A Study On The Negative Transfer Of Tpc From The Perspective Of Linguistic Typology

In second language(L2) acquisition, for Chinese learners, Chinglish, which has a very strong "Chinese taste" and is neither authentic nor natural, often occurs in their Chinese-English translation and writing. It is caused by the negative transfer of the mother tongue, especially by the feature in topic prominence of Chinese language.Based on the theory of language transfer and linguistic typology, this study selects 40 freshmen in Zhangzhou No.1 Middle School, 30 non-English major undergraduate students and 30 English-major undergraduate students in Minnan Normal University in Fujian Province as the research objects. They represent three different English levels---low, medium and high respectively. Data collection and analysis come from the combination of Chinese-English translation test, control composition and questionnaires. Chinese-English translation test focuses on four types of topic prominence construction(TPC) appearing in students’ translation tasks, aiming to study language transfer in students’ English learning and the features in TPC. Control composition highlights the types of TPC and their use frequencies, and a comparison is also made between the control composition and the translation test. Questionnaire aims at the causes of errors in students’ English writing and the proportion of language transfer in control composition. The study tries to verify two questions: Whether the topic-prominent type of Chinese would have an impact on Chinese students in English learning or not? Whether English learners in different levels has the same features of TPC or not? Why?Data analysis is made by SPSS and charts. The results show three claims. First, TPC appears in all levels of Chinese students in English learning. Second, with the improvement of English level, the proportion which students use TPC will decrease. Students may tend to use more authentic expression. Third, the questionnaire shows that English learners in high level can more clearly understand the impact of language transfer on second language acquisition.The results of this study can not only help have an understanding of TPC in the ChineseEnglish translation and writing of Chinese students in English learning, but also make some inspiration on English teaching in China.