychology,assuming that the learning of Task A affected the learning of Task B (James, 1980; Su,2017). According to Odlin (1989), thinking about cross-linguistic influences dated back toa controversy in historical linguistic in the 19thcentury and the real discussion of transferbegan in 1940s and 1950s. In recent years, to many linguists’ delight, the growing attentionhas been regained on transfer phenomenon. Some of them have tried to define the conceptof language transfer. Ellis (1985) believes that the learner’s L1 knowledge would interferewith the L2, and where L1 and L2 were similar, L1 would actively aid L2 learning. Hedefined that “L1 transfer refers to the influence that the learner’s L1 exerts on theacquisition of an L2” (Ellis, 1997). However, Sharwood (1986) maintains that it should bereplaced by “cross-linguistic influence”. In this paper, author tends to adopt the definitionof Odlin. According to Odlin (1989), language transfer is a kind of cross-linguisticinfluence, which resulting from similarities and differences between the target and otherlanguage that has been previously (and perhaps perfectly) acquired.With the rapid development of the global communication, English communication hasbecome more and more significant as an international language. Writing, as one of theimportant means of language communication, plays an irreplaceable role in languagelearning. But the writing assessments are located at last in almost all the test paper.Therefore, some of students, even teachers will ignore the learning of writing. In addition,Chinese students have held the capacity of Chinese writing before they study English. Thus,negative transfer of mother language can bring out some errors as they write Englishcompositions. English writing is a procedure of not only language activities but also thinking activities, in which the thinking mode influences language output. Therefore, it isimportant for teachers to help Chinese students to look for and correct the errors which arecaused by the negative transfer.
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1.2 Research significance and purpose
As mentioned above, language transfer occurs in all linguistic systems. However thepresent study will focus on the negative aspects of Chinese transfer to English verbalcollocations.As one of the building blocks of language, vocabulary teaching and learning havegrown increasingly important in language teaching and learning. Swan (1997) claims thatpeople cannot have one word for each of the numerous things in the world, and a word inlanguage A may have different equivalents in language B, depending on what is exactlymeant. Words do not exist in isolation. So collocations are particularly important inteaching and learning. Verbs are most frequently used in writings, which give rise to a higherror proportion of verbal collocations. In my teaching experience, Chinese students areconfused about the usage of verbal collocations in their writings in many cases. So takingfrequently occurring verbal collocation errors into consideration, it is of practical andsignificantly pedagogical value to study the role of L1 transfer to L2 ve，英语论文题目，英语论文范文
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