Migration and Reconstruction: A Study on the Positive Transfer Effect of Chinese Thinking on the Cognitive Understanding of English Etymology

© 2026 by the Authors. Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

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Abstract

In the field of second language acquisition, mother tongue transfer has long been a heated research topic. Starting from the positive boosting effect of Chinese thinking on English etymology cognition, this paper explores issues in English vocabulary teaching and etymology learning, helping students sort out the evolutionary context of English etymological semantics and reconstruct the overall cognitive framework of English etymology, which conforms to students’ cognitive laws and the needs of language ability cultivation. Based on this, this paper analyzes the positive transfer effect of Chinese thinking on the cognitive understanding of English etymology from the perspectives of phonetic thinking, word-formation thinking, semantic thinking and cognitive mode, clarifies the boundary between positive transfer and negative transfer, and puts forward English etymology teaching strategies to exert the positive transfer effect of Chinese thinking, aiming to promote the high-quality development of English education.

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