universiteit gent faculteit der letteren en wijsbegeerte a comparative error analysis of essays by first

198 Pages·2011·1.07 MB·English

UNIVERSITEIT GENT

FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN EN
WIJSBEGEERTE

ACADEMIEJAAR 2010 – 2011

A COMPARATIVE ERROR ANALYSIS OF
ESSAYS BY FIRST-YEAR BACHELORS OF
THE UNIVERSITIES OF GHENT AND
LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE.

Masterproef voorgedragen tot het bekomen van de graad van

Master in de Taal-en Letterkunde: Nederlands-Engels

Promotoren:
Prof. dr. M. Van Herreweghe door Wouter Braet
Prof. dr. A. Vandenbergen
Acknowledgements

First of all I would like to thank my promoters prof. dr. Van Herreweghe and prof. dr.
Vandenbergen for both the proposal of the topic and the assistance in the making of this
thesis. I would also like to thank Katrien Deroey for collecting the Ghent essays and those
thanks are also extended to Véronique Bragard, Sylvie Decock and Fanny Meunier from the
university of Louvain-La-Neuve for doing the same there. I am also indebted to mister
Bulcaen and miss Bouckaert of the Dutch and English library for giving me continued
extensions on the books and articles I borrowed. I am much obliged.
A great inspiration regarding structure and points of interest was the work of Lieven Buysse. I
have borrowed his structural organization, as it was the most complete of all the dissertations
that I have read, and added a few elements of my own to it.
I wish to express my gratitude to Elke Braet, Dirk Braet, Hannah Servranckx, Hannah Boyle
and Kirsty Gillen for going over every essay with me to make sure that no errors passed by
unnoticed. The help of Leen Dewicke to get the lay-out up to code was also priceless and for
this I am very thankful.
A final thank you goes to my mother. I would never have been able to complete this task
without her support.
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Table of content
1 INTRODUCTION 1
2 THE STUDY OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING 3
2.1 First versus Second language, native versus foreign language 3
2.2 Learning versus acquisition 4
2.2.1 The role of the teacher and context in SLA and SLL 6
2.2.2 The role of motivation and other factors influencing sla/flt/sll 8
2.2.3 Problems after one has 'mastered' a second language 15
2.3 Error analysis vs. Contrastive analysis 17
2.3.1 Historical overview 17
2.3.2 Interlanguage, idiosyncratic dialect, transitional competence 22
2.3.3 Methodology of error analysis 25
2.3.3.1 Collection of a sample of IL 25
2.3.3.2 Identification of errors 26
2.3.3.3 Description of errors 28
2.3.3.4 Explanation of errors 30
2.3.3.5 Evaluation of errors 31
2.3.4 Limitations and merits of error analysis 33
3 ERROR ANALYSIS OF ESSAYS BY UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN GHENT 37
3.1 Motivation, aims and methodology 37
3.1.1 Motivation 37
3.1.2 Presentation of the research question and aims 38
3.1.3 Methodology 39
3.1.3.1 Collection of a sample of acquirer language 39
3.1.3.2 Identification of errors 41
3.1.3.3 Description of errors 41
3.1.3.4 Explanation of the erroneous utterances 42
3.2 Spelling 43
3.2.1 Introduction 43
3.2.2 Compounds 44
3.2.3 Punctuation 46
3.2.3.1 Omission 46
3.2.3.2 Addition 48
3.2.3.3 Misselection 50
3.2.4 Errors caused by the non-phonetic nature of English 52
3.2.4.1 Letters written but not pronounced 53
3.2.4.2 Sounds with more than one representation in writing 54
3.2.4.3 Homophony 56
3.2.5 Errors caused by the differences between the sound systems of source language and target
language 57
3.2.6 Analogy 58
3.2.6.1 Phonetic analogy 58
3.2.6.2 Orthographic analogy 58
3.2.6.3 Overgeneralization of a spelling rule 59
3.2.7 Errors that may be attributed to the relatively inconsistent and arbitrary nature of English word
derivation 59
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3.2.8 Interference errors 60
3.2.8.1 Interference from the mother tongue 60
3.2.8.2 Interference from other languages 61
3.2.9 Lapses 62
3.2.10 Conclusion 64
3.3 Grammar 65
3.3.1 Nouns 65
3.3.1.1 Misselection 65
3.3.1.2 Omission 68
3.3.2 Articles 68
3.3.2.1 Omission 68
3.3.2.2 Addition 69
3.3.2.3 Misselection 71
3.3.3 Pronouns 71
3.3.3.1 Personal pronouns 71
1. Misordering 71
2. Misselection 72
3. Omission 72
3.3.3.2 Reflexive pronouns 73
1. Misordering 73
2. Misselection 73
3. Omission 73
3.3.3.3 Possessive pronouns 74
1. Misselection 74
2. Omission 74
3. Addition 75
4. Misordering 75
3.3.3.4 Relative pronouns 75
1. Misselection 75
2. Omission 76
3. Addition 76
3.3.3.5 Demonstrative pronouns 77
1. Misselection 77
3.3.3.6 Indefinite pronoun 77
1. Misselection 77
2. Omission 77
3.3.3.7 Dummy pronoun 78
1. Omission 78
2. Misselection 78
3.3.4 Adjectives 78
3.3.4.1 Misselection 78
3.3.4.2 Misordering 79
3.3.5 Adverbs 80
3.3.5.1 Misselection 80
3.3.5.2 Misordering 81
3.3.6 Verbs 82
3.3.6.1 Omission 83
1. Concord between subject and verb 83
2. Omission of the perfective aspect 84
3. Omission of the progressive aspect 84
4. Omission of primary auxiliaries 84
5. Omission of -ing participle 85
3.3.6.2 Misselection 86
1. Incorrect forms of simple past and past participle 86
2. Tenses 87
3. Auxiliaries 90
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4. Infinitive, ing-participle and gerund(6) 91
3.3.6.3 Misordering 92
3.3.6.4 Addition 94
1. Auxiliaries 94
3.3.7 Prepositions 94
3.3.7.1 Omission 94
3.3.7.2 Misselection 96
3.3.7.3 Misordering 97
3.3.7.4 Addition 98
3.3.8 Conjunctions 99
3.3.8.1 Omission 99
3.3.8.2 Addition 101
3.3.8.3 Misselection 102
3.3.9 Conclusion 105
3.4 Vocabulary 107
3.4.1 Nouns 107
3.4.1.1 Omission 107
3.4.1.2 Misselection 107
3.4.1.3 Misordering 108
3.4.2 Verbs 108
3.4.2.1 Misselection 108
3.4.3 Adverbs and adverbials 110
3.4.3.1 Misselection 110
3.4.4 Adjectives 110
3.4.4.1 Misselection 110
3.4.5 Prepositions 112
3.4.5.1 Omission 112
3.4.5.2 Addition 112
3.4.5.3 Misselection 113
3.4.6 Particles 113
3.4.6.1 Omission 113
3.4.6.2 Addition 113
3.4.6.3 Misselection 114
3.4.6.4 Misordering 114
3.4.7 Conclusion 115
3.5 Style 116
3.5.1 Repetition 116
3.5.2 Abbreviations and contractions 117
3.5.3 Interjections 117
3.5.4 Punctuation 118
3.5.5 Questions 118
3.5.6 Syntactic complexity 118
3.5.7 Misselection 119
3.5.8 Inappropriate style 119
3.5.9 Enigmas 120
3.5.10 Conclusion 121
4 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 122

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 1
ADDENDUM 1: LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE 1
Overview errors 1
Spelling 1
Grammar 6
Vocabulary 22
Style 27
ADDENDUM 2: GHENT 28
Overview errors 28
Spelling 28
Grammar 34
Vocabulary 50
Style 55

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1 Introduction
The present dissertation can be located in the field of contrastive linguistics. To be more
precise, it is a comparative error analysis of essays written by first-year Bachelor students
from the universities of Ghent and Louvain-La-Neuve. The idea for this thesis was inspired by
prof. dr. Vandenbergen, who suggested that the field of language learning and language
acquisition was one worth exploring.
Language students continually seek to improve their proficiency and are likely to want to pit
their skills against one another. The job of a teacher is to excite their pupils and to make sure
they receive the best language instruction as possible. Not only can he or she do so by means
of a personal style of teaching, but also via improved teaching materials. The research field of
Contrastive Analysis tried to answer this call by comparing two languages with each other,
establishing which errors may frequently return and on the basis of that try to make a
prediction about which errors learners will be likely to make. This approach has received its
fair share of criticism, chiefly because it was considered to be too theoretical. From this
criticism Error Analysis was born which sought to compare empirical data of two languages.
The researchers who championed this approach were Lee (1957), Corder (1967, 1972) and
Richards (1971a, 1971b, 1973). Many studies focused on either spontaneous oral utterances
or written translations. Tests were also considered a viable means of gathering data, especially
since they could be manipulated in such a way so as to accommodate the research question.
Essays on the other hand have long been neglected as a valuable elicitation method. A lot of
researchers were focused only on particular aspects of grammar, pronunciation or vocabulary.
It is only since the last two decades that studies have attempted to provide a bigger picture.
However, this picture presented a one-on-one relationship between a source language and a
target language, for example Dutch and French, or German and English. There are few studies
that actually compare two languages regarding their proficiency of a third one. One
dissertation that comes close was written by Lieven Buysse (2001). He had done a
comparative error analysis of English essays by university students from the universities of
Leiden, Utrecht and Ghent to find out whether or not there were differences in language
proficiency and if so, where these were located. This dissertation attempts to do the same but
here the students differ in that their respective native languages are French and Dutch, two of
the three official languages in Belgium. The research will focus on three major questions:
first, is there a group that is more proficient in English than the other. Second, are the errors
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made located in the same categories and third, what could the possible explanations be –if
there are any- for differences in the number of errors within a category?
This dissertation is divided into three parts. The first chapter will deal with an overview of the
literature on language learning and acquisition, as well as the research regarding Contrastive
Analysis and Error Analysis. Theoretical concepts and insights will be introduced and
discussed both for their merits and limitations. The second part is the actual presentation and
discussion of the research data. Some very interesting differences have emerged from the
analysis, as well as some surprising similarities. In the final chapter a general conclusion will
be provided concerning the study. The entire body of research data and a complete overview
of all errors will be made available in a separate addendum.
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2 The study of second language acquisition and
learning
2.1 First versus Second language, native versus foreign language
It is a general understanding among linguists that a first language refers to the language in
which a subject has been brought up. A native language on the other hand may correspond
with the language of a particular ethnic community or the language of a specific region.
Whereas in Flanders Dutch may be the native language of the Flemish, a second-generation
Turkish immigrant may have been raised in his or her Turkish native language while learning
Dutch at school and from peers.
As for a second language, it is widely accepted that it is an official national language which
plays an institutional and social role in a community and which can therefore be learnt at
school and in social settings. Dörnyei (2003:4) has defined it as
“a learnable school subject in that discrete elements of the communication code (e.g.
grammatical rules and lexical items) can be taught explicitly, it is also a deeply social
event that requires the incorporation of a wide range of elements of the L2 culture.”
For example, there are 3 national languages in Belgium: Dutch, French and German. They are
obligatory school subjects though the number of lessons for each language varies as students
have to decide in which direction they want to pursue their high school career (languages,
mathematics, technology , ...)
A foreign language, in contrast, is a language which has not been officially recognized by a
country and can therefore only be optionally learnt in classroom contexts or self-study. As
Ellis (2008:6) concisely puts it: 'the language plays no major role in the community and is
primarily learnt only in the classroom.' In Belgium this is the case for English; however it
needs to be said that although English is not an official language it has managed to penetrate
into several fields such as academics, commerce and advertising. The influence of English is
especially visible in Flanders where almost every resident comes into frequent contact with it
and hence has developed several degrees of proficiency in it. English in Belgium seems to
have begun challenging the aforementioned definition of a foreign language in that it starts to
play a major role in the community as a means of identifying oneself with or distancing
oneself from a particular community. Again, this is especially the case for Flanders.
In order to properly deal with the research at hand, we will consider second language and
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foreign language as being of the same sort because they share most of the underlying
processes and as such we will henceforth use both terms interchangeably.
2.2 Learning versus acquisition
Gardner (2007:13) somewhat abstractly defines language learning as 'the development of
knowledge and skill that permits varying degrees of communication with others' while
language acquisition is formulated as 'making the language part of the self'. Ellis (2008:7)
following earlier studies is more specific, saying that acquisition 'refers to the subconscious
process of 'picking up' a language through exposure and the latter [learning] to the conscious
process of studying it.' This however has raised questions concerning the issue of the level of
consciousness in both learning and acquisition (see for example McLaughlin 1987). Important
in the debate is the level of attention and intention. If one simply watches a show in a foreign
language just to be amused then it is likely that he or she will acquire far less features of that
language than someone who is in the process of studying that language and is watching this
show to improve his or her skills. A certain intention improves or diminishes attention and
therefore affects the level of acquired proficiency.
Important in this respect is that researchers such as Ellis (1994) and Eysenck (2001) have
made a division between implicit learning and explicit learning, the former referring to
'learning which takes place without either intentionality or awareness' and the latter to
learning which 'is necessarily a conscious process and is likely to be intentional' (Ellis
2008:7).
Tomasello (2001) and N. Ellis (2008) also make a distinction between usage-based and form-
focused language acquisition:
Usage-based models of language focus on the specific communicative events in which
people learn and use language. In these models, the psycholinguistic units with which
individuals operate are determined not by theoretical fiat but by observation of actual
language use in actual communicative events. (Tomasello 2001:1)
Form-focused language acquisition and instruction on the other hand focuses primarily on the
acquisition and teaching of correct morphological, phonological and above all grammatical
forms.
Finally, Gardner (2007:12-13) has provided a model of second language acquisition and
development, which is presented here as figure 1.
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