Negative Transfer of Topic-Comment Structures: Causes and Implications

Abstract

This study investigates students’ reflection on their negative transfers of topic-comment structures from Vietnamese to English in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes. Data was collected from students’ responses to the questionnaire. Data analysis revealed eight reasons for students’ incorrect translation, of which that the structure has not been taught yet is the most influential. Noticeably, students blamed objective more than subjective factors for their own translation errors. The current research also attempted to suggest some useful implications in order to help Vietnamese learners of English avoid negative transfer from Topic-Comment sentences from Vietnamese into the English language and improve their translation skill as well as to make the process of EFL teaching and learning language better.