失败是成功之母

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【摘要】本文研究的是学生的错误，他们的作品在高中一年级。虽然很短，组成可能告诉我们什么困难学生当他们输出语言以书面形式在这一阶段，以及学习策略，他们雇用了当他们有麻烦获取目标语言。本研究试图做的是发现了一些共同的特点在学生的作文，试图丰富我们的理解误差分析。

【关键词】成分；误差分析；语际错误，语内错误

Failure is the mother of success

――Errors analysis in English Composition

Geng Yang

【Abstract】This paper is a study of the students' errors in their compositions in senior Grade one. Short though it is, the composition may show us what difficulties the students have when they output the language in written form in this stage, and what learning strategies they are employing when they have trouble acquiring the target language. What the study attempts to do is to discover some common characteristics in the students' compositions and tries to enrich our understanding of error analysis.

【Key words】compositions; error analysis; inter-lingual errors; intra-lingual errors

Analysis of Errors Occurring in the English

Composition Written By Junior High School Students

1. Introduction There are four skills in language learning: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these four skills, writing is usually considered to be the last acquired skill because it is the most difficult. It is important for students to develop their ability to write in English. English composition is one of the ways to show students' comprehensive competence to use English. Analyzing a student's English composition can assess vocabulary, grammar as well as sentence structure. Although writing is an output activity, it can reflect how well the language skills have been input. In this sense, writing is considered to be one of the most effective means to reflect the learner's input of language skills.

2. Literature review

2.1 The significance of error analysisError analysis, as the term suggests, is study and analysis of errors and is confined to the language learner. However, here “errors” refers generally to the learner's misuse or misunderstanding of the target language, may it be grammatical or pragmatic(Hu Zhuanglin，2001) . It can be further explained in three different aspects: First, the errors can tell the teacher how much progress the learner has to make in order to reach the goal. It can also tell the teacher what remains for the learner to learn. Second, they provide evidence for the researcher. The researcher will know how language is learnt and what strategies or procedures the learner is using in his language learning. Third, they are indispensable to the learner himself, because the making of errors can be regarded as a device the learner uses in order to learn.

2.2 The theory of error analysis

2.2.1 Definition of errorsWhat is an error? Error is the grammatically incorrect form; Mistake appears when the language is correct grammatically but improper in a communicational context. While errors always go with language learners, mistakes may also occur to native speakers（Hu Zhuanglin, 2001）.

It is necessary for us to know the difference between errors and mistakes. Corder claims that errors reveal the learner's incomplete knowledge of the language, or as we may call it, the learner's transitional competence while mistakes are the product of the chance circumstances such as memory lapses, lack of attention, tiredness, carelessness, etc. This also provides a reason why some linguists say the making of errors in a necessary part of learning while mistakes are of no significance to the learning process.

2.2.2 Error sourcesResearchers have been attempting to investigate the sources of learner errors and have come to various conclusions. There are four major categories of errors (James, 2001): Inter-lingual errors, intra-lingual errors, communication strategy-based errors, induced errors. The major sources of errors in the study are inter-lingual errors and intra-lingual errors. Inter-lingual errors result from language transfer, that is, is caused by the learner's native language.

2.2.3 Methodology of error analysisCorder (1974) also identified five stages for error analysis as follows:

(1) Collection of a sample of learner language.

(2) Identification of errors.

(3) Description of errors.

(4) Explanation of errors.

(5) Evaluation of errors.

2.3 The theory of language transfer.

2.3.1 DefinitionLanguage transfer, also called cross-linguistic influence, is one of the key factors contributing to learner's inter-language. In the 1950s, transfer is understood within the behaviorist framework and to happen between two languages, that is, transfer happens between L1 and L2. In Lado's view, transfer is associated with habits. He adopts the term 'transferred habits' (1957) and suggests that linguistic difference indicates linguistic difficulty and negative transfer. Under such concept of transfer, transfer is often referred to as (L1) interference.

Odlin (1989), another dominant figure who has achieved remarkably in the study of transfer, furthers the concept of transfer by suggesting that transfer is not a falling back on mother tongue and there is likely to be a third language influencing second language learning. Chen Daliang(2006) quotes a working definition of transfer by Odlin : “Transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps) imperfectly acquired .”

This working definition provides an adequate basis for the material to be discussed in this thesis.

2.3.2 Classification of language transferThere have been different classifications of transfer from different perspectives. From the perspective of the effect transfer has on second language acquisition, transfer is divided into positive transfer and negative transfer. In the view of Lado and his followers, language learners attempt to transfer the features of their mother tongue to the second language. When the structures of the two languages are similar, we can get positive transfer. When the two languages are different in structures, negative transfer occurs and results in errors (Hu Zhuanglin, 2001).

3. Data collection

3.1 SubjectFifty-seven subjects were selected to write the composition among the high school students in Urumqi Foreign Language School Middle. The subjects are from class 8, Grade2.Their ages range from thirteen to fifteen. All of them have had the experience of 3 years of English learning with Chinese being their native language. They have five English classes every week. The textbooks they are using are senior English for China student's book (People Education Press). They have learned simple sentence structures, basic grammar and some useful expression. All of them are provided to the subjects in the form of Chinese words or pictures.

3.2 Choice of title for the CompositionAll the subjects were asked to write the composition in the classroom. To ensure the reliability of the results, none of them were informed of the experiment beforehand. They were required to write in the same length (about 80-100 words) during the same period of time (30 minutes). They were given a topic: “My Winter Holiday”.

3.3 Design principleConsideration of syllabus requirement

According to the senior high school English teaching syllabus (2000) by the Education Department of the People's Republic of China, some of the requests of writing skill are described as the following: (1) students can make simple sentences with words, phrases and patterns they have learned without serious spelling mistakes and grammar errors. (2) Students can write letters, notes, announcements, and fill in some simple forms without serious errors. (3) A composition of about 100 words can be finished within 30 minutes. The meaning should be expressed as clearly as possible and language errors should be avoided. From the requests, it is obvious to find that the writing level of the students in senior high school is at the primary stage. In this case it is less likely that errors in pragmatics and errors caused by the different cultural backgrounds would occur whereas errors on the levels of substance and text would be committed, substance errors refer to misspellings and text errors mean lexical-grammar ones. This thesis will focus on the errors on the level of lexical-grammar.

4. Analysis of the data

4.1 Inter-lingual errorsAs mentioned in the theoretical part, inter-lingual errors refer to learners that are not familiar with the grammar rules of the target language, and they just depend on their mother tongue. Students may confuse the usage of certain elements under the influence of Chinese, for example: errors in articles and errors in agreement. There are no such complicated systems in Chinese.

4.1.1 Errors in Article:Article is a word used with a noun to show whether the noun refers to a particular example of something (the definite article-“the” in English) or to a general or not already mentioned example of something (the indefinite article-“a” or “an” in English). In English “a” is used before a word beginning with a consonant sound; “an” before a word beginning with a vowel sound. “a” and “an” are used only before singular countable nouns. “The” can be used before singular or plural nouns whether countable or uncountable (Zhang Zhenbang, 1999). There is no exact equivalent to the article in the Chinese language. In Chinese we usually use “这个”, “那个”, “一个”, “两个” to express. According to the investigation made in this thesis, there are totally 35 article errors in the data. These errors can be divided into 3 types.

A. Omit necessary articles

(1) Spring Festival is during the winter holiday.

The Spring Festival is during the winter holiday.

(2) I bought suit for my mother.

I bought a suit for my mother.

(3) I took a course in EF school to practice English speaking.

I took a course in an EF school to practice English speaking.

B. Insert unnecessary articles

(4) I'll get up at the 7:00 clock

I'll get up at 7:00 clock

(5) I have a breakfast at 8:30

I have breakfast at 8:30

C. Confusion of the use of definite and indefinite articles.

(6) 2006, the New Year, comes to us when a clock strikes 12:00.

2006, the New Year, comes to us when the clock strikes 12:00

4.1.2 Errors in synonymsSynonymy is the technical name for the sameness relation (Hu Zhuanglin, 2001). English is said to be rich in synonyms. When they meet several words have the same meaning in Chinese, they just pick one casually. There are 40 synonym errors in the data. Take some typical errors in synonym usage for example:

(7) My math is very bad.

My math is very poor.

(8)They and I looked a film

They and I saw a film.

(9) I wish I have a happy time.

I hope I have a happy time.

4.1.3 Errors in tenseThe verb in Chinese can be used to show what took place in the past, what is going on now and what has been done. In English inflections can be seen everywhere. Chinese verbs cannot signify the time while English ones can (Ren Xueliang, 1981). In Chinese, we usually use “着”, “了”, or “过” to reflect tense, and sometimes we use “昨天”, “今天”, or “明天” to reflect tense. The form of the verbs never changes. For example:

(10) We couldn't usually go out, because the weather is very cold (was)

(11) I relaxed and have new power on my body. (Had)

In sentence (10), when the author wrote this sentence, he described the weather in the past. “is” should change the form.. Because in Chinese verbs always stay the same. In sentence (11) the author use past tense at the beginning of the sentence, he forget to change the form of “have”.

4.1.4 Errors in agreementAgreement is the logical relationship between points of speech in a sentence. There can be no good, clear sentences without agreement. Agreement of subject and verb is the heart of the good sentence. There are three principles guiding subject - verb agreement: Principles of grammatical agreement, notional agreement, and proximity with grammatical agreement being the basic principle, which requires the verb to match its subject in number (Zhang Zhenbang, 1999). Such a difference may lead to the negative influence of Chinese on the learners' command of syntactic agreement in English, which can give best illustration in following examples:

(12) She never give up. (gives)

(13) Our holidays was over. (were)

In sentence (12), “she” is singular; the verb “give” should take the singular form by adding the suffix “-s”. There is no such a kind of rule in Chinese. In sentence (13), “holidays” is plural; the verb should take the plural form “were”. There is no such a kind of rule in Chinese.

4.2 Intra-lingualErrors result from faulty or partial learning of the target language, rather that from language transfer. Some of errors are caused by careless such as spelling errors. Some of errors are caused by poor memory such as preposition errors.

4.2.1 Errors in spellingsSuch errors are of common occurrence in beginner's writings and easy to overcome. For example:

(14) Through I had bad results. (Though)

(15) It was quiet a long time. (quite)

In sentence (14), these two words looks similar, but their meanings are completely difference. “Through” means in at one side, end, or surface of something and out at the other. “Though” means in spite of. In sentence (15), these two words' meanings are completely difference. “Quiet” means with little noise. “Quite” means rather. From the above explanations, we can see that we should memorize words accuracy. Otherwise the meaning will be completely difference.

Second, when they write compositions, they are careless instead of don't know.

(16) Familes members get together. (Families)

(17) We began to enjoy this winte holiday. (Winter)

Errors in spellings were not caused by our mother tongue; most of them were caused by pronunciation and carelessness. This kind of errors is very easy to overcome if students are very careful.

4.2.2 Prepositions are words used with noun (or noun equivalents) to show the relation in which these nouns stand to some other word in the sentence(Eckersley, C.E.＆ Eckersley, J.M, 1960) As English is an analytic language, prepositions play a large part in its structure and are the cause of many difficulties to us. Little guidance can be given in any grammar book as to which preposition is the right one to use, for there is no logical reason why one is right in certain contexts and another one is wrong. Idioms-in which prepositions are frequently concerned-are peculiarities of language whose “rightness” or “wrongness” is based on usage, not on logic. There are 49 preposition errors in the data; these errors can be divided into 2 types:

A. Preposition omitted

(18) I played fireworks during the winter vocation. (played with)

(19) I got rid of the bad habit of getting late. (get up)

In sentence (18), the author thinks we can say “ play basketball” “plays football”. As to firework, he thinks we can say play firework. It's wrong; we should say play with fireworks. In sentence (19), “get” cannot make sense. ‘Get up’ is a fixed phrase.

B. Wrong preposition

(20). I saw that the smile in my mother's face. (on)(21). I had a good time in the winter holiday. (during)

In sentence (20), this is a fixed usage “on one's face”. In sentence (21), 'In indicates a period of time. “During” indicates duration of time. Here, we should use during.

5. Suggestions From above analysis, we have found that those writing errors reveal the common problems shared by the senior middle school students. When they write English composition, in what aspect he is weak and in what aspect he is strong. From the standpoint of the teacher, his task is not only correct students' errors but also help students summarize the causes of making these errors. In this way, students may aware of these errors.

6. Conclusion In second language learning, errors are inevitable, and no matter what great efforts we might make, error will always occur.

This paper first classifies the errors in Urumqi high school students' compositions into two levels - Inter-lingual and Intra-lingual errors, and then analyzes the possible causes in the process of accessing the target language; finally, some suggestions about English teaching are put forward.

Finally, the limitation of the study should be pointed out. The samples only show a partial picture of all the errors students make in their compositions. In addition, the author's limited ability. Therefore, more work should be done in the future to solve these problems.

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