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Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research Background
From late 1960s and 1970s, when Second Language Acquisition (SLA), “acomplex process involving many interrelated factors” (Ellis, 1985: Key Issues 1),developed rapidly, scholars tries to study it from the perspective of LanguageTransfer, which “is to be seen as a general cover term for a number of different kindsof influence from language other than the L2” (Ellis, 1985: 341). Language Transferoccupies the important position in the field of second language research and teaching.Ellis claims that “the study of transfer involves the study of errors (negative transfer),facilitation (positive transfer), avoidance of target language forms and theirover-use” (1994: 341). Many scholars have done researches on negative transfer andbelieve that Language Transfer is an important factor which causes errors in SecondLanguage Acquisition. For example, Grauberg (1971) discovers that 36% of theerrors made by the German learners are because of their mother tongue. Dulay andBurt (1973) find that there are 3% transfer errors made by Spanish children withmixed English level. In China, Dai Weidong and Shu Dingfang (1994) finds thatlanguage learners inevitably use the mode of thinking and language structure of theirnative language in foreign language, and the dependence on native language dependson the difficulty level of the problem.One method for the study of Language Transfer is Contrastive Analysis, whichenjoys a high popularity in 1950s. The study of first language transfer in theframework of CA is relatively late in China, which began in 1970s. Lv Shuxiangproposed contrastive study in 1977. Gui Shicun (1985) considers the influence ofnative language is inevitable in the process of foreign language learning andinfluences occur when there are some similarities and differences between nativelanguage and the learning language. Lin Dehua (2004) makes a contrastive study oflearners’ errors and classifies errors in the clause into three types: errors in the use ofintroductory connectives, errors in clausal structure and errors in terms of the relation between the subordinate clause and main clause and he claims these errorscan be attributed to negative transfer of Chinese.
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1.2 Research Purpose
This thesis is an endeavor to apply Contrastive Analysis to study negativetransfer on Chinese college EFL learners’ written output of adverbial clause. Basedon the procedure of description and comparison of Chinese and English adverbialclause, transfer errors will be defined and data of transfer errors collected fromlearners’ written output will be analyzed to study the ratio of different kinds oftransfer errors in different types of adverbial clause as well as the different featuresof written output in terms of learners with different English proficiency levels. Thepurpose of this study is enlightening language teaching of teachers and acquisition ofEnglish adverbial clause of Chinese EFL learners.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

This chapter is a review of the studies on Language Transfer, ContrastiveAnalysis and adverbial clause and the findings as well as the limitations of previousstudies will be stated in this chapter.

2.1 Studies on Language Transfer and Contrastive Analysis Aboard
The concept of “transfer” can be derived from behavioral psychology and it isexplained that in the process o