The Corpus-based Error Analysis Of EFL Writing Of Dai And Yi Ethnic Minority Learners In Yunnan

Error occurrence in speaking or writing is a normal phenomena in the process of target language output.Errors committed by foreign language learners are regarded as an important part in language proficiency development.Recently,there are increasing foreign language scholars focusing on language error and the causal factors.The research method of corpus linguistics makes it possible to do the large-scaled empirical study on language errors committed by learners,and the corpus-based error analysis provides new methods and perspectives for reviewing the errors and their significance in language development.The researcher does the field research about English learning in a middle school in the ethnic minority area in Yunnan province.After six months of participant observation and data collection,the researcher finds that students there get lower achievement in English learning than their counterparts in China generally,and there exist some special features of error occurrence and language using in English compositions of learners.It is obvious that students in a trilingual context of Chinese,English,and ethnic minority language confront complex language transference in the process of English acquisition.Therefore,it is worth to explore how the ethnic minority language or Chinese transfer to English(L3).Based on Interlanguage theory and Error Analysis/EA,the present thesis takes 42 senior three students of Dai and Yi ethnic minority as research objects,and the investigation is carried out in a middle school in Yunnan.The researcher employs mixed paradigm of quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze interlanguage and errors with computer assisted,and carries on data description and diagnostic analysis of the errors occurred in English writings of Dai and Yi ethnic minority learners.Firstly,with the collected 499 English compositions from the 42 students,the researcher establishes the English Writing Corpus of Yunnan Learners(YLEC)with a total of 53557 tokens and tags the 7634 errors with a set of codes.Following the method of error type classification in Chinese Learner English Corpus(CLEC),the researcher uses the corpus retrieval software AntConc(version 3.5.7),and classifies the labeled errors to get error frequency and distribution.Secondly,with the assistance of corpus,SPSS(version 20),AntConc,and other tools,the researcher compares the overall distribution of errors in CLEC and YLEC,and makes statistical analysis on the distribution features and frequency of each error type in YLEC.Based on the research above,the researcher combines the semi-structured interview results of 14 chosen students,6 English teachers and 6 local parents,and explores features of different error types and reasons of error occurrence in the compositions of Yunnan Dai and Yi ethnic minority learners.The quantitative analysis indicates that among all the 11 types of 7634 errors,types of word choice(wd),verb phrase(vp),noun phrase(np),sentence(sn),form(fm),and collection(cc)take lager percentage within YLEC.The researcher finds that the typical error features are mainly on literal translation through Chinese to English,ignoring the consistency principle,overgeneralization,and wrong selection of the target language.The causes for error occurrence are mainly summarized as language transfer,inadequate English competence,and low academic achievement expectation.Wherein,there are three factors contributing to the inadequate English competence:low language proficiency,improperly language input,and the weak awareness and ability of intercultural communication.Thereby,the researcher points out the problem and difficulty of Yunnan Dai and Yi ethnic minority students in English learning,and puts forward pedagogical strategies for students and teachers in practice,and suggestions on improving English teaching and learning in ethnic areas.