A Study Of Interlanguage Fossilization On Non-English Majors’ Compositions

English learning is a long internal process and learners are affected by various factorssuch as learning environment, language proficiency, cognitive style, learning strategies, etc.Researches show that most of their learning proficiencies are stuck in a state of stagnancy afterthey progress steadily at the beginning of their English learning. This phenomenon is calledfossilization. Over30years or so, many linguists and researchers at home and abroad havemade a lot of investigations and provided insightful explanations on it. So far, many empiricalstudies mainly focus on the causes of the fossilization and the types of fossilized errors;however, there are few researches on the characteristics of these persistent errors and theinternal forming process for Chinese English learners. Since it is still a thorny problem andneeds putting more efforts to probe, this investigation mainly focuses on errorfossilized-related issues, specifically on grammatical errors which are collected in thecompositions made by non-English majors. It aims that these persistent grammatical errors canbe prevented effectively through this investigation to some extent.The thesis firstly presents the review of studies about fossilization at home and abroad. Inorder to make a research on the Interlanguage fossilization made in Chinese non-Englishmajors’ compositions, an empirical study is conducted. The data are collected four times fromthe compositions produced by30second-year students of Shanxi Datong University and thenthe data are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Besides, questionnaire is used for gettingthe general information about subjects’ second language learning.The results of the research questions firstly indicate there are three characteristics of thesegrammatical errors: systemacity、permeability、permanency. Secondly, the instructions from theteachers can contribute to eliminating the persistent and non-persistent grammatical errors.Thirdly, these errors are dynamic and may get stabilized temporarily. Fourthly, it is suggestedthat teachers should try to motivate learners in various teaching methods, stress the importanceof keeping balance between language input and output. It is also significant to offer effectivefeedbacks to learners. Meanwhile, learners should develop good learning habits and balancethe contents of the language with their forms. It is hoped that this thesis can make some contributions to the further researches onfossilization-related grammatical errors and give inspirations for both teachers and learners toprevent the phenomenon of fossilization effectively.