The Analysis Of Lexical Errors In Seamen's English Writings

Writing plays a crucial role in the five Basic English skills, and it is also the most difficult and complicated part. As for Chinese learners of English, errors are inevitable in students'English writings, especially the lexical errors make a large proportion among the whole errors. Lexical errors in students' writings can reflect how well and proficiently students learn the English vocabulary. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the lexical errors in the process of second language acquisition. The analysis of lexical errors is helpful and valuable to make a clear classification and analysis of the lexis teaching and learning in order to improve students'vocabulary.In this thesis, the writer analyzes the collected samples based on the theories about Error Analysis and second language acquisition. The compositions are collected from the seamen who took English training of MASES in 2010. Among the 182 collections, 158 of them are valid. The lexical errors are classified into three main types through the analysis:Errors in Synforms, Errors in Formations and Errors in Lexical Relations. Each type can be divided into several subcategories. For example, the first type is further divided into spelling errors and errors in word class. The second type includes calque errors and collocation errors and so on. The third type involves errors of synonyms and errors of hyponyms. According to the data, spelling errors takes up the largest proportion among all the lexical errors, and then followed by errors in word class, collocation errors. The causes of the lexical errors are complicated, such as the interlingual causes, intralingual causes, causes based on communication strategies and induced causes. However, some lexical errors are caused by some other factors instead of one particular cause. In a word, the author tries to give some suggestions and to the vocabulary teaching based on the previous studies and discussions about lexical errors.