Language Transfer and the Acquisition of English Light Verb + Noun Collocations by Chinese Learners

Abstract

Transfer has been a controversial issue in the study of second language acquisition. This study concerns language transfer at the lexical level and focuses on the transfer phenomena existing in Chinese college students' acquisition of English light verb + noun collocations. The paper introduces the light verb systems in Mandarin Chinese and English respectively, analyzes the different situations of light verb use in collocations between Chinese and English, and classifies these different situations into seven types. Then it uses three collocation tests as the experimental materials to examine the L1 influence on the students' acquisition of English light verb + noun collocations in relation to these seven types of situations. At last, the paper stresses the importance of transfer in SLA and presents some pedagogical implications for language teaching and learning and some suggestions for further study.