Negative transfer in the use of the definite article by Chinese L2-learners of German: an error analysis

Abstract

In this essay, an error analysis of the use of the definitive article in Chinese learners of German as L2 is undertaken to investigate how L1 Chinese as an article-less language affects the acquisition of German in terms of definiteness. According to Hawkins & Filipovic (2012), various factors have a negative or positive effect on L2 learning, including the typological differences and similarities between L1 and U. Chinese is typologically different from German, where definiteness is morphosyntactically realized by the definite article, whereas in Chinese the definite interpretation of the noun phrases is brought about by strategies such as word order. Consequently, the learning of an article system poses great difficulties for speakers of an article-less language, which are further complicated by the fact that not only semantic factors but also pragmatic ones play a role in the interpretation of a noun, as the different usage contexts of the definite article by Himmelmann (1997) show. In the empirical study, freely written texts by Chinese learners of German are examined for noun phrases. The texts were the motivational letters of 80 Chinese applicants for the master's program in German Studies: Linguistics at the Otto-Friedrich-University of Bamberg in the period from the winter term 2014/15 to the summer term 2018. The noun phrases were first analyzed qualitatively according to the semantic-pragmatic categories of Himmelmann (1997) and then quantitatively with regard to their target-language realization. The analysis of the data shows that advanced Chinese learners tend to realize nouns as bare in case they have been mentioned before, and their interpretation can be contextually reconstructed. The same applies to the topic position.