石化现象的成因摘要：当今石化现象已经引起了许多应用语言方面的研究者的关注，本文把石化现象分为有意识和无意识石化现象两种，与赛林格提出的石化现象的条目，规则和子系统不同。

本文详细的论述了导致石化现象的原因，并提出高校教师应该了解其成因并想方设法提高学生学习英语的自信，兴趣和动机。

关键词：成因；自信；兴趣；动机abstract：nowadays, fossilization has been paid much attention to by many researchers in the field of applied linguistics; this paper classifies fossilization into voluntary fossilization and involuntary fossilization, which are different from selinker’s fossilization forms of fossilized items, rules and subsystems. in this paper, the author analyses the causes of the phenomenon of fossilization in detail and comes to a conclusion that college teachers should understand the causes of the phenomenon of fossilization and try all possible means to enhance the students’ confidence, interest and motivation.key words: causes，confidence, interest, motivationthe causes of the phenomenon of fossilizationⅰintroductionin the process of learning a foreign language, the languagethat the learners use is neither their mother language nor the target language. it is called interlanguage by selinker which starts with the mother language and is approaching to the target language. in the academic field of china, scholars and experts have shown enough attention and made some researches about the relevant topic of fossilization of vocabulary, writing, oral english, listening and so on, but there are not many breakthroughs.ⅱthe varieties and classifications of fossilizationfrom an ea (error analysis) perspective, the learner is no longer seen to be a passive recipient of second language input, but rather plays an active role, processing input, generating hypotheses, testing them and refining them, all of which determine the ultimate second language level of proficiency he will reach. it is generally accepted now that both innate and environmental conditions must be met for language to be acquired. mentalists have given us reasons to believe in the necessity of the innate universal grammar. their theories emphasize the importance of the learner’s “black box”, an innate mechanism. behaviorists have not denied the innate ability its importance in language acquisition. as chomsky argues, even “pure”learning theories of behaviorism assumean innate ability to make associations between stimulus and response. recently, some new theories called interactionist theories come out. they consider language acquisition a product of the complex interaction of the linguistic environment and the learner’s internal mechanism. the validity of these theories has been well proved in second language acquisition.ⅲ the causes of the phenomenon of fossilization1. fossilization out of learner’s inappropriate learning methodif the second language learners choose the wrong or inappropriate method of learning a foreign language, this will possibly lead to the phenomenon of fossilization. for example, when the second language learners are reading a foreign article, they have already formed a habit of concerning too much about the vocabulary and the habit of translating every single sentence into the mother tongue, which does not only do little good to their reading speed, but also do harm to the transformation of their way of thinking. if the learners want to practice their oral english by using some inappropriate phonetic materials to imitate, they presuppose that the more they imitate the material, the bettertheir oral english will be. actually, the more they practice by using the wrong material, the more likely the phenomenon of fossilization will appear.2. fossilization out of the learner’s inappropriate habit of communicationif the learners have formed an inappropriate habit of english communication, it will also cause the phenomenon of fossilization. if the english learners have learned english for a long period, the learners would like tend to use a simplified sentence patterns and phrases to communicate in their daily life, most of which are proved to be wrong according to the english grammar. the reason why the learners are using this simplified forms is that they are easy to use and remember; most importantly, they will not affect their communication to a large extent. therefore, after a long time of using this kind of simplified form, the phenomenon of fossilization will appear.3. fossilization out of learner’s emotional factors among all the emotional factors that may most positively influence the learner’s learning is the motivation. some of the english learners learn english for some practical reasons,such as college entrance examination, cet4 or cet6. after they have passed the exams for a period of time, the fossilization will appear. another reason of the fossilization is that the learners are lack of interest, because they have a very poor basic knowledge about english, so there has to be a lot of barriers and difficulties ahead of them. therefore, they will not easily improve their english in a short time, eventually the fossilization will appear.ⅳconclusionit is well known that fossilization is a relatively complicated process; it can not be predicated and eradicated. as college teachers, they should consciously strengthen the authentic linguistic input in classroom teaching, and should know how to correctly handle the mistakes made by students. students’interest and motivation should be greatly enhanced by teachers, and their chinese way of thinking should be changed. in a word, both teachers and students should understand the causes of the phenomenon of fossilization, and they should use some positive ways to make learning english easier and happier.references[1]rod ellis, the study of second language acquisition [m]上海外语教育出版社.1999.[2]s. p. corder, error analysis and interlanguage [m] 1982.[3]姜瑾、施华珍，中国学生英语学习过程中”石化现象”2000.[4]牛强，过渡语的石化现象及其教学启示。