An Empirical Study Of The Errors In Chinese College Non-English Majors' Writing

As a branch of Applied Linguistics, error analysis is important and valuable for the study on second language acquisition. Studies of error reveal the common characteristics shared by the language learners, and furnish researchers or language teachers with a keen insight into the nature of foreign language acquisition which will consequently improve language teaching and learning, thus, have become a useful technique of investigating and describing learners' language.English writing practice of Chinese students is the unceasing keen issue that attracts the attention of many researchers and teachers. The previous research results indicate that by analyzing the errors manifested in the students' writings we can better understand the developmental process of their learning.Though research has been done on the errors in EFL learners' writings, comparatively few empirical studies have been conducted in investigating the errors made by Chinese learners in writing; statistical studies of the errors are still insufficient especially in the Chinese ESL context. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to furnish some information in this area for pedagogical concern and further research.The current study explored the common linguistic errors of the Chinese college non-English majors' writings. Errors for analysis were obtained from two classes, one at their third academic semester, the other at their first and second academic semester. One hundred pieces of compositions first were collected, and then the linguistic errors in them were recognized and put into five categorizes. Through collecting three times of error sample and a diachronic study, an empirical study of writing errors was conducted within the framework of EA by the present writer.. Traditional linguistic taxonomy was applied to identify and interpret the errors. It is found that (1) grammatical, lexicon errors and Chinglish are the three types which appeared most frequently;(2)Chinglish expressions most significantly distinguished the high-mark compositions from the low-mark ones; (3) learners committed less errors than they did almost one year ago, however, many errors still occurred frequently. Mis-transfer of first language (L1) is a big problem for college students although they have learnt English for many years. A case study of "BE" was conducted at the same time. Some erroneous patterns are summarized. Then, causes of findings were explored and interpreted. Following the statistic analysis and error interpretation, some remedial proposals were put forward finally.It is hoped that the present thesis will help teachers to locate and solve the problems of Chinese EFL learners in writing. Also the writer hopes that such findings may provide some hints for later study on the English language.