An Analysis of Negative Transfer Made by Chinese Non-English Major Students in IELTS Writing Task 2

Abstract

The phenomenon of negative transfer between languages has been a hot topic in second language acquisition. It can have an important impact on students' second language acquisition. Understanding the phenomenon of negative transfer through errors that occur during language learning can better regulate language acquisition in the process of second language learning and improve students' cognition of second language acquisition. The writing part of the IELTS test is a major difficulty for Chinese non-English majors to overcome. Then understanding the negative transfer phenomenon that occurs in their writing process is particularly important for them to improve their scores. This research is dedicated to the research and analysis of the types of errors and the reasons why Chinese non-English major students make mistakes in IELTS writing task 2. The study found that Chinese non-English major students experienced negative transfer between languages in IELTS writing task 2, which resulted in four main types of errors, namely errors in subject-verb agreement, double-predicate errors, and errors in tense of verbs and incomplete sentence structure. By summarizing and analyzing the types of errors caused by these negative transfers, this research hopes to provide corresponding guidance and inspiration for IELTS writing teaching and English writing for non-English major students.