An Empirical Study Of Lexical Errors In Non-English Major's Writings

Writing not only reflects language learners' knowledge of grammar and vocabulary but can also reflect their comprehensive language skills in organizing,analyzing and expressing an essay.There are grammatical,lexical,syntactic and discoursal errors occurring in English writings,and lexical errors are the most common one.For most of the Chinese learners of English,lexical errors are one of the most difficult problems in their English writings.Schmitt(2006)pointed out that lexical errors could be explained,categorized and eliminated.Therefore,how to help students realize and eliminate lexical errors in their writing is the key research point of the current study.This study mainly focuses on three research questions:(a)what are the main types of lexical errors students made in their English writings?(b)What are the potential causes of the lexical errors?(c)To what extent are types of lexical errors related to writing quality?This study collected 50 English writings of non-English majors in one of the universities in China as study samples.Based on the categories of lexical errors by James(1998),Gui Shichun and Yang Huizhong in Chinese Learner English Corpus(2003)and Leech's(1981)semantic category of preposition partners,24 kinds of lexical errors were proposed in the current study.Then the lexical errors in the students' writings as well as the causes of lexical errors were described and analyzed.According to the proposed categories,a questionnaire was also designed by selecting the typical wrong sentences from students' writings to further analyze the causes of lexical errors.The results showed that in students' writings,23 types of lexical errors were discovered.The main types of lexical errors included misspelling,semantic errors,errors on part of speech,errors in word choice,collocation errors and literal translation errors in their English compositions.And the potential causes of these errors were inadequate vocabulary acquisition,improper vocabulary teaching,a negative transfer of mother tongue,lack of interest and motivation in English learning and improper choice of learning strategies.The implications from the current findings were also discussed to offer certain methods and strategies for English learners and educators to reduce and eliminate lexical errors.