Language transfer has long been a central issue in applied linguistics, second language acquisition (SLA) and language teaching. In the last few decades, its importance in second language acquisition has been reassessed several times. Based on the theoretical and empirical research findings in transfer literature, this thesis makes a study of syntactic transfer in English learning of Chinese learners. The research focuses on discussing the question: Are there any differences or similarities

more »

... erning syntactic transfer between students from different proficiency levels. The results of this study show that the extent of syntactic transfer is particularly large for complex target structures and among learners of lower proficiency level, though higher proficiency level learners may also have relied on the syntactic structures of their Chinese L1. Index Terms-second language acquisition, syntactic transfer, relative clauses, error analysis