Studies on Transfer in Second Language Acquisition
Shaozhong Liu
Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, 541004, China
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 found to coincide with
linguistic errors. In this way, NL-based linguistic transfers are divided into two broad types,
positive and negative. Those NL-based uses that do not lead to linguistic errors are labeled as
positive transfer, whereas those that lead to errors, negative transfer. In second language classroom
teaching, a positive linguistic transfer is generally not attacked, but a negative linguistic transfer,
almost to all instructors, is definitely not recommended for the learners, since it is erroneous.
Pragmatics, a branch of linguistics which studies how people interpret and produce meaning in
a specific context (Leech, 1983; Liu, 2000), also claims an interest in transfer. For pragmaticians,
they are interested in finding out in what way NL-based transfers influence the learners in
comprehending and performing a speech act in a TL and whether such transfers are appropriate in
the context.
Apparently, pragmatics diverges from linguistics in interpreting transfer in that it has
maintained the neutral sense or natural attribute of transfer. Since pragmatics aims at exploring the
appropriateness of speech that is free from right-wrong linguistic grammar, everything under
pragmatic investigation is correct, grammatically speaking. In literature to date, in
pragmatics-oriented studies of transfers, interests and endeavors have been attached to the finding
out of the differences or deviations between these divergent forms from the TL and whether these
deviant forms are appropriate, from the angle of TL speakers. An example to illustrate this point is
the Japanese learners’ overuse of the expression “I am sorry” in conversations. It was reported that
there are many cases in which Japanese students used this expression which is actually not needed
in English, since to English speakers, the expression is used only for an apology. This indicates the
learners fall back on the Japanese routine expression “suminmasen” which means, literally, “I’m
sorry.” Hence, this is not an example of error, but of appropriateness (Beebe & Takahashi, 1992).
In practice, transfer has attracted people of different academic backgrounds and led researchers
to different interpretations and definitions of the term. Scarcella (1983), for instance, was
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interested in the transfer of discourse accent and believed hat it is a reflection of ‘conversational
features’ such as forms and functions of conversational management. Kellerman &
Sharwood-Smith (1986) studied the exactitude of the term and tried to draw a distinction between
transfer and influence. To them, transfer is not the same thing as cross-linguistic influence.
Whereas transfer refers to those linguistic behaviors incorporated from L1 into IL without
capturing other interlingual effects, cross-linguistic influence, on the other hand, refers to those L1
effects such as avoidance, L1 constraints on L2 learning and performance, and different
directionality of interlingual effects. This view is further elaborated in Sharwood-Smith (1994). To
Odlin (1989), transfer just means the influence resulting from similarities and differences between
the target language and any other language that has been obviously, and perhaps imperfectly,
acquired. This definition thus suggests that transfer can occur at any levels, strategic, linguistic,
discoursal, and pragmatic. Wolfson (1989) analyzed how the transfer of speaking rules from one’s
own native speech community influences interactings with members of the host community. She
insisted that transfer mainly stands for the use of rules of speaking from one’s own native speech
community when interacting with members of the host community or simply when speaking or
writing in a second language. For Wolfson, the two terms, sociolinguistic and pragmatic, are
interchangeable, and so are her sociolinguistic rules and rules of speaking. Then to Beebe et al
(1990), transfer specifically refers to the learners’ L1 socio-cultural competence in performing L2
speech acts or any other aspects of L2 conversation. Hence for Clyne et al (1991), “apologies” and
“complaints” are pragmatic, while turn-taking discoursal. In terms of the scope of transfer,
Takahashi & Beebe (1992) held that transfer consists of both cross-linguistic influence and
cross-cultural transfer elements. Kasper (1995) focused on pragmatic transfer and defined it as
“the influence exerted by learners’ pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than L2
on their comprehension, production, and acquisition of L2 pragmatic information” (Kasper, 1992;
1995).
The identification of transfer was first discussed by Corder (1981) who remarked that it is the
duty of both teachers of languages and native speakers of the language to point out the transfer
according to the rules of language. At the same time, Corder (1981) implied the source of data for
transfer research lie in the learners’ production or utterances, that is the observed output which
results from the second language learner’s attempted production of a TL norm (1981). Kasper
(1992) also reiterated that it is imperative to find certain constraints on a pragmatic transfer, so
that our work will be operationable.
The usual way to identify a transfer in SLA research is something like an informal estimation
method (Kasper, 1992). In informal estimations, we decide whether a transfer can be established
by looking at the similarities and differences of the percentage by which a particular category of
interlanguage features (such as a semantic formulae, strategy, or linguistic form) occurs in the NL,
TL, and IL data. Similar response frequencies in all the three data sets are classified as positive
transfer (Blum-Kulka, 1982; House & Kasper, 1987; Faerch & Kasper, 1989), while different
response frequencies between IL-TL and NL-TL combined with similar frequencies between
IL-NL register as negative transfer (Beebe et al., 1990; Takahashi and Beebe, 1992; Olshtain,
1983).
Another way to determine a transfer is to use a statistically significant method. Kasper (1992)
strongly recommended Selinker’s (1969) operational definition of transfer. To her, it can be
adapted to a suitable method for identifying pragmatic transfer in interlanguage production. This
was echoed by Bley-Vroman (1983) who observed that multiple rather than binary choices are
usually available for speakers to express communicative intent. Parallel trends towards one option
in a binary choice schema as was pointed out by Selinker (1983), however, can rarely be
established. A statistically significant method determines whether the differences between the
interlanguage and the learner’s native language on a particular pragmatic feature are statistically
significant, and how these differences relate to the TL. A general guiding principle is, if a
pragmatic feature is lack of statistically significant differences in the frequencies of a pragmatic
feature in NL, TL, and IL, then it can be operationally defined as positive transfer. On the contrary,
statistically significant differences in the frequencies of a pragmatic feature between IL-TL and
NL-TL and lack of statistically significant differences between IL and L1 can be operationally
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defined as negative transfer (Kasper, 1992). Takahashi (1995) further elaborated on positive
transfer as “similarity in terms of response frequencies in NL, IL, and TL”, while negative transfer
as “similar response frequencies in NL, IL with different response frequencies between NL and TL
and between IL and TL”.
An example of the statistically significant method is Bergman & Kasper’s (1993) study of
transfer in “apologizing”. They showed that more than half of the differences between
Thai-English and American-English apologizing strategies are due to negative pragmatic transfer.
The process to identify a transfer, according to Kasper (1992), follows basically three steps:
First, we start from an observation on the learner’s productive interlanguage data. Second, under
the guidance of our definition of a transfer, we concentrate on the different means that learners
employ in expressing and understanding a speech act in the TL. And third, we sort out from our
collected data the transfer features.
Evidently, both the definition of transfer and method of identifying a negative transfer are
helpful to our in-depth discussion of negative pragmatic transfer.
2. Studies of transfer in second language acquisition
2.1 Linguistic transfer
L1-L2 transfer was first discussed in Selinker (1969) and other follow-up studies either
provided but further evidences of transfer or its role in understanding the learner’s error in
particular and interlanguage as a whole.
Transfer was considered responsible for error occurrences in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural
studies (Lado, 1957; Stockwell & Brown, 1965; Corder, 1969; 1971). Nevertheless, Richards
(1971) evidenced that transfer of strategies was but partially responsible for the learner’s errors. In
a similar manner, Jain (1974) reported that transfer was but one of the sources of error. Since then,
transfer was more and more indirectly mentioned as an apparent factor of error (Corder, 1981).
The learner language was contrasted with the basic features and hints of transfer (Swan & Smith,
1988; MeGurn, 1991; Platt & Weber, 1980) and the tradition has continued into the 90’s where
Ajiboye (1993) made a theoretical categorization of the errors in terms of phonetics,
word-formation, syntax, and semantics.
The relationship between transfer and interlanguage was always at core concern. Though
Selinker (1969) did not characterize how the learner’s interlanguage looks like (Corder, 1981), yet
he did repeatedly imply that transfer was one of the factors associated with the unique system of
the learner language (Selinker, 1969; 1972). Then Newser (1971) addressed the relationship by
discussing the concepts of an approximative system and plateau. To resume the line, Bickerton
(1975) referred to interlanguage as a continuum, while Kellerman (1977) tried to characterize
transfer in the learner’s interlanguage.
In discussing the phonological features of the learner’s interlanguage, Tarone (1973; 1976;
1978) contended that NL-based phonology transfers are partially responsible for the features of an
interlingual phonology. Similar discussions included Ioup & Weinberger (1987).
In terms of linguistic transfer on the syntactical level, Ravem (1971) documented that the
learner’s NL played a certain role in the formation of his second language syntax. Hakuta (1974)
also demonstrated that there is a firm relationship between L1 transfer and the emergence of
structure in second language acquisition. In addition, Larsen-Freeman (1975) evidenced such a
relationship through the learner’s learning of English grammatical morphemes. To Gass (1979),
transfer helped us to see the grammatical element universal in human languages.
Is transfer the same thing as borrowing? Ringbom & Hakan (1983) came up with proofs that
transfer is in fact associated with lexical borrowing. Such a relationship was also discussed in
Meara (1984). And from the teaching point of view, Palmberg (1985) discussed the amount of
words learners already had before they took up the learning of the TL and its impact on the
acquisition of new word formation processes in second language acquisition. This practice was by
Olshtain (1987) and Odlin (1989). Both provided evidences that NL-based transfer also occur in
the learning of word-formation in a second language.
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An apparent feature in the learner’s use of their interlanguage is simplification and
overgeneralization. NL-based transfers were considered to be associated with both simplification
and overgeneralization (Levenston, 1971; Varadi, 1973; Richards, 1974; Levenston & Blum-Kulka,
1977; Blum-Kulka & Levenston, 1983).
Hybridization and co-mixing is another feature identified in the learner’s use of his
interlanguage. The work that helped us see the sources of hybridization as from transfer was
Whinnom (1971).
Empirical studies to sort out the mother tongue influence on the learner’s language were
initiated by Newser (1971) who reported NL influences in the speech of some immigrant workers
in the States. To follow up, Dulay & Burt (1974) conducted a case study comparing children’s
learning in a first and second language. Conor et al (1983) examined how transfer worked in the
learner’s compositions and Biskup (1992) displayed transfers in the learner’s use of collocations.
The relationship between transfer and speech production was observed in earlier studies (Flege
& Davidian, 1977; Krashen & Scarcella, 1978), too. Both Nicjel (1985) and Hsia (1986) showed
that transfer prohibited the second language learner in second language learning
Transfer was not only found present in the learner’s interlanguage but active as variable rules
(Dickerson, 1975). Tarone (1983) gave an incisive account of the role variability played in the
language produced by second-language learners. Gass et al (1989) even showed that variation in
fact occurred also at the levels of discourse and pragmatics. Besides, variability in terms of
amount and type of transfer among the learners occurred due to individual differences in second
language learning (Skehan, 1989).
Comprehensive studies on transfers were found in Corder (1969; 1971; 1981), Richards (1974),
Richards & Gloria (1974), Ellis (1983; 1985), Odlin (1989), Hammerly (1991) and
Larsen-Freeman & Long (1991). They all helped to display that transfers are at all the linguistic
levels, phonological, lexical, syntactical and semantic.
2.2 Non-linguistic perspectives of transfer
Non-linguistic perspectives towards transfer are multi-factorial. Wolfson (1989) discussed the
transfer of NL-based conversational rules. She observed that the learner had a tendency of using
conversational rules other than that from the TL to finish an interaction or playing his part in an
interaction to impress the audience that he is trying to be cooperative. Such transfer had an impact
on the development of the learner’s TL communicative competence (Richards & Sukwiwat, 1983).
Culture-specific communicative styles were evidenced by Richards (1974) who suggested that
social factors are closely related to transfer and he looked into how Singaporean learners of
English manipulated their learned English (Richards, 1982). A recent cross-cultural study of
transfer is by Clyne et al (1994) who analyzed the responses of the immigrants in Melbourne to
arguments, identification and cultural styles. They concluded that, on the one hand, transferred
cultural values should be respected and, on the other hand, to succeed in cross-cultural
communication, immigrants had to observe the Cooperative Principle (CP). Their results in cluster
analysis indicated that immigrants broadly fall into two groups in terms of transferred cultural
attributes. In Group A are the Austrians, Germans, Czechs, Croatians, Macedonians, Russians,
Serbia’s, and Spanish, with Greek and Polish as peripheral; and Group B: Cambodian, Chinese,
Laotian, Thai, and Vietnamese, with the Filipino, Indonesian and Malay as the peripheral.
Transfer of communicative strategy has proven another source of research interests. Earlier
attempts at transfer as strategy was documented in Varadi (1973) who showed that learners
transferred NL-based strategies to adjust messages in the TL. Taylor (1975) evidenced that much
of the learner’s overgeneralization had to do with their transferred communicative strategies.
Tarone (1977) also noticed the learner’s conscious use of NL-based communicative strategies.
Bialystok & Frohlich (1980) showed when the learners had difficulties in oral lexical expressions,
they turned to transfer NL communicative strategies. Varadi (1980) reported that one apparent
strategy in TL communication is message adjusting. Stanlaw (1982) provided examples of
NL-based communicative strategies by Japanese learners. Besides, Faerch & Kasper (1983)
discussed how the Danish students relied on their NL for accomplishing an utterance. When
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encountering a new word in speech, the Danish learner of English would use a Danish word in that
sentence or use Danish to express the meaning of a new word to put his meaning across. Corrales
& Call (1989) further evidenced that learners would rely on the use of communicative strategies to
convey lexical meaning when they were at a loss of what they wanted to say. All this led to House
& Blum-Kulka’s (1986) and Bialystok’s (1990a) book-length discussions of communicative
strategy transfer. Communicative strategy was also evidenced in Nsakala’s (1994) investigation of
transfer from the angle of code mixing. He reported that code mixing comes from an unbalanced
requirement of foreign language competence and communicative prerequisites. He argued that
code mixing is not a norm to be recommended in EFL teaching for two reasons: it hinders
comprehension and slows the speed of TL acquisition. Kasper (1995) added that the learners both
shifted their previous knowledge about politeness principles and communicative strategies into the
comprehension and production of the TL.
Endeavor has also been given to account for transfer from the pragmatic perspective. Earlier
treatments were to look at how non-native speakers interpret and produce the speech act of
“request” (Scarcella, 1979; Walters, 1979; Carrell, 1979). Kasper (1981) made a book-length
treatment of the issue.
As was mentioned in Section 1.1, transfer to pragmaticians means difference of use due to NL
influence. And to understand what is different, a preliminary step was to sort out similarities and
differences between languages and the use of these languages. The effort to study how non-native
speakers understand and realize a speech act in the TL has spiraled into a tradition identified as the
study of pragmatic universals. As many as 11 speech acts have been covered to date: requests,
suggestions, invitations, refusals, expressions of disagreement, corrections, complaints, apologies,
expression of gratitude, compliments and indirect answers (Kasper, 1992).
By comparing how people in different languages and cultures realized a speech act, we are
now rested on a ground that enables us to tell in what way people share something in common in
making a request, and to sort out a positive transfer from a negative one. Take “request” for
example. In realizing such a speech act, people in most languages tend to use either a directive
statement, and in putting forth a conventional indirect speech act, linguistic hints such as “Would
you mind V-ing?” for a request from others were used (Kasper, 1992). In general, people from
different cultures fall back on their knowledge on how to make a request (Weinert, 1995).
2.3 Native speakers’ attitudes toward transfer
Earlier accounts of the learner language and native speakers’ attitude include Bansal (1966)
and Tiffen (1974). They looked into the intelligibility of native speakers. One of the earliest to
consider the effect of transfer, James (1974) considered the gravity of errors due to NL-based
transfer. In this early documented report, he developed a set of measures to gauge learners’ error in
terms of severity to TL linguistic rules. Politzer (1978) specifically looked into how native
speakers viewed the learners’ transfer-related errors. He examined how the German native
speakers perceived those errors made by English learners of German. Nelson (1982) and Hultfors
(1986) further explored intelligibility in more details. Hultfors studied how the British looked at
the Norwegian learners’ errors in English and discovered that acceptability rate of transfer-related
errors were often subject to intelligibility. Besides, a foreigner role showed an obvious difference
in the attitude on the learners’ errors.
After the early 80s, communicative effect studies were extended to cover interlanguage
features such as conversational styles, the use of contexualization cues, politeness, and
indirectness in cross-cultural settings.
Investigations from interactional sociolinguistic perspective (Erickson & Shultz, 1982;
Gumperz, 1982; Scollon & Scollon, 1983; Tannen, 1985) revealed that intercultural
miscommunication could be a result from incompatible conversational styles. At the same time,
these analyses showed that there were unsuccessful uptake or breakdown in the light of differences
in the use of contexualization cues, politeness, and indirectness. However, Erickson (1975)
demonstrated that ethnic differences in gate-keeping conversations could be neutralized through
building up common ground, or co-membership, based on shared interests or experience. Tannen
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(1985) cited evidences of misunderstandings of contextualized cues which resulted in favorable
attributions to the interlocutor, and for conversational styles which, although different, were
complementary rather than conflicting, allowing both participants to reach their goals and feel
comfortable about their interaction. Nihalani (1988) looked into the standard for judging
non-native speakers’ pronunciation and proposed that we should find a norm for non-native
speakers.
Another main aspect tackled in communicative effect studies is pragmatic failure. Thomas
(1983) noticed that in cross-cultural communication, learners expressed their ideas in a way that
was different from the native speakers. This interlanguage phenomenon, free of grammatical
errors, sometimes led to miscomprehension in cross-cultural communication. Approached closer, a
pragmatic failure was sometimes related to the misuse of a learned linguistic form and sometimes
it was associated with NL-based influence. She divided pragmatic failures into two types,
pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic, both terms being indebted to the discussion of the scope of
general pragmatics in The Principle of Pragmatics (Leech, 1983).
An example of pragmalinguistic failure is Chinese learner’s use of the expression “Never
mind” in replying to “Thanks a lot. That’s a great help” (He, 1988). In Chinese, we use “没关
系”(Mei guan xi) or “不用谢”(Bu yong xie) in reply to “Thank you”. However, their equivalents
in English, “Never mind”, “Not at all” and “You are welcome” are slightly different in use from
one another, though they all may be translated as “没关系”(Mei guan xi) in Chinese. The students
often failed to see the discrepancy and, due to their mother-tongue influence, used these
expressions interchangeably.
A sociopragmatic failure may sometimes be resulted from a Chinese-based influence. For
instance, our learners sometimes fall back on their Chinese ways in interpreting an intended
meaning in an utterance or in observing the rules, factors in a social situation of the TL. If a
student helped the professor clean the chalkboard, he would normally say “thank you” to the
student. But instead of saying “My pleasure”, as native speakers normally do in this situation,
Chinese students would often say, “It’s my duty”. This shows the students’ falling back on the
Chinese situation where it is wholesomely all right for people to say “应该的”(Ying gai de). But
he failed to realize that in English ‘It is my duty” also implies an obligation instead of a volunteer
help.
Enlightened by Thomas’s concepts of pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure,
Kontra (1993) analyzed the breakdowns in communication of Standard Hungarians and American
Hungarians.
Reports revealed that in terms of the communicative effect, transfers were of two categories,
positive and negative. Those transfers from the learner’s NL that do not lead to misunderstanding
in the TL are positive. Negative pragmatic transfer is different, as it was evidenced that some of
the transfer-based pragmatic failures are serious (Thomas, 1983). Thus negative pragmatic transfer
is more complicated and requires further investigation (Kasper, 1992; 1995).
It is impossible to discuss transfer without mentioning the target norm for contrast, either at
the identification stage or evaluation stage of a transfer. Kachru (1982) made earlier discussions
about norm and effect relationship. To Kachru, deviations occurred not only at the level of forms
but also at the level of meaning. The norm issue was further discussed from the teaching point of
view by Alim El-Sayed (1987), Svanes (1988), Larry-Smith (1988), and Awonusi (1990).
A realistic problem is that under strictly comparable task conditions, native speakers often use
different standard varieties of English, such as American English (AmE), Australian English
(AustrE), and British English (BrE). These different standard varieties display preferences in their
selection of semantic formulae in, for example, ‘apologizing’, though some of the variation may
be due to context effects (Bergman & Kasper, 1993). What is more, these standard varieties
possess their different regional varieties. For instance, in standard varieties of American English,
different regional varieties have been identified to demonstrate different selection patterns of
request strategies (Michaelis, 1992). An early work by Tannen (1981), for example, on different
preferences in conversational styles by east coat and west coast Americans, already displayed
variation in speech act performance in culturally motivated dialogs. Beebe (1985) thus argued that
learner-internal factors such as feelings and motivations, and external factors such as social and
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situational factors would influence model preferences. Researchers had to know what such model
preferences were. But it is difficult to have access to the pertinent varieties in order to select a
relevant target variety as the L2 baseline.
Generally, investigators were advised to choose any of the above norms, or ‘choosing the right
stuff’, for the intended goal as an L2 norm in interlanguage pragmatics (Kasper, 1992).
2.4 Transfers by Chinese learners of English
Since English is a foreign language in China, emphasis on how to teach and learn from
grammatical analysis led to practices of linguistic and non-linguistic contrasting which have
resulted in nearly 1000 articles since 1949 (Li, 1996). It was reported that transfers by Chinese
learners of English occurred at all linguistic levels, phonetic, lexical, semantic and syntactic.
At the level of phonetics, Gui (1978) examined the differences between Chinese and English
in terms of phoneme, tone, intonation, rhythm, and juncture. Fan (1982) compared the sound
systems of the two languages. Jin (1986) considered the interlingual phonetic features of the
Chinese learners. Chen (1987) focused on the sound pitch differences of the two languages. Wang
(1990) conducted an experiment to detect that fluctuations played a cardinal role in distinguishing
English and Chinese apart: English is prominence-related while Chinese tone-determined. Gong
(1991) looked at the interlingual status of the learners in terms of Chinese influence in English
intonation. All implied possible Chinese-based transfers in all these aspects into the learning
English as a FL.
On the lexical level, Wang (1990) focused on the differences between Chinese and English in
numerals. Jin (1992) looked into the discrepancies between the two languages in the use of the
reflexive pronoun ‘self’. Shao (1994) illustrated the differences by looking at the color terms in
the two languages. Then a detailed list of words in the two languages were compared and
contrasted by Zhang & Zhang (1994) who looked into the differences in terms of the distribution
of parts of speech, ratio of equivalents, and culture-loaded meanings. All these could be sources of
Chinese-based transfers.
In terms of semantic differences, Li (1988) considered motivation as the factor for semantic
differences between English and Chinese. Gao (1993) specifically examined the change of
meaning in two words, “comrade” and “individualism” and pointed out that there was a link
between the change of meaning and social and cultural changes. Based on the semantic field
theory, Jia (1994) considered the kinship terms in English and Chinese.
Syntactic comparisons and contrasts include Chen (1985), Tang (1990), Ge (1991), Liu (1992),
Ding (1993), Jin (1991) and Chen (1992). Chen (1985) reported that negation in Chinese and
English were different in logical meaning, at the level of phrase and sentence. Tang (1990) looked
at the differences in terms of principles and parameters. Ge (1991) pointed out that Chinese was
different English also in sentence group and sequence of sentences. Ding (1993) illustrated the
Chinese-English differences in the subject of a sentence. Both Jin (1991) and Chen (1992)
displayed the influences of Chinese topic-prominence structures in the learners’ English.
Oatey (1988) outlined some of the differences and transfers of greeting formulas by Chinese
students into English. Ouyang (1988) cited a list of examples leading to breakdowns in
Chinese-English communication. Maley (1988) illustrated misunderstandings due to
Chinese-English differences. Deng & Liu (1988; 1991) treated linguistic and cultural differences
between Chinese and English at book-length.
The deeply rooted Chinese influence has also been noted in Ho’s (1983) discussion of
Singaporean English. Ho (1993) looked back on the use of BE in history, conducted an experiment
of recording of 100 educated Singaporeans, categorized the uses of BE, and concluded that
influence of Chinese came from the philosophy behind the use.
Significance in realizing cultural differences in language learning was attempted in Paulston
(1988). In addition, Qin (1988) argued that in both teaching and learning, difference of cultures
should be kept in mind. Xu (1988) addressed the issue by citing words with cultural interpretations.
To make Chinese learners aware of cultural differences, that was what Hu’s (1988) effort was all
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about in editing a reader on intercultural communication.
Thus Chinese-based influences were evident in the learners’ interlanguage of English at the
level of phonetics (Rong Pei, 1991), morphology (Rong Pei, 1991; Li, 1993), semantics (Zhang,
1994), syntax (Rong Pei, 1991; Li, 1993), and discourse patterns (Rong Pei, 1991; Cheng, 1991;
Li, 1993). That is why it was argued that the existence of Chinglish is but a fact (Xie, 1995; Wan,
1994; Rong Pei, 1991; Li, 1993). Though Cheng (1982) had an early discussion on this, yet the
issue remains controversial.
Related pragmatic analyses of Chinese learner’s transfers began from identifying evidences.
Focusing on both the linguistic and pragmatic aspects of the learner’s language, Zhang (1994) has
cited some of the frequently encountered examples and situations that Chinese students would
misuse their TL of English. Rather inclined to the pragmatic aspect, Xia (1995) analyzed dozens of
situations in which the Chinese students failed to communicate effectively. Zhao (1996) made an
elaborate comparison between Chinese and English indexicals of pronouns.
Chinese influence on speech act realizations in English and effects of pragmatic failure in
cross-cultural communication were conducted. Zuo (1988). Chen (1992) and Li (1992), have
respectively looked into how native speakers tolerated Chinese-based influences. Duan (1986) and
He (1991; 1992) had respectively examined the pragmatic failures by Chinese learners and how
native speakers assessed these failures. He reported that native speakers usually gave much
empathy in deviated forms by Chinese learners. Yu (1995) compared how requests and
suggestions were made by Chinese and the British and concluded that Chinese-based influenced
were shown in the verbosity and directness in their speech.
Literature strongly shows that transfer-related studies in China coincided with international
concerns in the SLA research domain. This can be revealed from the topics taken under
consideration. Besides, pragmatics-related studies were few compared with those linguistic
analyses. In addition, there have been no explicit studies on transfer. Thus all transfer-related
claims were but indirect findings in comparison-contrast studies.
2.5 Approaches of transfer study
Although ways to get data for transfer analysis were addressed in Grotjahn (1983) who argued
that quantitative method should be used, we observed three main methods recurrently utilized in
transfer study: cross-sectional, longitudinal and theoretical.
The cross-sectional method compares how samples of L2 learners at different levels of
proficiency understand and produce linguistic action.
A longitudinal method reports how individuals or groups of learners from the early stages
onward rely on a few prepackaged or prefabricated routines which are later analyzed into rules and
elements that become available for productive use. There have been but very few longitudinal
reports on the development of learners’ pragmatic knowledge (Kasper, 1995).
Different from either cross-sectional or longitudinal methods, theoretical accounts resort to
cognitive theory and research. Compared with the other above-illustrated methods, theoretical
accounts of pragmatic development are even fewer. To date, there have been two different but
compatible frameworks. One was Schmidt’s (1993) theory of the role of consciousness in
pragmatic development, and the other was a proposal put forward by Bialystok (1993) to look at
learners’ interlanguage pragmatic knowledge development in terms of language use and
proficiency. It seems that the two methods, though divergent from one another, converge in that
they address different stages of pragmatic learning: Schmidt showing more interests in the
conditions of initial intake, while Bialystok considering how acquired pragmatic information is
represented and restructured. Of course, both proposals need to have empirical testing (Kasper,
1995).
Impacts on the elicited data were observed in the use of different instruments, and different
production tasks would also impose different processing demands on learners and influence the
selective activation of pragmatic knowledge (Kasper, 1992; Nunan, 1991; Beebe & Cummins,
1985).
Edmonson & House (1991), for example, observed that the learners were more verbose or
8
lengthy than native speakers in response to production in questionnaires but not in role-plays.
Bodman & Einsentein (1988; 1992) reported that differential instruments effected on pragmatic
transfer, with learners transferring L1 proverbs and ritual expressions in written questionnaires but
not in role-plays. It was not likely that these differences were due to task-specific transferability
assessments on the part of the learners. Rather, it seemed that the written conditions gave the
learners time to assemble the material for literal translation in a controlled fashion, whereas under
the greater demands of conversational interaction, lack of time and attention resources preclude
the on-line production of formal L2 equivalents. Zhang (1992) found in her study of requesting in
Chinese-English interlanguage that transfer might show up in the discoursal development of a
speech event but not in the one-turn response required in a discourse completion questionnaire.
While her learners’ responses to questionnaire items were very similar to those of English native
speakers, Chinese and Chinese-English interlanguage speakers avoided direct requesting in role
plays-- instead, they skillfully steered their interlocutors into making an offer of the desired goods
or action (Kasper, 1992). The validity of instrument was discussed in Nyhus (1994).
However, it was a fact that different instruments were used in data collection (Cohen, 1987).
Introspection, self-reporting, verbal reports, diary writing (Robinson, 1991; Schmidt, 1993;
Cohen, 1996), assessment questionnaire and production questionnaire (Bergman & Kasper, 1993),
observing naturally occurring events, role-plays, oral and written production questionnaires,
retrospective interviews (Eisenstein & Bodman, 1993), were among the various instruments.
Cross-cultural surveys, for instance, made frequent uses of questionnaires to elicit native
speakers’ comments on identified transfers in the learner language. Informants were invited to
scale each linguistic fact on a questionnaire. Investigations were conducted on both the linguistic
and the pragmatic levels.
In addition, researches would rely on a discourse-completion test (DCT) in collecting data for
analysis. In a DCT, a dialog situation was specified and part of the scripted dialog was omitted.
The students were asked to complete the dialog. Their responses were rated for appropriateness,
using the dialog script as baseline data (Eisenstein & Bodman, 1993). In this study, we will also
use the DCT as an instrument to collect data for analysis.
2.6 Summary
Studies of transfer in SLA suggested that transfers had been tackled in all facets, linguistic and
pragmatic. Linguistically, transfer studies ranged from phonology, grammar, lexicon to meaning.
On the pragmatic dimension, communicative strategies and pragmatic failure, among other things,
were examined. Thus the transfer issue has been analyzed both structurally and functionally.
Literature also indicated that most studies were linguistic rather than pragmatic. Transfer
studies before mid 1980’s were mostly of a linguistic orientation. A growing interest in pragmatic
analyses emerged since mid 1980’s and almost took up the whole scene after the 1990’s. However,
most pragmatically related studies were clearly driving at cross-linguistic contrasts of speech act
realization patterns, and there were little literature clearly aiming at pragmatic transfers.
The tradition of transfer studies has also resulted in certain approaches so that further
replications may be followed. However, most transfer studies were process-oriented. It is
interesting to focus on the product of transfer.
3. Necessities to investigate negative pragmatic transfers
Literature strongly indicated that findings pertaining to the pragmatic aspect revealed a deeper
side of the learner’s TL competence. Studies concerning pragmatic failure, for instance, unveiled
not only another part of learning difficulties, but also seemingly the more difficult part, because a
pragmatic failure can be checked only in cross-cultural interactions. As Thomas (1983) pointed out,
a pragmatic failure is more destructive in communication. This implies that more attention should
be laid on the study of transfer along this direction, and that is why Kasper (1992) called for more
researches in non-structural aspects, including negative pragmatic transfer.
However, while it is more significant to look into the negative pragmatic transfer, as was
9
pointed by Kasper (1992), there has been few explicit studies addressing the transfer issue directly.
So without clearly stating the purpose of negative pragmatic transfer as the mission of research,
the substantial evidences displaying the existence of negative pragmatic transfer in the learners’
interlanguage of their TL, so to speak, are but by-the-way claims of findings in the comparative
and contrastive studies of speech acts. This is not helpful to an overall understanding of the
negative pragmatic transfer issue.
Practice in SLA teaching and learning posed concrete difficulties and addressed needs in
carrying out negative pragmatic transfer studies. Here is an example:
(1) No smoking please.
This sentence is posted as a sign in many public sites. To most students, there is nothing wrong
with sentence (1) for it is grammatically right. However, analyzed from the angle of pragmatics,
sentence (1) is inadequate in at least two senses. First, the use of “please” often depends on the
relationship between the interlocutors and the intention of the speech act. If it is uttered by a
superior, the word “please” is often not desired; however, if it is spoken by a subordinate to his
superior, the word “please’ is often needed. Besides, it also depends on whether we want to
connote a request or a suggestion. “Please” is often necessary in a suggestion and not needed in a
request. However, our students often overlooked the different uses of the word “please” in English
and over-generalized the use of this word due to the fact that in Chinese the word ‘please’ is used
without any distinction as it does in English (Liu, 2000).
He (1991) and Chen (1992) found the following sentence in their students’ composition:
(2) Our English teacher has peaches and plums everywhere in China.
In this sentence, the English words “peach” and “plum” both refer to fruits. However, our students
use them in this sentence to mean “students”. This meaning is a transfer of the use of these two
words in Chinese, and it is not found in English. Such similar transfers should be studied to find
out if native speakers can understand them.
Our explanations are often inadequate if we take sentences (1) and (2) above simply as errors
or pragmatic failures. Therefore, it is of both theoretical and practical significance to launch an
explicit study on negative pragmatic transfer.
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About the author: Shaozhong Liu (1963-), earned his Ph.D in 1997 in linguistics and applied linguistics, with a
focus on pragmatics, at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. He has lectured widely, including being a 2-year
visiting professor at Wake Forest University. He is now Professor of Linguistics and Dean of Foreign Languages
Department, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China. His research interests include linguistics and applied
linguistics in general, and pragmatics in particular. He has been looking at issues in cognitive pragmatics (the
Relevance Theory) and interlanguage pragmatics, especially cross-cultural production and comprehension of
speech acts, and pragmatic transfers.
(Guangxi Normal University Journal, 2001/3:1-29)
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