| It is known to all that second language acquisition is a complicated process inwhich learners cannot avoid committing various errors. Undoubtedly, non-finite verbis one of the most frequent grammatical errors produced by English learners at alllevels. Besides, there are few studies that concentrate on the acquisition of non-finiteverb both at home and abroad. Given such situation, this paper, examines the use ofnon-finite verb in English writings of middle school students on the perspective ofError Analysis.This paper combines the quantitative and qualitative analyses. Drawing uponWCEL, it identifies the errors of non-finite verb, classifies and compares these errors,and explains the reasons leading to these misuses. The ultimate goal of the thesis is toprovide some implications for English learning and teaching.In order to facilitate data collection and analysis, the author, according to themisusing form, classifies the errors into12classes and summarizes the distributionand features of each type. The results show that:(1) learners commit many errors inthe use of non-finite verb. They tend to commit more errors in terms of ing-participlesand the infinitive. They tend to use base verbs instead of–ing participles (accountingfor40%);(2) in terms of the–ing participle: there are a lot of errors when they useing-participle as object and subject,“verb+verb” is the most obvious with“like+verb” as a typical one; learners have inadequate knowledge of the collocation“preposition+ing-participle”; students often confuse the preposition “to” with theinfinitive sign “to”(3) as for the infinitive: misuses of “verb+verb” pattern is evidentwith “want+verb” the most; learners fail to use the structure “modals+bareinfinitive”. These errors are explained from the perspectives of both interlingual andintralingual interferences. Based on the findings, the author provides somesuggestions for English learning and teaching such as making full use of corpus andmodulating the teaching method. |
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