Abstract

In the process of learning English, we are always influenced by the transfer of Chinese. In the compositions of CET4, we find one type of errors is very typical. That is the sentence with more than one finite verbs. We also find this kind of errors is similar to some Chinese structures. The errors must be influenced by the transfer of Chinese. How and in which aspects does Chinese influence this kind of errors in English? Those questions are waited to be answered. And research on this can help learners reduce and overcome the negative transfer of Chinese and have a better understanding of the differences between Chinese and English. The thesis is about the research on how the Chinese syntax and morphology has negative transfer on the errors in serial verbs sentence pattern appearing in the 300 pieces of CET4 compositions, which is conducted with the error analysis.

Firstly, the thesis introduces the definition of negative transfer and its manifestation in the vocabulary, syntax. Secondly, it collects all the errors in serial verbs sentence pattern in the compositions and divided them into different categories. Thirdly, comparing the differences between Chinese and English in the syntax and morphology, the research finds the reasons causing those errors also the correlation between the amount of errors, the scores and the writing ability of students. Fourthly, it gives suggestions for teachers in the teaching in order to lead students to avoid or reduce errors in serial verbs sentence pattern. Besides, the thesis also explains the disadvantage of this research.

Based on the errors in serial verbs sentence pattern in the English compositions, the research explores the negative transfer of Chinese on English, which is of great significance to the study of English.

Key words: negative transfer, errors in serial verbs sentence pattern, contractive analysis, error contractive analysis.