L1 Transfer In The Linking Devices Used By Chinese Undergraduates In English Narratives

As the skeleton of a text,foreground events in narratives mainly push the events narrated forward.The information in foreground events must be organized through linking devices to guarantee the action continuity of foreground events.Previous studies have shown that foreign language learners have various difficulties in acquiring linking devices,mainly manifested in the underuse and overuse of connectors.Therefore,linking devices have attracted more and more attention.Although studies have been conducted on linking devices,there still remain gaps to fill in.On the one hand,previous studies mainly focused on connectors,leaving other types of linking devices like clauses,infinite phrases and participle phrases less examined.On the other hand,most prior studies take crosssectional design,ignoring how L1 transfer varies with the development of language proficiency.In addition,L1 transfer in previous studies was identified mostly by intuition,which was not rigorous.Based on these,the thesis aims to address how are linking devices used,and to investigate the influence of L1 on linking devices diachronically.The thesis tries to answer the following questions:1)How are linking devices used between foreground events in Chinese undergraduates’ English narratives over their first two years?2)How does Chinese influence on the use of linking devices in narratives vary over the first two years?2a)On the individual level,how does the influence of Chinese on linking devices vary over the first two years?2b)On the group level,how does the influence of Chinese on linking devices vary over the first two years?As part of the National Social Science Project(No.11CYY021),the data for the present study were collected by the project members.The participants involved in this study are 35 undergraduates majoring in English from Qufu Normal university and North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power.As a longitudinal study,the data were collected at five times— the beginning of the first semester and second semester,the end of the second semester,third semester and forth semester.The data were 175 narratives and corresponding Chinese versions,in which 1758 tokens of linking devices were identified.The data were coded on the following dimensions: types of linking devices,the correctness,the congruity between English and Chinese and types of transfer.The following findings were obtained.1)Various kinds of linking devices are used inforeground events of narratives.The percentages of each type of linking devices do not increase or decrease linearly with the development of L2 proficiency over the five tests.As for the accuracy,the accuracy of the four types of linking devices expressing coordination in each test is higher than 90%,while among types of linking devices expressing subordination,the accuracy of adverbial clause of result,adverbial clause of purpose and infinite phrase is higher than 90%.The four types of linking devices expressing coordination have smaller variation range over the five tests,while among linking devices expressing subordination,the accuracy of relative clause and object clause has greater variation.2)On the individual level,learners showed obvious individual variation.The types of L1 transfer differ between learners,and the distribution of different types of transfer is uneven within learners.On the group level,the percentages of positive transfer in five tests are 47.2%,45%,39.1%,51.3% and 40.5%,while the percentages of intrusive transfer in five tests are 4.5%,3.2%,2.2%,4.3% and 1.9%,and the percentages of inhibitive transfer are 0%,0%,1.5%,3.7% and 0.5%.The percentage of positive transfer and that of negative transfer show significant difference in each test.With the development of English proficiency,the percentages of positive transfer in the forth and fifth test show significant variation,while the percentages of intrusive transfer in five tests show no significant variation,and the percentages of inhibitive transfer change significantly only in the fifth test.Among linking devices expressing subordination,inhibitive transfer only occurs in adverbial clause of time,object clause,relative clause and participle phrase,while no inhibitive transfer occurs in connectors expressing coordination.The percentages of all types of transfer in each type of linking devices do not increase or decrease linearly with the development of the L2 proficiency.