Studies_on_Transfer_in_Second_Language_Acquisition【英语专业论文】.doc

Studies on Transfer in Second Language Acquisition Abstract: Transfer is a pervasive term and this has led to diverse interpretations and research practices of it. This paper reviewed the related literature on transfer studies in second language acquisition, linguistic studies and non-linguistic. It also made a survey about approaches in transfer studies, native speakers’ attitudes toward transfer, and transfers made by Chinese learners of English. It was argued that transfer research evolved from a linguistic-to- non-linguistic path, and there is a necessity in the current trend to shift from the former to the latter. Keywords: transfer, linguistic transfer, pragmatic transfer, second language acquisition 1. Defining transfer Transfer, derived from the Latin word “transferre”, means “to carry”, “to bear” or “to print, impress or otherwise copy (as a drawing or engraved design) from one surface to another”(Webster’s Third New World International Dictionary, 1986). So to speak, when we say “technology transfer”, we mean the transfer or carry-over of technology from one owner to another. Transfer can also mean “the carry-over or generalization of learned responses from one type of situation to another”, especially “the application in one field of study or effort of knowledge, skill, power, or ability acquired in another” (Webster’s Third New World International Dictionary, 1986). The use of “transfer” in “linguistic transfer” is such an example. By linguistic transfer, we mean what the learners carry over to or generalize in their knowledge about their native language (NL) to help them learn to use a target language (TL). Here transfer does not indicate whether what is carried over is bad or good. This meaning from the dictionary shows that transfer is a neutral word in origin and nature. Linguistics concerns, in overall, with the static structures within a language system. Viewed from the TL grammatical rules, certain NL-based linguistic transfers are foun