An Emperical Study Of Second Language Learners’ L1 Conceptual Transfer In The Expression Of Event Series

Conceptual transfer has become a new research direction of language transfer.According to the Conceptual Transfer Hypothesis,the study of language transfer will not only analyze superficial phenomena of language,but also focus on exploring differences of the conceptual cognitive system reflected by language.In the expression of event series,English and Chinese have different understandings of the time distance between individual events.Previous studies have examined event serialization from the morphology-syntactic and semantic aspects,but few from the conceptual level.In view of this,this study explores whether the tight event serialization in serializing Chinese will conceptually transfer to non-serializing English.The study focuses on the following questions: 1)Do L2 learners with a serializing first language conceptually transfer tight L1-based event serialization patterns into their non-serializing L2? 2)What are the characteristics of L2 learners’ expression of event series under the influence of L1 conceptual transfer? 3)What are the factors that affect second language learners’ L1 conceptual transfer while expressing L2 event series?Ninety non-English majors from a university in Shandong Province were selected as the experimental group and divided into the advanced,intermediate and elementary group according to their CET-6 scores.Thirty English native speakers were selected as the control group.The experimental materials were 30 Chinese sentences and 30 English sentences.Participants were asked to mark the time distance between two events in the test sentences.This study adopted a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative research,investigating the conceptual transfer of mother tongue of second language learners in terms of the means and standard deviations of the time distance between two verbs in Chinese and English test sentences through SPSS(Version 20).Ten participants were selected from different proficiency groups of second language learners for the retrospective interview.The findings are as follows:(1)When marking the time distance between two verbs in English test sentences,second language learners conceptually transfer the tight event serialization patterns from Chinese to English.(2)When second language learners mark the temporal distance of events in English sentences,the time of event 1 precedes the time of event 2.In comparison with English natives,second language learners estimate the temporal distance between E1 and E2 significantly tighter in non-finite verb as purposive adverbial sentences compared to non-finite verb as object and object complement sentences.Although the meanings and the structures between Chinese and English test sentences are equivalent,the marking temporal distance of two verbs between Chinese and English is different.The improvement of English proficiency of second language learners weakens the conceptual transfer of mother tongue.(3)Combined with the retrospective interview,the factors that affect the L1 conceptual transfer in L2 event series include conceptual systems between languages,language typological differences,language proficiency and the cognition of time.Theoretically,this study supports the Conceptual Transfer Hypothesis,clarifies the characteristics of L2 learners’ expression of event series and reveals the factors that affect second language learners’ L1 conceptual transfer in L2 event series.It brings enlightenment to English teaching: in the process of English teaching,teachers need not only teach a new form of language expression,but also pay attention to a new way of organizing event information.