negative transfer of mother language and English t 3稿.doc

Negative Transfer of Mother Language and English Teaching Methods Yu Yunhua 2013，3Abstract: To us Chinese, as we learn and use English, the mother language transfer phenomenon is being an objective fact around. The transfer usually manifested in many aspects of study, including phonetics, vocabulary, and pragmatics; in our daily life such a transfer also takes place. Mother language transfer can promote English learning, but also interfere with it. For both English learners and lecturers, they can better avoid the Negative Transfer of mother tongue and reduce the occurrence probability of it if they know well about the phenomenon, and can make better use of the positive transfer of mother tongue. For English teachers, they can find better teaching methods, thus achieving higher efficiency of teaching.Key words: Negative Transfer of mother tongue, positive transfer of mother tongue, English teaching撤消修改1. Introduction Language transfer has been the focus of Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition and Language Studies. The word transfer derives from Educational Psychology. It means the influence on the acquisition of new knowledge and new skills also the dealings with new issues that made by the acquired knowledge, skills, learning methods or learning attitude(Zhu Zhixian, 1989).Judging from the transfer direction, it includes Forward transfer ( influence of prior learning on subsequent learning) and Reverse transfer ( influence of subsequent learning on prior learning); according to the transfer effect, it can be divided into Positive transfer (former learning promotes latter learning) and Negative transfer (former learning interferes latter learning); according to the content abstract and generalization level of the transfer, there are Horizontal transfer(also called Transverse, means the mutual influence between experience of abstraction and generalization that at the same level. For example, the summarized relationship between acute angle, right angle, Obtuse angle , straight angle etc, is parallel) and Vertical transfer ( means the mutual influence between experience of abstraction and generalization that at different level. to be more specific, it means the mutual influence between a upper experience that is of a higher abstraction and generalization level and a lower experience that is of a lower abstraction and generalization level. Including that from bottom to top and from top to bottom. ) This paper is mainly about the existing positive and negative transfer of our mother language Chinese in our English learning , and some relevant teaching strategies.2. The phenomenon of negative transfer of mother tongue Negative transfer of mother tongue occurs in all aspects of the English use. But we can learn it from the two large aspects- life and study. 2.1 In daily life There is no denying that different countries have different customs. Take the preferences on color for example, our Chinese culture has been fond of red color since ancient times, and we think red auspicious and lucky. For instance, wedding is called red happy event. The bride is in red, and wears a red covering; the groom also wears a big red flower in chest and bedding is turning red, and the whole bridal chamber is covered with red ornaments: double XiZi in red and red silks and satins etc.; legend of the matchmaker s giving one a Marriage line is called pulling the red thread ; people stick red couplets in the spring festival; prosperity is flourishing, and a person having the prestige is called prestigious; be welcomed by and loved for people like stars , called popular ; charity called red cross ; even our national flag is also in red. By contrast, in English culture, red is not popular. People not only dislike red but think it violent, bloody and noisy. While they like white very much, they are more likely to wear white bridal veil in the wedding, and In their eyes white symbolizes purity. Instead, in our culture, we dislike white. People set up white flags for a died person, and when to present the funeral they wear white hat or white flower on the head and some will tie white satin around the head. They all in white clothes and will attach a piece of white cloth on their shoes. Besides, all the stains in the mourning hall are in white and people call the banquet white happy event. For that reason, usually, people wont wear white flowers on the head; when people feel not well, and dont look so good, we call it pale and so on. These cultural differences have resulted negative transfer in learning English for us that speak Chinese. Lets turn to number preference. Countries all have their own Lucky numbers and taboo numbers. There were many important thought in the ancient times that had something to do with number three. Say, San cai,San jie,San ling are all used to refer the three of heaven, the ground, and people; and people believed there were three lives including prelife, this life, and the future life; there exists many sayings in the folk that have relevant with the number three: Two heads are better than one, A fence of three piles, one of three men to help, the good fortune of three lives and so on. Therefore, the number three is treated as a lucky number in China. In English it is not special for the number three, but the number 13, which has nothing particular in meaning in Chinese has much in English . It is not only unpopular to people but even be abandoned by people ,and it is considered as the symbols of ill omen, and it is said that there is a story about the number 13. It goes like this: the person who gave away Jesus is the 13th disciple of his. As a result, people inmost hate the number 13 very much, and it happened that it was Friday when Jesus was afflicted, so generally speaking, people would do no activities when the day is both Friday and 13th of that month. In foreign countries, it impossible for us to find the number 13 when it comes to the house number, room number of hotel, and the floor of buildings, as well as the seat numbers of a party. In the British theatre, there is no seat that was marked with row 13, group 13. And in the America, if there is a seat marked with row 13, group 13, the ticket will be sold at the half price. Besides, many sports team dont have the 13th member. In addition, Garner Africa, Afghanistan, Singapore and some Latin American countries do not like this number either. In Holland, people use 12A to substitute for No. 13 . It seems that the French are wiser, in their theatre, it is often used as passage between the row 12 and the row 14. Whats more, going for a trip on the 13th of a month is a taboo for the foreigners , and that they will never have meals together at the same table for 13 persons, and it is even more impossible for them to accept 13 dish for a meal. All these cultural differences have brought us, who speak Chinese from the very beginning, many difficulties in learning English, because the cultural differences have resulted negative transfer in our learning English. We can also move to talk something about the negative transfer in the cultural of social intercourse. Foreigners usually talk about the weather for the topic when they happen to meet each other outside. While Chinese people commonly use greetings like have you had your dinner ? or Where are you going? , or maybe What are you busy with ? and so on when they meet. Actually, all those greetings are just for polite formula to show their friendliness, and no real questions. If we Chinese to say hello with foreigners in this way , they will more likely to feel rather baffling, or it may be resulting the misunderstanding that we are inviting them to dinner or we are doing something consciously to interfere in their private affairs and so forth. Chinese people are inclined to talked about the issues that including age, occupation, income and family etc. in the process of social interaction, which are all considered as private affairs in the foreign countries. If we just use our own cultural thought to deal with foreigners customs, many unpleasant consequences will be caused, when all these we did are not on purpose and sometimes, we even dont know what happened to the talk. This is the phenomenon that we call negative transfer of our culture in our English learning. Finally, let us have a look at the negative transfer of culture in the historical tradition. Show respect for the elderly is the outstanding tradition of the Chinese nation and to address the old men with the word Lao is a kind of respect. For example, Zhang Lao, Guo Lao, Yu Lao, Li Lao and so on; in the daily life of our Chinese people, there also exists the address like Lao Zhang, Lao Guo, Lao Yu, Lao Li and so forth. Those address in our daily life, though dont show respect, it can mean a kind of amiable feeling. By contrast, the English-speaking people is very sensitive to the word old (Lao), and the old people there dont like to be addressed with the word old . (for example，old people, old man, old woman, the elderly). Usually they are more willing to accept the address like senior citizen or golden age. We are all aware of it that on the buses there are seats for special usage, and there are public signs for these seats. In our country, the signs are usually come like for Lao, Ruo, Bing, Can only and because of the negative transfer of our culture, many people will translate the signs directly like the old, weak, sick, disabled only. This is clearly incompatible with the foreigners viewpoint of traditional culture, so it is difficult for them to accept the translation above, and it will make people fell quite embarrassing. While the public signs on the buses used in the foreign countries are Courtesy Seats. (Huang Jiaoling, 2011)2.2 Negative transfer of mother tongue on study To learn a language requires us to learn many aspects of its knowledge and what we mainly investigate here, are three points of the negative transfer of our mother language on the process of our learning English that including English pronunciation, vocabulary, and pragmatics.2.2.1 The negative transfer on pronunciation Research shows that the learners first language has a great influence on the second language pronunciation system. Experts find that the major problem of the change that from the first language to a second language is right the matters of pronunciation. That is to say the native speech has a significant inhibition impact on English phonetic learning , which we call negative transfer of the mother language. We can find that when most of the Chinese speak English will more or less with a little accent , which can also illustrate this point. Therefore, the American or British people can easily tell who is the foreigner from his English pronunciation, although the Chinese learners all try to think of many kinds of ways to improve their English pronunciation at the very beginning, the results still does not turn out to be the same as one wishes. (Vivian Cook,2000) In addition, Chinese and English are two different family languages, and the use of vocal organs and place of articulation is not exact the same. Its stress, rhythm and intonation characteristics also have many differences among them. Some are similar in pronunciation; some pronunciations vary greatly; some exist in Chinese but not exist in English, such as the pronunciation of J, Q, X in Chinese and some tone exist just in English but cant find in Chinese, such as, /, /, /, / and so forth. Pronunciation mistakes that Chinese students usually make in learning English from time to time mainly contain followings: the length of tone is not distinguished; the double vowel does not been reached to the designated position; no changes of degree of lip-rounding; no distinction between the unvoiced and the voiced sound; and also swallowing the sound or add more; even using Chinese characters to mark English pronunciation. For example, in the novel the Muslim s funeral , it mentioned that a beginner of English learning who is called Luo Xiuzhu, used Chinese characters Shui you tou mao rou to mark English sentence see you tomorrow in order to remember it; There are a lot of junior high school students would say these Chinese characters Ai lao hu you to express the English sentence I love you . This is a typical example of the negative transfer of mother tongue. For this reason, one has to imitate frequently; pay attention to pronunciation practice and do not use a pronunciation in Chinese instead of English pronunciation. If errors were found in the process of learning English then to timely re-correct them in order to learn cleaner English. (Wang Haige, 2012)2.2.2 Negative transfer on vocabularyKnowledge of mother tongue will also have transfer to English vocabulary learning. If the mother tongue and English are alike in pronunciation and meaning, then the knowledge will contribute to the study of English words, otherwise it would hinder the learning of English Vocabulary. Chinese learners of English will find it is difficult to memorize English words, and almost each word pronunciation and spelling are remembered by rote learning. This is because, English speaks for phonetic but Chinese characters is ideographic; English individual word pronunciation contributes to the spelling of the word memory, but Chinese characters pronunciation and the spelling almost had no relations. The differences between English and Chinese in this respect have caused great difficulties to Chinese learners in English vocabulary learning. To speak In this sense, the negative transfer of mother tongue has taken place. (Fan Hua, 2011) In addition, the negative transfer on English vocabulary learning brought by mother language is also shown in confused-usage and mixed-usage of English vocabulary. Many English learners have the habit of establishing a correspondences between English and Chinese vocabulary, while in fact, there are very few English vocabularies that can completely correspond with Chinese characters. For example, there are many English words that can correspond with the Chinese Yi xie , like some, any, a little, a bit, a few, a number of and so on; we can use think of , recall, remember, call up, occur to, bring to, mind, remind sb. of, remind sb. about, recollect etc. to take the place of Chinese Xiang qi; to express the concept of Yi, we can use English words a, an, one, and even can use first or the superlative adjective. And in fact the use of these words are differentiated, it can not be regarded as the completely equivalent. In addition, some Chinese would go in an opposite order when they are learned in the English vocabularies. Take the order of compellation both in Chinese and in English that we are most familiar with for example. Chinese language is surname first then name and English is name first then surname. So when learning the name Jack Brown, we should know family name or surname is Brown, not Jack, similarly, first name or name is Jack. On the other hand, we need to understand clearly that last name refers to surname , instead of our ideas of the name ; to push the idea further, some words of orientation, Chinese Dong bei is translated as as northeast in English, Xi nan is translated as southwest and Xi bei is translated as northwest ; when we talk about the regulations of forming a group of words, we can find that in Chinese the basic component is single character, and the phrase is composed by few characters. And the single word in English is more likely used to express the phrase meaning of Chinese, such as, Shui xian hua ( Narcissus ), Xiao hai ( child ), Ke zhuo ( desk ), Shou ji ( cellphone ), Nan hai ( boy ), Qian bao ( wallet ) etc. At last, lets talk about the negative transfer of mother language caused by the different ways of conveying meanings of English and Chinese. And this kind of negative transfer is more often manifested in translation. For instance, Xiao tousmall thief, Xiao xuesmall school, Kain wan xiaoopen a joke, Kai dengopen the light; for another example, books that in Chinese Huang se shu kan and , webpages that in Chinese Huang se wang ye refers to the books or periodicals and webpages that have relevant to pornographic thought. And the exact word pornographic or erotic cant be replaced by the color word yellow. In English the word yellow mainly refers to the press that goes all lengths to make sensational news. Yellow page refers to the pages on phone book that record service telephone numbers. The so-called Huang se dian ying that in Chinese is called blue film or blue movie in English. (Chen Xiao, 2009) Above all embody the negative transfer of mother tongue that take place in English vocabulary learning and the usage. 2.2.3 Negative transfer of mother language on pragmatics Pragmatics, as the name implies, is the use of language. And known as a failure of language use. To be more specific, it is the improper use of language or we say the language is used in an unbecoming situation. Language use is an extremely complex process, it is the process of the effect that made by both the users physiology and psychology. As the intercultural communication is carried out by the communicators who come from different cultural backgrounds, therefore, pragmatics failure is the manifestations of pragmatic negative transfer and the negative transfer of mother tongue. And transfer is mainly manifested in the vocabulary, syntax and thinking mode. At the beginning, we have talked about the negative transfer on lexical matters, so we will move on to the neg