Abstract: In this essay, the author conducts a study on the writing essays of first year English majors’ of Nanjing Xiaozhuang College in an attempt to figure out the distribution and error sources of English writing in terms of lexicon, syntax, pragmatics and discourse and to raise suggestions to decrease negative transfer. The study is aimed at providing a clear idea on how negative transfers affect Chinese learners’ writing and offering aids to decrease negative transfer.  

Key words: negative transfer of mother tongue; English writings; implications

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

1.Introduction1

2.Literature Review  . 2

2.1 Definition of Language Transfer

2.2 Development of Language Transfer

2.3 Theoretical Framework

     2.3.1 Contrastive Analysis Hypothsis

     2.3.2 Error Analysis

     2.3.3 Interlanguage

3.Research Design.4

3.1 Research Subjects

3.2 Research Instruments

4. Results and Analysis of the Research .4

4.1 Results of the Data Collected from the Sample Writing

4.2 Analysis and Discussion of the Result

5.Enlightments on Avoiding Errors Caused by Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue. 12

5.1 Increasing the Input of Target Language

5.2 Enhancing the Awareness of Negative Transfer

5.3 Developing the Ability of Cross-cultural Communication

6.Conclution13

Bibliography14

Acknowledgements15