A Survey on Negative Transfer

Transfer learning(TL)utilizes data or knowledge from one or more source domains to facilitate learning in a target domain.It is particularly useful when the target domain has very few or no labeled data,due to annotation expense,privacy concerns,etc.Unfortunately,the effectiveness of TL is not always guaranteed.Negative transfer(NT),i.e.,leveraging source domain data/knowledge undesirably reduces learning performance in the target domain,and has been a long-standing and challenging problem in TL.Various approaches have been proposed in the literature to address this issue.However,there does not exist a systematic survey.This paper fills this gap,by first introducing the definition of NT and its causes,and reviewing over fifty representative approaches for overcoming NT,which fall into three categories:domain similarity estimation,safe transfer,and NT mitigation.Many areas,including computer vision,bioinformatics,natural language processing,recommender systems,and robotics,that use NT mitigation strategies to facilitate positive transfers,are also reviewed.Finally,we give guidelines on NT task construction and baseline algorithms,benchmark existing TL and NT mitigation approaches on three NT-specific datasets,and point out challenges and future research directions.To ensure reproducibility,our code is publicized at https://github.com/chamwen/NT-Benchmark.

Negative Pragmatic Transfer in Compliment Responses by Chinese College-level English Learners

The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate the employment of the strategies among the Chinese college-level English learners in responding to compliments and the negative pragmatic transfer involved in their responses. The results show that the subjects tend to apply "Accepting" strategy in their responding to compliments and there does exist negative pragmatic transfer.

Studies of negative pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics

Negative pragmatic transfer (NPT) is nothing but a difference of saying things between non native speakers and native speakers. It occupies an important position in interlanguage pragmatics whose mission is to scrutinize how non native speakers do things with words with L2. This paper reported that 4 NPT related aspects have been heavily documented in the current literature: 1) L1 negative pragmatic transfers at the speech act level; 2) the distinction between negative pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfers; 3) conditions of negative pragmatic transfers; and 4) native speaker’s attitudes towards L1 negative pragmatic transfers. Consequently, issues for future studies are also raised.

Negative Pragmatic Transfer and Its Inspiration on the Foreign Languages Teaching and Intercultural Communication

The negative pragmatic transfer in second language acquisition has been seen as the major cause of pragmatic failure. In fact, the constant experiencing of negative pragmatic transfer is an active process of learning. The paper investigates the characteristics and classification of the negative pragmatic transfer so that people will have an objective attitude towards it. The author also provides suggestions and strategies so as to help the foreign language learners to establish the confidence in the foreign language study and intercultural communication.

Pragmatic Failure In Intercultural Communication Based on Negative Transfer

In recent years, with the fast development of economy, international trade makes the communication constantly hap pen between people who come from different cultural backgrounds. Generally, the cultural difference may interrupt the commu nication and cause the failure of communication. A communicator, who is affected by his native culture, sometimes cannot under stand the foreigners' intention or express himself exactly in foreign language. Then, it is pragmatic failure. The thesis is to search the ways to solve the problem by analyzing the pragmatic failure.

The Effect of Study-Abroad on Pragmatic Transfer

This study aims to investigate the effect that studying abroad may have on pragmatic transfer in requests, refusals, and expressions of gratitude, produced by Japanese learners of English. Twentytwo Japanese college students completed a multimedia elicitation task(MET) before and after studying in the US for one semester, together with twenty-two L1 English speakers and twenty L1 Japanese speakers as baseline data. The MET is a computer-based instrument for eliciting oral data.Unlike previous studies on pragmatic transfer, which often lack statistical evidence, this study includes statistical analysis. The analysis revealed that negative pragmatic transfer occurs within a limited range. The identified transfer includes pragmalinguistic transfer, whereby, assuming that their politeness levels are equal, learners directly translate L1 expressions into L2;and sociopragmatic transfer, whereby learners transfer L1 discourse patterns and functions. Resistance to L2 norms and increased fluency can be influencing factors. The results indicated that the effect of study-abroad is limited because most of the negative transfer which was identified before studying abroad remained after studying abroad. Thus, the necessity of explicit pragmatic instruction was proposed.

Reconsideration on the role of pragmatic transfer

This paper reconsiders the role of L 1 pragmatic transfer on English learning after a brief historical review of the pragmatic transfer research. As pragmatic transfer is a communicative strategy which the language learners tend to use to deal with the immediate problems and difficulties in communication and to develop their pragmatic competence of the target language, the paper comes to the conclusion that foreign language teachers should consciously introduce the pragmatic transfer as a communicative strategy into the classroom teaching, and try to find effective means to cultivate their students＇ abilities of pragmatic transfer in order to develop pragmatic competence.

Some Differences Between English and Chinese and the Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue in EFL Learning

The paper discusses 3 significant differences between Chinese and English. It proposes that because of the differences, the transfer of mother tongue into the target language tends to appear in the negative form. The negative transfer of Chinese into English is the major cause of the so-called Chinglish. The paper states some forms of the negative transfer.

A Pragmatic Analysis of the Negative Transfer in Chinese EFL Learners

This paper analyzes the accuracy and appropriacy of the recorded data from a group of Chinese-speaking English learners who has finished three communicative tasks set in different contexts.It also tries to find out how the participants' learning history and the present Chinese EFL context influence their performance.The results suggest that the participants rely on a limited set of request,apology,and refusal strategies.And it is evident that low-level learners often refer to their L1 for sentence constructions and lexical items.Although the evidence is still fragmentary,enough exists to indicate that transfer involving discourse can often occur in foreign language acquisition.

Pragmatic Transfer in Compliment Responses by Chinese Learners of English

This paper reports a study on the pragmatic transfer in compliment responses by Chinese Learners of English. It has three aims： （1） to discover similarities and differences in compliment responses between the American English speakers （AES） and Chinese Learners of English （CLE）; （2） to provide empirical evidence for or against existing theories of pragmatic transfer in compliment responses and （3） to reveal differences of social values between the two groups. The results of this study are compared with those of R. Chen who made a similar study in 1993. The changes in the past ten years are discussed at the end.

The Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue in Vocabulary of Non-English Majors in Vocational Colleges

The transfer of mother tongue has always been influencing students in second language acquisition.This paper attempts to analyze the negative transfer in vocabulary of non-English majors in vocational colleges and briefly proposes some strategies to reduce the negative transfer of mother tongue.

Negative Transfer in Second Language Acquisition

Negative transfer is the basic term we need to master in second language acquisition.This paper tries to analyze negative transfer of Chinese from the aspects of lexis,syntax and pragmatics.Besides,it provides suggestions on how to minimize negative transfer in second language teaching.

The Negative Transfer from Xinyang Dialect on English Consonant Pronunciation

In the paper, the author presents the negative transfer influence of Xinyang dialect on learners' English consonant pronunciation by comparing their differences in the segmental level, and proposes some suggestions for English pronunciation teaching based on the theories of Contrastive Analysis, the Input Hypothesis.

Negative transfer in Chinese college students＇ English writing

Second language learners make errors in both comprehension and production in their Inter-language, and learners＇ errors have all along been one of the main focuses on language pedagogy. Based on the theoretical study of Inter-language, transfer, Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis as well as the correlations among them, this paper concentrates on some production errors caused by negative transfer. Some typical inter-lingual errors made by Chinese-speaking English learners are categorized and analyzed from the syntactic perspective and lexical perspective. Hopefully by such an analysis of language transfer, the characteristics of Chinese-speaking English learners＇ Inter-language will be revealed, and it might be helpful for English teaching and enhancing learners＇ English proficiency.

On L1 Negative Transfer in Second Language Acquisition Based on Chinese Students’Writing Composition

There is negative transfer of first language(L1)in second language acquisition,which generally introduces language errors,hindering learners’second language acquisition.Taking EFL learners’English composition as an example,this thesis analyzes the language errors caused by the negative transfer of L1.This thesis is conducted as the following four stages:The first part is an analysis of the relationship between language and thinking patterns,drawing forth the concept of language transfer;the second part is the literature review on second language acquisition and language transfer;the third part is the statistical analysis of the collected 110 samples;and the fourth part is the practical and innovative suggestion.This thesis aims to assist English acquirers in understanding the negative transfer of L1 and provide effective and practical measures in the future English teaching.

A Brief Introduction to the Impact of the Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue on International Business Letter Writing and Countermeasures

Due to the impact of the negative transfer of mother tongue,students often think in their mother tongue when they write international business letters.Consequently,they may have difficulties communicating with the intended customers.In a bid to improve students'skills in international business letter writing,this article analyzes the impact of the negative transfer from three aspects:the word order in English,the position of modifiers and the use of conjunctions.

Pragmatic Transfer in the Speech Act of Compliment among Chinese EFL Learners

This article reviews the notions of transfer and its subcategories of positive transfer as well as negative transfer.This article also considers the research on pragmatic transfer in the speech act of compliment in first language as well as second and foreign language contexts.In addition,it further explores three research questions concerning pragmatic transfer in compliment among Chinese EFL(English as a foreign language)learners.

An Analysis of Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue to Oral English and the Countermeasures

In the Chinese language market,English occupies a great position.The general public has gradually realized the impor⁃tance of mastering another language.However,due to the lack of language environment for learning English,mother tongue can eas⁃ily affect English learning production,which has two sides.Through the comparison between English and Chinese pronunciation,the negative transfer of native language in the acquisition process of English learners is analyzed,especially in oral English.Ac⁃cording to the existing problems,teaching suggestions are put forward for teachers’phonetic teaching and students’phonetic learn⁃ing to help learners reduce the negative effects of their mother tongue in the process of English acquisition.

On Positive Transfer of Native Language in SLA

People have controversial ideas about the influence of our native language during the process of second language acquisition.The popular belief is that native language(NL) interferes the second language(L2) learning,which is known as negative transfer,while positive transfer is seldom mentioned,or even is neglected in the study of second language acquisition.We found that in teaching when the L2 learners experienced difficulties in understanding another language,they may resort to their NL to get help.So we can't only think about its negative aspect.In fact that NL plays a positive role in SLA,so we should make full use of the common features to lead to the positive transfer,then to strengthen the confidence of the second language learners.