A Study Of The Influence Of English On The Position Of Chinese Attributive Modifiers

The influence of the second language on the first language refers to the changes in their use of native language for second language learners after they have been learning the second language for some time. Influenced by the second language, there are some changes on learners’ first language, and these changes with similar features to their second language may take place in the aspects of concepts, knowledge, language competence, linguistic elements and so on. At present, transfer from the second language to the first language has received wider attention. However, few empirical studies on backward transfer have been carried out in China.This thesis aims to illustrate the influence of English on the position of Chinese attributive modifiers by analyzing the statistic data collected from seven groups of participants including the experimental group and the controlled group, three groups of subjects with different English proficiency and two groups of subjects with different Chinese proficiency. Based on the former researches, this study chooses the position of Chinese attributive modifiers as the major objective, and takes the difference in second language learners’tolerance in Chinese sentences with attributive modifiers positioned after their headwords as the key, so as to analyze the influence of English on ESL learners’ Chinese attributive modifiers. Thus, three major research questions in this thesis are addressed:1) What’s the influence caused by the intensive training in English attributive clauses on ESL learners’ tolerance in judging the position of Chinese attributive modifiers? 2) For the students with different English proficiency, what are the differences in their tolerance in judging the position of Chinese attributive modifiers? 3) For the students with different Chinese proficiency, what are the differences in their tolerance in judging the position of Chinese attributive modifiers?This study chooses one hundred and ninety ESL learners who have been divided into seven groups as subjects, and adopts SPSS 21.0 to analyze the data collected from each group. After comparing the date difference, firstly, it is found that the intensive learning of English attributive clauses imposes impact on ESL’s tolerance in the Chinese sentences with post-positioned attributive modifiers. Secondly, there is a significant difference in the tolerance of ESL learners with different English proficiency in judging the position of Chinese attributive modifiers. It is demonstrated that, for learners with different English proficiency level, influence from the second language to the first language is different. To be specific, the higher the learners’English proficiency is, the higher degree of tolerance in judging the Chinese sentences with attributive modifiers after headwords is. Besides, different Chinese proficiencies are significantly related to ESL learners’ degree of tolerance in judging the Chinese sentences with attributive modifiers positioned after their headwords.