Common types and possible causes of sentence fragment among second year student of english education at can tho universuty

CANTHO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT COMMON TYPES AND POSSIBLE CAUSES OF SENTENCE FRAGMENTS AMONG SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION AT CANTHO UNIVER

CANTHO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

COMMON TYPES AND POSSIBLE CAUSES OF SENTENCE FRAGMENTS AMONG SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION AT CANTHO UNIVERSITY

B.A Thesis

Supervisor:

Nguyễn Văn Lợi, Ph.D

Student: Hồ Xuân Tiên Code: 7075910, Course 33 Class: NN0752A2

Cần Thơ, 4/2011

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

From the beginning to the end of the process of writing this thesis, I had many difficulties; however, I have luckily received the boundless help and the great encouragement from my parents, teachers, and friends; especially, my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Van Loi, who has helped me to shape ideas, has given me advice, guidance, corrections, encouragement and relevant sources for the accomplishment of this study

I would like to express my deep gratitude to him Without his important help, I could not have completed my research on time

I would like to thank all my teachers in the English Education department, School of Education, Cantho University for their lectures which are the foundation for my study

I would also like to send my thankful message to Mrs Ngo Thi Trang Thao, Mrs Truong Nguyen Quynh Nhu, Mr Do Xuan Hai, Mrs Chung Thi Thanh Hang and Mrs Tran Thi Chau Pha, who helped me to correct my proposal from first steps, provided me with useful ideas, helped me to collect writing papers of students and correct my drafts

I am also indebted to my family for the encouragement whenever I have difficulties or stresses during the time of work

Finally, I am grateful to the students of English Education class 01, 02 course 33, 34,

35, and 36 They have given me the sincere help, encouragement and provided many writing papers that constitute the data for this study

ABSTRACT

This study attempts to find out the causes for and the most common kind of sentence fragments which occur among the English Education major students of Cantho University, using data from interviews and writing papers The two kinds of data were collected from 40 second-year students during the second semester of the school year 2011 when they took Writing courses The data analysis reveals that the students often have trouble with sentence fragments possibly because of their attitude to study Grammar or Writing courses and the influence of the mother tongue; and fragments which lack a main verb and the ones which are the subordinate clauses are the two most common kinds This study also suggests some helpful strategies for teachers and students in teaching and learning sentence errors, especially sentence fragments

TÓM TẮT

Bài nghiên cứu này sử dụng dữ liệu từ những cuộc phỏng vấn cũng như các bài viết của sinh viên nhằm tìm ra nguyên nhân và loại câu fragment (câu không hoàn chỉnh) phổ biến nhất mà sinh viên ngành Sư phạm Anh văn ở trường Đại học Cần Thơ thường mắc phải Việc thu thập số liệu được tiến hành trên 40 sinh viên năm thứ hai trong quá trình họ học môn Viết ở học kỳ 2 năm học 2011 Kết quả cho thấy sinh viên thường gặp rắc rối với câu fragment có thể do hai nguyên nhân chính: thái độ học tập hai môn Ngữ Pháp và Viết, và do ảnh hưởng của tiếng mẹ đẻ Câu chính phụ thiếu một mệnh đề và câu thiếu động từ chính là hai loại câu không hoàn chỉnh phổ biến nhất Cuối cùng, bài nghiên cứu cũng đưa ra một số một số góp ý tham khảo cho giáo viên cũng như sinh viên trong việc dạy và học về lỗi về câu, đặc biệt là lỗi câu không hoàn chỉnh

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1

ABSTRACT 2

TÓM TẮT 3

CONTENTS 4

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

1 What is a mistake or an error? 8

2 What is a fragment? 9

3 Types of sentence fragment 10

4 Causes of errors in learning the second language 12

CHAPTER 3: METHOD 14

1 Research design 14

2 Participants and sample 14

3 Data collection 14

3.1 Writing papers 14

3.2 Interview 15

4 Research process 15

5 Procedure for data analysis 17

5.1 Steps in errors analysis 17

5.2 Steps in interview analysis 18

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 19

1 Writing papers 19

2 Interview 20

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 25

1 Conclusion 25

2 Limitations of the study 25

3 Recommendations 25

3.1 Recommendation for students 25

3.2 Recommendation for teachers 26

3.3 Recommendation for later research 26

APPENDIX 1 27 APPENDIX 2 34 REFERENCES 33

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Writing is one of the important and necessary skills for students of English But writing is a complicated process of conveying information, which is often difficult for students to learn Making mistakes in writing is therefore very common From my observation, many students whose major is English Education often make errors in sentence fragments when they write in English I am very surprised at this phenomenon and wish to understand it by doing a mini- research on sentence fragments

Sentence fragment is a common error in Writing Andrea (2010) introduced twenty

common types of errors which appear frequently in the writing papers, and fragments

sentences are among these typical errors In the same way, Kahn (2011) also agrees

that fragment sentence is one of the mistakes writers should avoid In addition,

fragments are also listed as the most common errors in writing essays (Flemming, 2011) Students commonly find themselves either with a long winded sentence or one that is not a complete idea This is also a very common problem among professional writers For fragment sentences, it is important to express a freestanding idea in the sentence This type of sentence errors has been described and discussed a lot in books about academic writing Foll (2001), Glencoe (2001), Langan (1997), and Marchant (2000) described the types of sentence fragments which students often produce However, these writings have not pointed out the most common type of sentence fragments, as well as the causes of making mistakes in this kind of sentence error This research aims to find out the types of sentence fragments that Vietnamese commonly produce, and discover the causes for this Specifically, the research

investigates the two following questions:

Question 1: What types of sentence fragments occur among the English Education

major students in Cantho University, and what is the most common type?

Question 2: What are possible causes for the errors?

With what I draw out at the end of this study, I think that my study can help teachers

to know the fact of making errors of sentence fragments of the second-year English Education major students in CTU, and then they can consider it as a suggestion for changing the teaching method to be more effective To students, the study can help them to be more careful and be able to avoid this type of sentence error when they write; therefore, the writing skill of students can be improved

The report for the study is outlined in five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter has presented the the reasons why I am interested in this topic and the research questions

Chapter 2: Literature Review

This chapter is the review of literature which provides a critical assessment of what has been written about the topic such as definition of sentence fragments, kinds of

sentence fragments, main causes of making erors in sentence fragments

Chapter 3: Research Methods

In this chapter, I present the research design, participants, instruments, and research procedure I make this research

Chapter 4: Results and discussions

This chapter will present the error types related to sentence fragments, the most common kind of errors in sentence fragments and the causes of this The data is analyzed and based on the writing papers of English Education major students and the result of interview

Chapter 5: Conclusion, limitations, and recommendations

Finally, the conclusion is made, and some implications are raised

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is the review of literature which provides a critical assessment of what has been written about the topic such as distinguishing between a mistake and an error, definition of sentence fragments, kinds of sentence fragments, the sentence fragment, a typical problem, and the influences of the first language on the process of

learning the second language

1 What is a mistake or an error?

This study examines errors in sentence production, so it is necessary to define what is meant by ‘error’

Corder (1997) stated errors are typically produced by people who do not yet fully command some institutionalized language system Meanwhile, according to Haryanto (2007) “error” is the failure to use the grammatical system correctly made by students which is caused by lack of student’s competence Errors themselves are competence errors True errors are of the learners’ competence (Richards, 1974) Errors are caused

by deficiency in competence and a short coming in the knowledge of language Learners make errors when they have not learnt something correctly

Mistake is different from error A mistake refers to a performance error, in that it is failure to utilize a known system correctly (Brown, 1980) The learners, who make mistakes, will sometimes use one form and sometimes the others This shows the inconsistency A mistake is an understanding of something that is not correct or a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention For example,

“he wasn't going to admit his mistake”; "he made a bad mistake” The mistake here

means the wrong action which can cause some effects

“Error” means the condition of having incorrect or false knowledge; it is sometimes the synonym of a mistake For example, “I made an error in my calculations.”

However, it is necessary to distinguish two this concepts According to Haryanto (2007), “mistake” refers to the failures to use the language system correctly caused by some factors such as carelessness, memory lapses, and physical condition, while error

refers to the failure to use the system correctly caused by lack of learners’ competence In this study, I consider the sentence fragment as an error

2 What is a fragment?

It is impossible to discuss sentence fragments without an understanding of the sentence concept According to Werner and Baker (1997), every complete sentence in English has at least one subject and one verb A simple sentence has one subject-verb combination A compound sentence is composed of two or more simple sentences Langan (1997, p.97), added that every sentence must have a subject and a verb and must express a complete thought However, when an incomplete sentence is punctuated as though it were a complete sentence, a fragment can occur In general, there are two different ways to understand the concept of sentence fragments

First, some linguists define sentence fragments by what components the sentences

lack According to Morgan (2010), sentence fragments are sentences that lack one or

more of the necessary components of a sentence What are the necessary components

of a sentence? They are a subject and a verb In more details, Raimes (2001) defines a

sentence fragment as an incomplete sentence It can occur when a subject is missing, when there is not a complete verb, or when there is no subject-predicate structure in an independent clause Meanwhile Abram (2000) defines fragments as incomplete sentences which miss a verb or a subject or both Let’s consider three examples below

Example 1: Running for the bus that was turning the corner

In this example, although this sentence consists of one subject “the bus”, and two verbs “run” and “was turning”, it is not a complete sentence The important component which is not present is the subject We need to know who did the action

“run” This is one case of sentence fragment

Example 2: The feeling of cool sand running through your toes

Similarly, the example above is also a sentence fragment In this sentence, only a noun phrase stands as the subject of the sentence, but the main verb is absent This makes

the sentence unclear in meaning The reader wants to know what happens when there

is the feeling of cool sand running through your toes

Example 3: Also the different kinds of entertainment such as videos and television

The third example is another case of sentence fragment according to the

above-mentioned authors The example sentence lacks a subject-predicate combination

Readers do not know what the writer wants to show

Second, sentence fragments are defined in terms of the completion of sentence meaning According to Langan (1987, p 97), a sentence that lacks a subject or a verb and does not express a complete thought is a fragment In the same words, Abram

(2000) stated that a sentence fragment is a group of words that cannot stand alone as a

sentence but is punctuated as if it were a sentence A fragment is difficult to

understand because it is an incomplete statement For example, the sentence when the

dentist began drilling is a fragment because we do not know what happened when the

dentist began drilling The group of words does not follow through and does not express a complete thought

The study reported in this thesis uses the following concept: a sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence which lacks a subject, a complete verb or both, and does not express a complete thought

3 Types of sentence fragment

Different writings about sentence fragments classify them in indifferent ways

According to Glencoe (2001), sentence fragments can be divided into four types

They are fragments that lack a subject, fragments that lack a complete verb, the fragments that lack both a subject and a main verb, and fragments that are composed

of a subordinate clause The following examples illustrate each type

Example 1: Jamal is very athletic Plays a great game of tennis (a fragment lacking a

subject)

Example 2: We can hardly hear ourselves think Ruth trying out her new set of drums

(a fragment lacking a main verb)

Example 3: Kate felt ill and left the theater Before the end of the movie (a fragment

lacking both a subject and a main verb)

Example 4: I am reading a book by Alice Walker Who is one of my favorite writers

(a fragment composed as a subordinate clause)

Other authors such as Morgan (2010) and Marchant (2010) divide sentence fragments into three types which are similar to three of the four types in Glencoe’s opinion They did not mention the fragment which lacks both a subject and a verb Like Glencoe,

Langan (1997) agrees that there are four types of sentence fragments However, he

based on the appearance of these sentences to name them According to him, sentence fragments can be divided into the following types:

–ing and to fragments

These are some examples for this type

* I spend all time in the employment office Trying to find a job that suited me

* Mel took an aisle seat on the bus His reason being that he had more legroom

* To remind people of their selfishness Otis leaves handwritten notes on cars that wake up two parking spaces

When a word ending in –ing, or the word to appears at or near the start of a word

group, a fragment may result Such fragments often lack a subject and part of the verb

Added-detail fragments

Added-detail fragments lack a subject and a verb They often begin with one of the

following words: also, especially, except, for example, including, such as Some

examples are given below

* Tony has trouble accepting criticism Except from Lola She has a knack for tact

* My apartment has its drawbacks For example, no hot water in the morning

* I had many job while in school Among them, busboy, painter, and security guard

Missing-subject fragments

People write missing-word fragments because they think the subject in one sentence

will apply to the next group as well But the subject, as well as the verb, must be in each group to make it a sentence These following examples are missing-subject fragments:

* One example of my father’s generosity is that he visits sick friends in the hospital And takes along get-well cards with a few dollars folded in them

* The weight lifter grunted as he heaved the barbells into the air Then, with a loud groan, dropped them

In short, we can have a general vision on the types of sentence fragments They are incomplete sentences, and the fact that we can divide them into how many kinds depends on what parts they lack In this study, I base on Glencoe’s taxonomy which is rather comprehensive and complete to do the research There are four types of sentence fragments: the fragments lacking a subject, the fragments lacking a main verb, the fragments lacking both a subject and a main verb, and the fragments as subordinate clause

4 Causes of errors in learning the second language

Some studies have argued some causes of making errors when the people learn the

foreign language, especially errors in writing From an interlanguage perspective,

Yates and Kenkel (2002) agreed that many errors in the process of learning the second

language are the result of the interaction between developing linguistic competence and basic principles of ordering information in texts which learners already know Meanwhile, when discussing the influence of first language over the second language, Lado (1971) said that “those elements that are similar to his native language will be simple for him and those elements that are different will be difficult” In this context,

it is evident that the language teacher and language learners should ideally know the structures of both the mother tongue and the second languages If the different elements cause difficulties, it also helps to make errors easily

With the same view point that the mother tongue also has influences on learning the second language, Maniam (2010) found that Tamil linguistic items heavily influenced the writing of L2 among the Tamil school students This caused the breakdown of the grammatical items that were negatively transferred

In Vietnam, Vo (2007) researched about difficulties of students in writing According

to her, some popular difficulties are sentence problems Vietnamese students are often influenced by traditional literature, so when writing in English, they get trouble, especially sentence problems

From the review of the literature, we can consider that the influence of the mother tongue is a factor which may cause trouble for L2 learners In terms of making sentence errors, specifically sentence fragments, I wonder whether it is also one of the causes or not With this question, I do this research

CHAPTER 3 METHOD

This chapter will describe the research design and methodology The chapter includes five parts The first part is about the research design including the decision on research questions and the reason why I use this The second part is about participants joining

in the study and the samples on which I base to analyze the data The third part is the data collection Next, I will describe the research process and the procedure of data analysis in two last sections

1 Research design

I chose the descriptive research method, focusing on error analysis to achieve the aim

of this study The conclusion about the most common type of sentence fragments of this error was reached by basing on the occurrence of this type in writing papers of a group of English Education major students in Cantho University A descriptive research often describes data and characteristics about the phenomenon being studied; however, it cannot describe what caused a situation Therefore, I also used interview, to discover the causes of making errors in sentence fragments

2 Participants and sample

The subjects of my research are a group of English Education major students at the second year of English Education Department, Can Tho University The participants are40 second-year students of English Education Department Writing samples were collected randomly from these students by stratified sampling method

3 Data collection

The data were collected in two ways First of all, I collected writing papers of 40 students of English Education to identify errors Secondly, the interview was used to help me discover the causes of making errors in sentence fragments

3.1 Writing papers

To answer the first research question, I chose the writing papers as one of the instruments for this research The writing papers were collected from 40 English

Education major students at the second year who are attending the Writing courses There are some reasons why I decided to employ the writing papers instead of the writing test Firstly, the criterion of testing is not suitable Each student has to follow a different schedule, so it is very difficult to arrange the time for the test Secondly, I want to describe the phenomenon of making errors in sentence fragments from the writing papers they write and hand in The writing papers are produced during the process they learn the Writing subject; therefore, the result can be more practical Thirdly, designing a writing test which is suitable for all of English Education major students seems to be impossible Some students maybe feel forceful when they have the test Because of these reasons, I only chose writing papers as one of the instruments to analyze

3.2 Interview

I used the semi-structured interview to explore the causes of making errors in sentence fragments In this type of interview, there are specific core questions determined in advanced from which the interviewer branches off to explore in-depth information, probing according to the way the interview proceeds, and allowing the elaboration, within limits (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989) To the causes of making errors

in sentence fragments, I designed the interview questions and approached students who have trouble with this kind of sentence errors to explore the causes I have focused on what the literature shows, especially the influences of L1 on L2, and the habit of writing to design the interview questions During the process of interviewing,

I explained and tried to expand some details to get the specific information

The interview includes 6 questions about the general knowledge of sentence

fragments; questions focusing on the way the students who often make errors in the sentence fragments through the process of production from getting the topic to handing in the writing papers (see appendix 2)

4 Research process

There are six steps:

* Collecting the writing papers from students of English Education Department

I collected40writing papers of English Education major students at the second- year

in CTU to analyze

* Analyzing these writing papers:

Basing on the writing papers I have collected, I analyzed them in 3 sections: how many sentence fragment they make, in what kinds of sentence fragments they make errors and which kind is the most common kind

* Designing interviewing questions:

After analyzing the writing papers, I could give the conclusion about the frequency of making errors in sentence fragments and the most common kind With the aim to draw out the causes, I designed the interviewing questions and focused on the way they produce the writings There are 6 questions which aim to help me discover the causes

* Piloting the instruments (on about 10 students):

To make sure that the interview questions are not ambiguous, I piloted on 10 students before interviewing them who make errors in the sentence fragments The result was that all of them are easy to understand and the answers are fixed to the purpose I want

I can discover some possible causes from what the interviewees answer

* Interviewing students who often make mistakes in sentence fragments

The interview happened in three days, I used the piloted interview questions to ask students who often make errors in sentence fragments, and took notes the answers

* Analyzing data

The last one is analyzing the data I designed a table consisting of 4 columns: name, times of making errors in the most common kind of sentence fragments, causes and the conclusion After that, I wrote the analysis to draw out the conclusion for my research

5 Procedure for data analysis

5.1 Steps in errors analysis

In analyzing the data, I used error analysis method suggested by Brown (1980) and Corder (1974) These following steps were used to conduct an error analysis research:

* Evaluation of errors

This step involves evaluating, explaining of errors and drawing conclusion

To this step, I used the following structure to make the statistics of data

P = x 100%

In which,

P: percentage of each types of sentence fragments

N1: total of each types of sentence fragments

: Total of the whole sentence fragments

5.2 Steps in interview analysis

The data from the interview was analyzed through 3 steps:

* Making statistics of the answers

To each interview question, the answers were classified in groups of the same ideas, and then their population was transferred into the percentage to analyze easily

* Discussing

Basing on the statistics of the answers, I discussed to explore the possible causes

of making errors in sentence fragments