3.5.2 The aspects and degree of reverse negative transfer 5

4. Findings 6

4.1 Phonetical transfer (in pronunciation aspects and examples) 6

4.2 Lexical transfer (in vocabulary aspects and examples) 6

4.3 Syntactical transfer (in grammar aspects and examples) 6

4.4 The relationship between the language level and transfer degree 6

4.4.1 The relationship between English language level and transfer degree 6

4.4.2 The relationship between Japanese language level and transfer degree 7

4.5 The relationship between start year and transfer degree 7

4.5.1 The relationship between English start year and transfer degree 7

4.5.2 The relationship between Japanese start year and transfer degree 8

5. Discussion and Conclusion 8

5.1 The aspects and degree of reverse negative transfer. 8

5.2 Other facts 9

References 10

1. Introduction

Third Language Acquisition, shorted as TLA, is a new research field appeared in the late 80s in 20th century, along with deep-going of the research of SLA and transfer theory, and boomed between the late 20th and early 21st century. English and Japanese, there’s no doubt, as the most two widespread used foreign languages in Chinese foreign language schools and colleges, there are many transfer phenomena between each other. This thesis emphasize on the reverse negative transfer phenomena, conducted some conclusions under scientific and rigorous research on 33 respondents selected from Japanese majors (the sophomore year), in order to help trilingual learner to avoid negative transfer phenomena reasonably.

1.1 The general description of research of TLA (overseas & domestically).

In China, the research on TLA started from the late 80s in 20th century, and boomed between the late 20th and early 21st century. Many famous linguists discussed the theoretical background of TLA from different aspects, determined a definition and gave out the advice for third language learners aiming at the problems appeared in the practical teaching experience. In the curriculum reform of basic education in early 21st, the term of “third language education” was first been put forward definitely. Since the 90s of 20th century, the research on the foreign language education for national minorities which have their own language has got full achievements, involving teaching management, teaching barriers, learning attitude, motivation and obstacle. In the meantime, there are also another group of learners learning the third language; they are the foreign language majors in colleges and universities learning second foreign language. In the globalization situation, multilingual compound type talents are more welcomed. Domestically, the term expression of the concept of TLA still remains controversy. However, the term “Third Language Acquisition” can conclude the concepts of “foreign language education for national minorities”, “second foreign language acquisition” and so on.

Overseas, in the latest decades, the research on TLA develops quickly, involving the influence L1 and L2 brought to L3, the difference between L2 and L3, the cross-linguistic influence and interaction in social linguistics, language education and universal grammar aspects.

There’s one common research interest both domestic and overseas scholars have. That’s the factors to promote or affect the learners in plurilingual phenomenon. According to the transfer phenomena mother tongue bought to L2 in SLA, the transfer phenomenon in TLA is much more complicated. Many scholars domestic and overseas have done research on negative transfer in the aspects of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, semantic and pragmatics. For example, Wei discovered that when learning third language the reverse transfer phenomenon from Japanese (L3) to English in his research.