Analysis Of Verb Errors In English Composition By Korean-Chinese College Students

As a branch of Applied Linguistics, Error Analysis has undoubtedly made great contribution to the study on second language learning. It not only throws some light on the process of foreign language learning, but also helps us gain some insights into the strategies the learner employs in the learning process. A careful study of errors will reveal the common characteristics shared by the language learners, which is believed to be a great help to both language teachers and language learners. However, much research has been done on the errors in EFL learners' writings; studies of errors made by Korean-Chinese students are still insufficient.This thesis, with Error Analysis, Contrastive Analysis and Interlanguage as its theoretical guidance, analyzes 108 compositions written by Korean-Chinese students. First, a classification of the errors was made, followed by a discussion of the factors leading to the errors. Altogether 318 verb errors were identified and then put into seven categories, including tense, subject-verb agreement, verb be, verb followed by Modal verb, verb missing and verb phrases.The analysis shows that interlingual, intralingual and non-linguistic factors are major elements that contribute to verb errors, with the interlingual factor playing a more prominent role than other two.Finally, some pedagogical suggestions are put forward. Hopefully, the study will be helpful to both language teachers and language learners in universities within China.