2。3 Previous studies at home and abroad

Since the middle of twentieth Century, the influence of mother tongue on foreign language learning has always been a problem concerned by people。 And language transfer has been a central issue in Applied Linguistics, second language acquisition (SLA) and language research。 For this reason, linguists have deeply discussed and come up with many theories such as the theory of contrastive analysis, Inter-language Theory and so on。

According to the theory of contrastive analysis, the influence of native language on foreign language learning is different from that of the two languages’ similarities and differences。 Through comparative analysis, we can know how L1 transfer and can also explain the nature of second language transfer (Chomsky 113)。 Charles Fries (1945) designed the method of contrastive language teaching and first proposed comparative analysis hypothesis model。 His main point is that learners’ native language plays a decisive role in the learning of their target language。 He thinks the native language forms and results will transfer learners。

Ellis (1985) also pointed that if there is no corresponding form between the foreign language and L1, people tend to draw on the mother language habits, cultural background and way of thinking to contrast the two languages。 In one aspect, the similarities between L1 and the foreign language can promote the foreign language learning, in another aspect, the differences between them will interfere the learning。

Selinker (1969) put forward a term called inter-language。 It is a transitional language between mother tongue and target language learners use。 The emergence of the inter-language marked the new stage of error analysis based on the contrastive analysis。 The most important founder of error analysis theory is Corder。 Corder (1983) points that we should take the learner’s mistake as a window of development instead of a negative thing completely。 Because of this, error analysis theory has been widely recognized by L2 research community (Lin 22)。 However, error analysis theory has its own limitation。 It over valued the meaning of learners’ errors and ignored the positive effects of mother tongue on L2 acquisition。 文献综述

In recent years, many Chinese linguists have made studies of L1 transfer in SLA。 The famous linguist (Chen 169) pointed out the most useful help for Chinese students is to let them know the differences between English and Chinese。 As far as possible to compare the situation in Chinese with English in every specific question, students will have a deeper understanding in L2 learning。

This thesis studies the negative transfer of Chinese from middle school students’ cognition and explores the different levels of negative transfer in students’ English writing。 It may promote English writing ability of middle school students and form the habit of thinking in English。 Meanwhile, it is the profound hope that the thesis can provide some suggestions for teachers。

3。 Analysis of Negative Transfer of Chinese in Middle School English Writing

Most of middle school students have learned English for several years, but their English is still poor。 They have a small vocabulary and they don't understand the words well。 In the process of writing, students often translate from Chinese to English。 Errors caused by negative transfer of Chinese are analyzed from the following aspects。来,自,优.尔:论;文*网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766-

3。1 Morphological level

Chinese and English belong to different language systems。 English is alphabetic system of writing while Chinese characters are meaning-phonetic writing。 Compared with Chinese, there are more morphological changes in English, such as single and plural nouns, the comparative and superlative form of adjectives and adverbs and the non-predicate verbs。