A Corpus-based Study Of The Copula "Be" Errors By Chinese EFL Learners

Most of the Chinese students receive English education systematically from primary school; some of them even had the access to English education when they were in kindergarten. Although English as a foreign language is acquired consciously in a good learning environment, the language a learner has mastered (interlanguage) still cannot be called the target language. Interlanguage is the learner's language which exists between the learner's mother tongue and target language. It is known to all that there are salient differences between any two languages, thus the learners'interlanguage errors are unavoidable.Copula"be"is acquired in the very beginning of English acquisition which is learned for a long time and used rather frequently. However, its eight variations make copula"be"both the focal point and difficult point in language teaching and learning.The present research tries to answer the following questions:1. What are the most striking types of copula"be"errors committed by Chinese EFL learners?2. What are the possible reasons that cause these errors?3. What are the correlation between the errors and the learners'English proficiency levels?Chinese Learner's English Corpus (CLEC) was established under the supervision of Professor Gui Shichun and Yang Huizhong, etc. CLEC is the most authoritative learners'corpus in China at the present time. The present study will base on CLEC and three sub corpora st2, st4 and st6 will be selected. Copula"be"errors will be listed with the help of concordancer WordSmith. Then the errors will be analyzed in accordance with the three steps of Error Analysis: identifying errors; describing errors and explaining errors. The major findings of the research are:1. The most striking copula"be"errors committed by Chinese EFL learners is the agreement errors.2. Negative transfer of mother tongue and the learners'deficient knowledge of English grammar are the major reasons that cause such copula"be"errors.3. The copula"be"errors get decreased as Chinese EFL learners'English proficiency level gets advanced.By means of analyzing the copula"be"errors committed by Chinese EFL learners, the author expects the present study can improve the teachers and learners'attention on copula"be". Consequently, the learners may explore their learning methods consciously and actively. Thus the English learners can improve their English proficiency gradually.