Study On Error Analysis Of English Writing Based On Interlanguage Theory

Language learning process has been haunted by learner's errors, which is an unavoidable phenomenon. In the 1950s and 1960s, Contrastive Analysis (CA) based on behaviorism and structuralism was generally employed in analyzing learners'errors. It is believed that learners make errors when their mother tongue and target language are different. Learners'errors can be predicted during the learning process. However, later studies show that these kinds of errors only account for a little and most of the errors are intralingual ones. CA soon lost its popularity. Error Analysis (EA), a branch of Applied Linguistics, has made great contributions to the study of second language learning and throws some light on the process of second language learning. Careful study of the errors reveals the common problems shared by the language learners, which is believed to be of great help to both language teachers and language learners.Writing is important in language learning process. Under Chinese context, English writing is always a difficult question for Chinese teachers and students, so errors in students' written works are unavoidable. English and Chinese belong to two different language families, between which there exit differences in grammar and culture etc. Thus, Chinese students feel hard to avoid committing errors in their English writing.In this thesis, the author studies on error analysis of English writing with the interlanguage theory as its theoretical guidance. MATLAB is used to draw function curves to present the frequency and variation of these errors clearly. The research focuses on the English writing written by college students in Software Department of Changchun University of Technology as its subjects. Two groups including 140 students are divided into experimental group and control group. In one semester, the students complete 8 compositions respectively. The students of experimental group accept teacher's instructions after each composition, based on EA, nevertheless the control group has no instruction.According to Corder's error analyzing steps, errors are analyzed from the following three perspectives:language knowledge, linguistic categories and error sources. The findings are as follows:firstly, syntactically-based errors rank the top in the compositions; secondly, semantic errors remain the major problem of the writing work; thirdly, the empirical study shows a much higher proportion of intralingual errors than interlingual errors. Some implications to the EFL teaching are put forward in terms of the research results. Firstly, vocabulary, as the basic part in English writing, including the words memory and enlargement, should be paid more attention to by both teachers and students. Secondly, grammar is the frame of English writing and its competence and performance affect the composition quality directly. Thirdly, teachers should form the target language context actively, build the students'thinking pattern of target language and encourage the students to read widely. Last but not the least, teachers should have a proper attitude toward errors committed in the students'interlanguage development to improve their writing abilities.