An Investigation Into Effects Of Negative Language Transfer On English Writing By Non-English Majors In A Chinese University

In the process of second language learning, Chinese learners are easily influenced by their mother tongue. For a long time, scholars and linguists have done a lot of researches to explain this phenomenon from different aspects, but only a few of them have done the research on the influence of negative transfer on non-English majors’ writings. Since English writing is of one the essential courses in EFL teaching,more and more researchers and teachers have attempted to promote their teaching efficiency by analyzing how students’ mother tongue may negatively affected students’ writing. They have conducted extensive research on examining the errors caused by negative transfer.By employing the theories of Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and Interlanguage, the present research aims at conducting an empirical research on exploring the transfer phenomenon in English writing. It aims at discovering the typical interlingual errors caused by negative transfer in non-English majors’ English writing and whether non-English majors rely on L1 strategies in their English writing.Fifty students in Jiangxi College of Foreign Studies were selected as the subjects of this research, and their English writings were analyzed to find out error types caused by negative transfer. The method used in this research consists of qualitative and quantitative studies. Two instruments are involved, writing test and post-writing questionnaire.On the basis of the data analysis, the major findings can be summarized as follows:(1) The study has found that most students are more or less affected by negative transfer in the process of English writing, and that there are three error levels:substance errors, grammatical errors and discourse errors;(2) The result of the questionnaire shows that in the three writing stages, non-English majors depend too much on their native language.(3) The results of error analysis shows that students use some Chinese writing strategies to drive the English writing continually, and they employ the Chinese thinking patterns from time to time to adjust the English sentences and paragraphs. In a word, non-English majors tend to apply L1 strategies in their English writing in the whole writing process.Based on the findings of this research, some implications are offered for English teachers. First, in order to help raise students’ awareness of negative transfer ofmother tongue, English teachers should apply teaching strategies to guide students to avoid such language transfer. At the same time, English teachers should activate students’ English thinking mode by creating an authentic language learning environment, using the target language in teaching and encouraging students to read widely. Secondly, since non-English majors make many errors in morphology and syntax, English teachers should pay more attention to the errors in these areas in classroom teaching. Finally, English teachers should combine error correcting and effective feedback to help students recognize the errors in their writings. They should design some relevant exercises for students to conduct self-correction and peer feedback.