2。 Literature Review

2。1 Transfer and Language Transfer

Looking back on our daily life and study, it will be discovered that what we have learned in a way have an influence on the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, even our ways of thinking。 Confucius once said, “Gain new insights through reviewing old material。” This sentence also reflects the influence of old knowledge on the new。 Relatively, the new knowledge and skills also have an impact on the old。 This mutual influence between the old and the new knowledge and skills is regarded as a transfer。 

    The word transfer at first is a psychological term。 Later it was defined as a hypothesis that the task A learning will affect the task B learning by H。 Ellis (1965)。 In fact, the hypothesis is proved as a truth by many facts。 Transfer is a cognitive activity, a psychological process carried out of an inpidual’s own accord。 Cognitive structure migration theory which develops from Ausubel’s (1968) assimilation theory indicates that transfer is a process that integrates the old knowledge with the new, and in this process, the old and new knowledge may be assimilated, adapted or recombined。 The result of the transfer is the presentation of knowledge with the trace of the old knowledge or a brand-new one。 

    The first systematic theory of transfer did not appear until more than 200 years ago, and it is the doctrine of formal discipline, which is based on faculty psychology raised by German psychologist Wolff (1734)。 The doctrine of formal discipline emphasizes that the similarities of the psychological function which plays its role in the learning of two tasks are the keys to transfer。 Besides the doctrine, many researches and experiments which have been done by W。 James (1890), Thorndike (1903), Judd (1908), Kohler (1929), Rubinstein (1957) have revealed some rules and laws of transfer’s different aspects。 

    From James’ point, when the words “task A” and “task B” in H。 Ellis’ (1965) definition of transfer are replaced by words “L1” and “L2”, then that comes into the definition of language transfer。 Odlin (1989) defined language transfer as the impact caused by the similarities and differences between the target language and any other languages we have acquired or not completely acquired。 Researches also revealed language transfer is an important factor in the second language acquisition。 论文网

    Transfer can be pided into positive transfer and negative transfer on the basis of the transfer’s result。 Positive transfer means the knowledge and skills we have acquired have a positive influence on the learning of new knowledge and skills。 It can help to shorten the time of acquisition on the premise of same quality and quantity of knowledge and skills。 Negative transfer means the original knowledge and skills have an interference on the acquisition of the new one。 That is the impact we need to overcome in learning process。 The common factors theory of transfer indicates that the more similarities between the old and the new knowledge and skills there are, the easier it is to create positive transfer; whereas, the more differences between the old and the new knowledge and skills there are, the easier it is to create negative transfer。 Ausubel (1968) pointed out that to completely avoid the influence of transfer on the second language acquisition is impossible and also unpractical。 So the transfer of mother tongue in the second language acquisition is one of the important subjects getting much attention from language teachers and researchers。 Our most second language learning takes place in the mother tongue and motherland literature environment, so the Chinese ways of thinking and Chinese cultural consciousness must have a great influence in English understanding and acquisition。 But the learning of target language is a gradual process, in which the learners can continually build up the interlanguage structure and strengthen language competence, continually connect, judge, organize, summarize and analyze knowledge, and then have a reflection on how to overcome the negative transfer from mother tongue, eventually have your language competence come closer to the target language。  。