Socio-Cognitive Barriers in Multilingual EFL Learning: Pedagogical Interventions to Mitigate L1 Conceptual Transfer Among Chinese Learners of English Quantity Constructions

Abstract

Quantification-related sentence patterns remain a persistent stumbling block for Chinese EFL students receiving multilingual classroom instruction. Unstable mastery of such structures impairs their academic writing proficiency, cross-cultural communication competence and equal access to English-language learning resources. Most existing comparative linguistic studies merely contrast Chinese measure words and English countable noun markers in isolation, while ignoring socio-cognitive conflicts emerging from functional overlaps between English binomial quantity constructions (BQC) and Mandarin numeral-classifier phrases in multilingual learning environments. This mixed-method research takes cross-cultural cognitive psychology, social-oriented second language acquisition pedagogy and crosslinguistic transfer theory as the core theoretical framework, and explores how Chinese learners’ native cultural categorization logics generate both facilitative and interfering transfer effects during English quantification learning. Through linguistic typology comparison, error coding based on the Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC) and proficiency stage segmentation analysis, the study finds that Mandarin’s mandatory classifier system reshapes learners’ judgment on entity boundaries and measurable units, and the resulting learning obstacles stem from cross-cultural cognitive differences rather than simple grammatical ignorance. This paper constructs a socio-culturally localized comparison framework for Mandarin and English quantification, sorts out three major cross-linguistic transfer paths that affect classroom learning outcomes, and designs tiered, inclusive teaching strategies applicable to linguistically diverse EFL classrooms. The research enriches empirical evidence for cognitive SLA research, and provides operable equity-oriented suggestions for curriculum developers, multilingual teachers and educational policymakers to narrow cross-cultural learning gaps and build inclusive multilingual literacy systems at secondary and university levels.