Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Need for the Study
As Rod Ellis said, no theory of second language (L2) is complete without anaccount of L1 transfer, and there is clear evidence that first language (L1) acts as amajor factor in SLA (Ellis, 1994: 297). The study of the role of L1 in second languagelearning has been a central and controversial issue ever since the study on languagetransfer began in the 1960s. Studies on language transfer has undergone two periods:contrastive hypothesis period and inter-language hypothesis period. And manyempirical studies on the role of L1 in second language learning have been conductedduring those periods. Thus, major theories related to L1 transfer have also beengenerated. However, the study on language transfer in China began much later than inwestern countries and empirical researches so far are not many. As the learning ofEnglish in China becomes more and more important nowadays, there is a need tomake a systematic study on the influence of Chinese on SLA so as to find ways toavoid negative transfer and meanwhile promote positive transfer in SLA process.
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1.2 Purpose of the Study
This paper is to give a detailed analysis of the L1 interference errors incompositions of senior high school students. Two theories which have had greatimpact on the study of language transfer comprise theoretical framework: ContrastiveAnalysis Hypothesis and Error Analysis Theory. Corder’s error analysis was designedto give a systematic study and analysis into the errors made by the learner in hislearning of a foreign language in an attempt to account for the linguistic andpsychological origin of the errors, and the regularity, predictability and variability ofthem. Behaviorist view and its Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis emphasizes theprediction and description of modes of difficulties L2 learner may/may not encounter during the learning process by systematically comparing and contrasting nativelanguage and its culture with that of target language. Based on those two theories, theauthor tries to analyze systematically transfer errors in the English compositions ofchosen subjects and provide reasonable explanation to errors caused by L1 transfer.Moreover, implications on teaching of English writing will also be given.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 The Definition of Language Transfer
The word “transfer” in “language transfer” is an important concept of learningpsychology and first took its form in structuralist linguistics and behavioristpsychology in the 1950s. Ellis (1965) defined transfer as a hypothesis that the learningof task A influences the learning of task B. Based on such definition, James (1980:11)proposed that if task A and task B be replaced by L1 and L2 respectively, we get“language transfer”. In fact, language transfer derived from the Transfer Theory inpsychology and it is a learning psychology theory in second language acquisition. Thestudy on language transfer has been a central issue in applied linguistics for at least acentury. Therefore, the definition of it is quite complex. According to Dechert andRaupack (1989), in the book Language Transfer in Language Learning written byGass and Selinker, there are at least 17 definitions of language transfer: a model ofresearching language acquisition (Osgood, 1953); a theoretical concept aimed atexplaining some languag，英语论文题目，英语论文范文
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