Research on Spatial Concept Transfer - the Order of Adverbial Clauses of Time from Chinese English Learners at Different Educational Levels

Abstract

The research on spatial concept transfer as a cognitive paradigm of language transfer aims to explain the factors that learners may encounter in second language acquisition (SLA) and promote the development of SLA. This research uses a corpus-based approach to reveal the features of English learners’ distribution of inflectional order in When, While, and Once-led adverbial clauses of time at different levels of education and to validate the theoretical framework of spatial concept transfer.