An Analysis Of Lexical Errors In Non-English Majors’ Writing

In the process of learning a language, there is an unavoidable phenomenon that is the language learners’ errors. As a branch of Applied Linguistics, Error Analysis plays a very important role in the process of second language teaching. It not only provides rich materials for second language teaching, but also makes teachers understand the students’ language level and ability. In addition, Error Analysis provides the emphasis and difficulty of target language knowledge for teachers and students, so it is important for teaching.From ancient to modern times, although many scholars have made analysis and research on English writing errors, but few of them focus on the study of lexical errors in writing. Therefore, taking the theory of Error Analysis as the basis, the author pays attention to lexical errors which appear in students’ writing. It talks about this issue in two aspects: first, what types of lexical errors are there in students’ writing? Second, what are the reasons for these errors? The first section introduces the research background, purpose, significance, research questions, methods and the structure of this article. The second section introduces the theory of error analysis as well as the domestic and foreign research achievements. The third section is the research design and data collection. The fourth section analyzes all kinds of lexical errors collected in the sample and the causes of these errors in detail. The fifth section provides reasonable suggestions for lexical teaching from the angle of teaching.After further study on vocabulary teaching, we can see that the lexical errors in the collected students’ compositions including spelling errors, word confusion errors, lexical relation confusion, collocation errors and literal translation errors. The main causes of spelling errors are related with student’s pronunciation errors, such as the similar spelling or pronunciation vocabulary, and excessive use of pronunciation rules. While the negative transfer of native language learners and the conscious use of communicative strategies are the main reasons of causing lexical relation confusion. Collocation errors are caused mainly by the uncompleted method of vocabulary memory storage and unappropriate memory mode of lexical information. Literal error is mainly due to the interference of the mother tongue.The Interlanguage Theory is used for analyzing student’s lexical errors, which facilitates the analysis of lexical errors in non-English major students’ writing. And by exploring the causes of these errors, we can provide some reasonable suggestions for English learning and teaching. In the process of vocabulary teaching, teachers can prepare some good reading materials for students, to help them acquire more target language content. And in the process of teaching, teachers should spend more time in exercising the complex structure of vocabulary.