The Effects Of L1 Thinking And L2 Thinking On L3 Composing

Based on language transfer theory, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SHW) and the think-aloud theory, this study explored the effects of Chinese (L1) thinking and the first foreign language (Japanese) (L2) thinking in the L3 (English) as the second foreign language (ESFL) composing process.Think-aloud method was adopted to copy the subjects'mental status of L1 and L2 which were used in L3 composing process. The subjects in this study were 8 students of Japanese major from Chongqing University (CQU) in Grade 2 and Grade 3.Based on the collected data, the effects of L1 thinking and L2 thinking were found. This study confirmed the multiple effects of L1 and L2 thinking, especially L2 thinking in generating texts. The major findings in this study were as follows:1. The roles played by L1 (Chinese) in EFL composing process are confirmed, including task-examining, idea-generating, idea-organizing, text-generating and process-controlling.2. L2 (Japanese) thinking mainly embodied in text-generating.3. The amount of L2 thinking use in ESFL composing process increased with the growth of grades in college, while the amount of L1 thinking use decreased.4. With different L3 proficiency, the amount of L1 use in ESFL writing was positively correlated with the score of the final products.5. Since the student writers have three languages, L1, L2 and L3, while composing in ESFL, L1 is more frequently employed by most subjects to solve cognitive problems such as ideas generating and ideas organizing, while L2 is mostly used in detail associating and content affirming.The results further enhanced the typical language transfer theory, namely, once there was a new language acquiring, there would be transfers among the new and the old languages. Meantime, comparing with other L3 researches, English as the second foreign language learning in China had its own characteristics. Therefore, this study provided enlightenment in the field of the second foreign language teaching for both China and other countries which were in the similar situation. Because there were positive and negative transfer both from Chinese and Japanese, the measures of how to enlarge the positive points and reduce the negative point were urgently. The results indicated that the more Japanese the students acquired, the less English they got. Although the students continued English study, the English proficiency was not changed obviously. This study suggests that the teachers, who are teaching or will teach the second foreign language, may know the similarities and differences between the languages. They may immerse the knowledge into actual teaching activities. The comparative teaching method would be effective.