A Study on the Effect of L1 to L2 Transfer on the Production of Idiomatic Expressions in L2 Among Mandarin-speaking Intermediate Learners of English

Xinran Chen; Yiran Du; Menghan Qu; Shimei Gao

doi:10.2991/assehr.k.220110.117

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A Study on the Effect of L1 to L2 Transfer on the Production of Idiomatic Expressions in L2 Among Mandarin-speaking Intermediate Learners of English

Authors

Xinran Chen¹, Yiran Du²^{, *}, Menghan Qu³, Shimei Gao⁴

¹The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States

²School of the Arts, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom

³Hongwen School Qingdao Laoshan Campus, Qingdao, Shandong 266000, China

⁴Cooperative School of International Education, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin 300134, China

^*Corresponding author. Email: hsydu14@liverpool.ac.uk

Corresponding Author

Yiran Du

Available Online 28 January 2022.

DOI: 10.2991/assehr.k.220110.117 How to use a DOI?
Keywords: Idioms; idiomatic expressions; linguistic production; crosslinguistic transfer; Mandarin Chinese; English
Abstract: Acquiring idiomatic expressions for second-language learners is a big challenge. This is particularly true for native Mandarin Chinese speakers to learn English idiomatic expressions. The problem could be explained by culture differences and “language transfer”. Previous research did not pay much attention to the influence of L1 on an intermediate second-language learner’s idiomatic repertoire. Our study focuses on the extent to which knowledge of Mandarin Chinese idioms affects the accuracy with which these speakers produce the correct translation of such idioms into English. Inspired by Li’s study, we designed the English idiom translation-focused surveys, recruited 7 and 34 subjects in the pilot study and the actual experiment respectively, and analyzed the data by using the chi-square test. Due to statistical insignificance, we failed to prove our hypotheses, which may be attributed largely to deficiency in the number of the subjects. Some improvement could be done in the future including increasing the number of task takers, assessing the actual English proficiency of the participants, and improving the question set up and the sampling method. A possible topic of future study is the extent of the participants demonstrating traces of idiomatic transfer may be related to two factors: (1) the discrepancies between their environment of acquiring L2 languages; (2) the difference between the education systems.
Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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Volume Title: Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Public Art and Human Development ( ICPAHD 2021)
Series: Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date: 28 January 2022
ISBN: 10.2991/assehr.k.220110.117
ISSN: 2352-5398
DOI: 10.2991/assehr.k.220110.117 How to use a DOI?
Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

Cite this article

ris enw bib

TY  - CONF
AU  - Xinran Chen
AU  - Yiran Du
AU  - Menghan Qu
AU  - Shimei Gao
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/01/28
TI  - A Study on the Effect of L1 to L2 Transfer on the Production of Idiomatic Expressions in L2 Among Mandarin-speaking Intermediate Learners of English
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Public Art and Human Development ( ICPAHD 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 608
EP  - 616
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220110.117
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220110.117
ID  - Chen2022
ER  -

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