A Study Of Interlanguage Errors In Compositions By Low-proficient Non-English Majors

The concept of Interlanguage (IL) was introduced to mean learner language by researchers shortly after the beginning of the second language acquisition (SLA) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Selinker (1972) is the first one who suggested that interlanguage should be considered as an independent system from the second language. According to Selinker, interlanguage is neither a native language nor a second language; so what a learner produces is evidence of approximation between the first language and second language, no matter whether it is correct or not. In order to discover some universal developmental characteristics in SLA, foreign researchers have conducted various studies and analyzed data coming from learners with the help of computer. So far many significant achievements have been gained and teaching proposals offered. Recently domestic researchers have paid more and more attention to interlanguage, too. They chose subjects of varying levels and obtained rich language materials. By analyzing these materials they drew conclusions, some agreeing with each other, while others conflicting with each other.Different from the previous related studies, which selected subjects from English majors or average non-English majors, the present study focuses on a special group, namely low-proficient students(these students who failed in the last final English test had to take it again.), in a certain Chinese university. The number of these subjects is 60. The writer collected their compositions as samples. Composition, the author thinks, is an important type of language output, through which learners' interlanguage can be adequately exposed. Because learners have relatively enough time to think or check to avoid more mistakes than when they are required to make a spontaneous speech. Hence, writing is more stable and can more accurately convey information of all aspects of learners' interlanguage. Goody (1977) suggests that written language has two functions: the first is the storage function which permits communication over time and space, and the second is that which 'shifts language from the oral to the visual domain' and permits words and sentences to be examined out of their original contexts (quoted from Brown 2000:13). For another thing, writing is a skill requiring knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and power of logic thinking. So not only non-English majors but also English majors have difficulty in improving writing skill because of various reasons, such as first language transfer, target language interference (overgeneralization) and developmental factors. The researcher tries to find out what characteristics these students' IL has and offer some constructive proposals.This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter one introduces the background and purposes of this study, some theories and concepts concerned, as well as the methodology of this study. Chapter two deals with sample collection and error identification. Chapter three gives the description and explanation of errors, and employs qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyzing the data and establishing the distribution and resources of errors. Chapter four is about discussion of the gravity of errors as well as the characteristics of learners' IL. The last chapter gives the main conclusion. It also provides some pedagogical implications for second language teaching and offers some suggestions for further study while stating the limitations of this research.The researcher classified these sixty samples into two groups according to the marks (2-5, 6-8). In order to predict potential problems and ensure the feasibility of this study, the writer conducted a pilot study. Having a clear understanding of the following study, the writer went on to describe and explain these errors in the corpus after identification of error was finished. Then data collection followed of error frequencies. Lastly, X~2 test, Pearson Correlation Coefficient test and Measures of Central Tendency test were employed to process and analyze the collected data. After the qualitative analysis and discussion of the results, the researcher has the following findings:(1) Target language (English) interference, rather than mother tongue (Chinese) interference, is the main factor which affects low-proficient learners' IL in their English composition. Intralingual errors take around 60% in the corpus.(2) Vocabulary is still the biggest obstacle or the toughest challenge for these learners. (3) Grammatical competence can not be paid less attention to; instead, it should be strengthened in spite of the pedagogical claim that grammar teaching should be weakened.(4) Semantically based IL errors should be regarded as one of the main characteristics made by low-proficient learners in writing. And a close relation exists between lexical choice and semantic errors.This study is of referential significance for non-English majors' writing, especially those low-proficient students, and teachers should pay more attention to their weak points. The writer also provides certain pedagogical suggestions.