Positive Transfer Of Trilinguals In English Learning

Language transfer has long been the part and parcel of the studies on the second language acquisition(SLA). Since the end of the 1980s, with the deepening of the transfer study, the reasearch on cross-linguistic influence between Chinese and English has attracted much more attention by researchers. However, with the increase in the number of the third language learners and multilinguals, language transfer in third language acquisition has become a new focus in this regard. How do the learner's first, second and third language influence the acquisition of English? From the perspective of the cognitive potentials, Korean-Chinese-Japanese trilinguals have experienced mother tongue, second language and third language acquisition. Therefore, they are familiar with the language learning process, which provides useful language learning experiences. From the linguistic perspective, trilinguals are supported by three different language systems of phonology, morphology and syntax in English learning. They can find similarities and realize positive transfer through comparision between Korean, Chinese, Japanese and English.This study focuses on the positive transfer of Korean-Chinese-Japanese trilinguals in English learning, discusses the cross-linguistic influence, and find the reasons and factors that constrain the positive transfer from both linguistic and cognitive perspectives. On the basis of oriented study as well as contrastive analysis, we have discussed the cross-linguistic influence -of Korean-Chinese-Japanese trilinguals on the level of phonology, morphology and syntax in English learning; and found out that linguistic fators constrain the positive transfer. According to the learner-based study, we also discussed cognitive and psychological factors on the basis of the language-based discussion through the quetionnare research. By combinding these two kinds of studies from different aspects, we make an investigation into positive transfer of Korean-Chinese-Japanese trilinguals in English learning.This article aims to supply some inlightments to the English teachers in China in the hope that this research will benefit the further research on the positive transfer of multilinguals.