AN INVESTIGATION INTO NEGATIVE TRANSFER OF COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS FROM VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH

Abstract

This article presents the summary of our research on the negative language transfer in the expression of countable and uncountable nouns from Vietnamese to English. We collected 146 master theses written in English by Vietnamese graduates. To achieve the research aims, the comparative method is firstly used to identify some basic grammatical differences in English countable and uncountable nouns between two language systems. Based on such grammatical differences between Vietnamese and English,
the article investigates the negative effects of those differences on the expression of English countable and uncountable nouns in the master theses of Vietnamese graduates. The results show that Vietnamese graduates tend to individuate mass nouns in English due to the negative effects from Vietnamese. It is expected that understanding linguistic differences in terms of English countable and uncountable nouns between students’ L1 and English may help learners to reduce interference from their first language.