The Effects of Grammar Transfer on Second Language Learning From the Perspective of Neurolinguistics

Neural pathway is regarded as the anatomic basic of all kinds of brain activities. In recent years, with the development of neurolinguistics, an increasing number of researchers have found that the language acquisition will finally result in the building of different kinds of neural pathways. The author interprets that the similar part of neural pathways is considered to be the anatomical basic for positive grammar transfer, while the different parts can be regarded as the cause for the negative grammar transfer. Grammar transfer has both positive and negative effects on the second language acquisition. The positive transfer includes affixes, words building can speed up the acquisition of the second language while the negative transfer such as speech, article, single and plural nouns, subjects, redundancy and time expression will hinder the acquisition of the second language. In order to use these effects to the greatest extent, the learners as well as teachers should use as much positive transfer as possible, while minimizing the negative transfer of during the second language acquisition.