The Transfer of Chinese Thinking Logic in English Reading: A Case Study of The Economist

When English beginners read text, they inevitably transfer Chinese thinking logic to the decoding process. This transfer occurs at three levels: language form, meaning, and concept. Referring to the characteristics of The Economist's text, if readers want to thoroughly analyze it, they not only need to master the form of English structure, but also be familiar with and accumulate knowledge of English language and culture. When Chinese native speakers learn English, their thinking mode gradually begins to reconstruct, and their existing Chinese conceptual categories will be decomposed and reorganized step by step. Language influences thinking. In Whorf's linguistic relativity research, transfer phenomena occur not only at the language level, but also at the conceptual level. Humboldt believed that a person can only change their original thinking mode and get rid of thinking limitations by learning a foreign language. The concept transfer in linguistic relativity mainly explores the impact of the second language on the mother tongue thinking mode. The process of reading The Economist's text is also a process of English learning practice, and the improvement of English ability is conducive to transforming the inherent Chinese thinking mode and ultimately helping Chinese readers improve their reading efficiency.

In terms of vocabulary concepts, the commonly used data expressions in The Economist, such as 'year-on-year', 'slash', 'plunge by 20%', and 'nearly', as well as the global news reports with cultural characteristics, such as 'OECD', 'pqc', 'PRI', and 'ESG', or the era-cultural 'Luddite', often have corresponding expressions in other languages. For example, in Sapir-Worf's Hopi language experiment, the hypothesis that there is no linear development of time concepts in Hopi language fell into a preconceived concept, because the lack of similar vocabulary does not mean the lack of concepts, let alone the lack of ways to express the same concept. Thus, when the main cause of reading obstacles lies in the vocabulary level, Chinese native readers can obtain the part of speech of vocabulary through the category of conceptual categories, then obtain the definition or explanation of vocabulary composed of known words through relevant adjectives in the context, and then search for corresponding concepts in their own corpus with the obtained information to define the expression in the original text.