An analysis of common syntactic errors committed in written tasks by vietnamese students of english at dong thap university

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE AN ANALYSIS OF COMMON SYNTACTIC ERRORS COMMITTED IN WRITTEN TASKS BY VIETNAMESE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT DONG THAP UNIVERSITY Submitted t

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

AN ANALYSIS OF COMMON SYNTACTIC ERRORS

COMMITTED IN WRITTEN TASKS

BY VIETNAMESE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH

AT DONG THAP UNIVERSITY

Submitted to the Department of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

I hereby certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled

AN ANALYSIS OF COMMON SYNTACTIC ERRORS COMMITTED IN WRITTEN TASKS BY VIETNAMESE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH

AT DONG THAP UNIVERSITY

In terms of the statement of requirements for theses in Masters’ programs issued

by the Higher Degree Committee of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University

Ho Chi Minh City, July 2013

Nguyen Nguyen Xuan Tam

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to all the professors at the

Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, who devotedly instructed and guided me during the postgraduate program

Especially, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,

Dr Do Minh Hung, for his valuable advice and as well his patience and encouragement

Also, I am sincerely grateful to my graduate classmates, my colleagues, and

my students who were very helpful and responsive to my data collection and other requirements during my work

Finally, I would like to express my profound appreciation to my newly-wed wife and especially my only sister for their financial, spiritual and practical support, without whom I would have hardly fulfilled my thesis

ABSTRACT

Error analysis in second language acquisition (SLA) is a type of linguistic study that focuses on the errors learners make In the field of pedagogy, it provides information on students' errors which in turn helps teachers to correct students' errors and also improves the effectiveness of their teaching According to Corder (1967), systematically analyzing errors made by language learners makes it possible to determine areas that need reinforcement in teaching

As a matter of fact, this study conducted a survey into errors which students commonly make in their English writing Upon doing so, the researcher analyzed students’ EFL (English as a Foreign Language) written tasks, i.e English academic essays, by majors of English and simultaneously investigated the relationship between the sources of error and the overall common syntactic errors in EFL student writing

Particularly, 70 essay samples by third-year majors of English at Dong Thap University were collected to analyze and classify the most common syntactic errors in EFL writing The result revealed that errors in the singular/plural noun form were the highest in number, accounting for 25% of the total number of errors The second, third, fourth, and fifth in rank were error categories in word form, article, verb tense, and subject-verb agreement, respectively

In the next part, in order to investigate the relationship between the sources

of error and the common syntactic errors in EFL writing, a quantitative approach was applied to analyze the data collected from the questionnaires Through SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) analytical procedures, the data was measured of the reliability and correlation between variables The findings indicated that intralingual factors were a major source of syntactic errors in second language (L2) writing, that is to say, syntactic errors in L2 writing were interfered

by incomplete application of grammatical rules, particularly in building grammatically correct sentences Besides, cognitive factors were the second major

errors in that students had few chances to practice their writing skills out of class Also, some of them did not apply properly the technical procedures in writing production

Conclusion drawn from the results of this study is that consideration needs

to be taken into the teaching and learning of common syntactic structures in the writing classroom so as to focus on students’ ability in sentence building, thus improving students’ English academic writing The results of this study can also provide a fundamental for future research in EFL writing pedagogy and in SLA in general

Keywords: error, error analysis, source of error, syntactic error in writing

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Aims of the Study 3

1.3 Research Questions 4

1.4 Significance of the Study 4

1.5 Scopes of the Research 5

1.6 An Overview of the Methodology 5

1.7 Limitations of the Study 6

1.8 Structure of the Study 6

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW, THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, AND HYPOTHESES 8

2.1 Errors 8

2.1.1 Errors Analysis 8

2.1.2 Errors and Mistakes 11

2.1.3 Sources of Error 12

2.2 Syntactic Errors 19

2.2.1 Syntax and Common Syntactic Features 19

2.2.2 Common Syntactic Errors in Writing 21

2.3 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses 23

2.3.1 Theoretical Framework 23

2.3.2 Research Hypotheses 24

3.1 Research Design 25

3.2 Sample Size and Sampling Procedures 26

3.3 Instruments 27

3.4 Questionnaire development 28

3.5 Data Collection Procedures 32

3.6 Data Analysis Procedures 33

3.6.1 Descriptive Statistics 33

3.6.2 Reliability Analysis 33

3.6.3 Correlation Statistics 34

3.7 Summary 35

Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 36

4.1 Descriptive Statistics 36

4.1.1 Respondents’ Demographics 36

4.1.2 Respondents’ Responses to Proposed Items 37

4.1.2.1 Respondents’ Responses to Interlingual Factor 37

4.1.2.2 Respondents’ Responses to Intralingual Factor 39

4.1.2.3 Respondents’ Responses to Social Factor 41

4.1.2.4 Respondents’ Responses to Cognitive Factor 42

4.1.2.5 Respondents’ Responses of Overall Common Syntactic Errors in Writing 43

4.2 Reliability Analysis 44

4.3 Correlation Analysis 45

4.3.1 Assumption Testing 45

4.3.2 Correlation Matrix 48

4.4 Hypothesis Testing and Discussions 50

4.5 Summary 61

Chapter 5 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 63

5.1 Summary of Findings 63

5.2 Instructional Implications 66

5.2.1 Implications for Teachers 66

5.3 Suggestions for Future Research 68

5.4 Conclusion 69

REFERENCES 71

APPENDIX 1 76

APPENDIX 2 79

APPENDIX 3 82

APPENDIX 4 90

APPENDIX 5 92

APPENDIX 6 93

APPENDIX 7 93

Table 2.1 Summary of Research Hypotheses 24

Table 3.1 Survey Items Used in the Study 30

Table 3.2 Rules of Thumb for Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient Size 34

Table 4.1 Variables Included in the Analyses 36

Table 4.2 Demographic Characteristics of the Study 37

Table 4.3 Interlingual Factor 38

Table 4.4 Interlingual Items 38

Table 4.5 Intralingual Factor 39

Table 4.6 Intralingual Items 40

Table 4.7 Social Factor 41

Table 4.8 Social Items 42

Table 4.9 Cognitive Factor 42

Table 4.10 Cognitive Items 43

Table 4.11 Statistics of overall Common Syntactic Errors 44

Table 4.12 Cronbach’s Alpha Measures of Variables in the Study 45

Table 4.13 Correlation of Variables 48

Table 4.14 Overall Common Syntactic Errors in Writing 49

Table 4.15 Analysis of Errors 54

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Psycholinguistic Sources of Error 11

Figure 2.2 Theoretical Framework 24

Figure 4.1 Histogram 46

Figure 4.2 Normal P-P Plot 47

Figure 4.3 Scatterplot 47

Figure 4.4 Pie Chart of Analysis of Syntactic Errors 54

DThU Dong Thap University

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

To begin with, this chapter discusses the background of the study Then, it presents the aims of the study and raises the research questions Next, the significance and scopes of the research are presented Also, the methodology used

in the study is briefly discussed and limitations of the study are mentioned Finally, the structure of the thesis is presented

1.1 Background of the Study

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the analysis of errors that learners commit during their acquisition of a second language (L2) Surveys into errors which L2 learners make either in speech or in writing have been conducted by linguists, syllabus designers, and language teachers throughout the world The study of errors is carried out by means of Error Analysis (EA), which is considered as a fundamental tool in language teaching in order to reorganize the teacher's points of view and readdress his or her methodology for fixing and fulfilling the students' gaps (Londono-Vasquez, 2007) Accordingly, as Corder (1967) puts it, EA is a procedure used by both researchers and teachers, which involves collecting samples of learner language, identifying the errors in the samples, describing these errors, classifying them according to their nature and causes, and evaluating their seriousness The purpose of EA is, in fact, “to find what the learner knows and does not know” and “to ultimately enable the teacher

to supply him not just with the information that his hypothesis is wrong, but also, importantly, with the right sort of information or data for him to form a more adequate concept of a rule in the target language” (Corder, 1974)

Writing is most often considered a difficult subject and is a complex process even in the first language Writing is best view as a continuum of activities that range from the more mechanical or formal aspects of “writing down” on the

one end to the more complex act of composing on the other end (Hadley, 1993) In other words, second language writing requires conscious effort and a lot of practice in generating and organizing ideas as well as proficiency in the use of language Compared to their first language (L1) writing, L2 student writers also face with social and cognitive challenges pertaining to second language acquisition (SLA) Therefore, it is undoubtedly throughout the process of composing that students face many problems, especially in academic writing contexts Research has been carried out to identify the common errors made by language learners in SLA, and in L2 writing particularly As a matter of fact, a better understanding of types of errors and the influence of sources of error in L2 writing will enable teachers to handle with students’ problems in writing properly and thoroughly

In EFL writing classes at Dong Thap University (DThU), the researcher, being a writing instructor, has realized that Vietnamese students generally make several common errors in their English written tasks, for instance, errors in word form, verb tense, article, preposition, and other sentence problems such as fragment, run-on sentence and comma splice, to name a few In previous studies, researchers have identified different sources of error in L2 acquisition Brown (1980 as cited in Hasyim, 2002) states that interference of the first language has a great influence on SLA Similarly, Ellis (1985) mentions that SLA is always strongly influenced by the learner’s first language “It is also a belief that the role

of the L1 in SLA is a negative one That is, the L1 gets in the way or interferes with the learning of the L2, such that features of the L1 are transferred into the L2.” On the other hand, Richards (1974) find two sources of error in his research: interlingual errors and intralingual errors In her recent study, Myles (2002) places emphasis on social and cognitive factors as two major sources of error in L2 writing Ellis (1994 as cited in Myles, 2002) puts it that exploration of social factors gives us some idea of why learners differ in rate of L2 learning, in proficiency type (for instance, conversational ability versus writing ability), and in ultimate proficiency Regarding cognitive factors, according to cognitive theory,

communicating orally or in writing is an active process of skill development and gradual elimination of errors as the learner internalizes the language

Accordingly, there have been many surveys into learners’ errors in L2 writing James (1998) discovers that errors such as in tense, preposition and weak vocabulary are the most common and frequent types of errors in learners’ L2 writing It is because grammar is seen only as a means to an end that some learners tend to re-emphasize its importance and in the process, they make many more errors The learners usually face difficulties in learning the grammatical aspects of the target language, such as in subject-verb agreement, the use of preposition, articles and the use of correct tense, etc More recently, Darus and Subramaniam (2009) find that there are six most common errors in writing such as singular/plural form, verb tense, word choice, preposition, subject-verb agreement and word order Moreover, Darus and Chin (2009) identify the four most common errors made by Chinese-speaking students in writing, including mechanics, tense, preposition, and subject-verb agreement

To summarize, there have been many concepts of learners’ common errors and sources of error in L2 writing; as a result, the researcher recognizes the necessity for conducting a research into the most common syntactic errors in EFL writing and verifying the influence of sources of error on writing production

1.2 Aims of the Study

The main aims of this study are as follows:

 To identify the most common syntactic errors made by Vietnamese students in EFL writing;

 To examine the influence of the sources of error on the common syntactic errors in EFL writing by Vietnamese students

1.4 Significance of the Study

Studies into learners’ errors and sources of error in SLA and in L2 writing particularly have been conducted so far by linguists, syllabus designers, language teachers, and researchers in Vietnam and around the world There have been several surveys into types of errors; accordingly, there have been different theories that account for sources of error in L2 writing Researches reveal that there are various factors which are causes for common errors in learners’ L2 writing Based

on the previously mentioned research background, the author of this study conducted a survey for the purpose of testing hypotheses about the relationship between the sources of error and the most common syntactic errors in L2 writing

The study was conducted at DThU through analyzing common errors in EFL writing and collecting responses to the questionnaire from English major students Despite the fact that errors are popular in EFL students’ writing tasks, few surveys have been conducted on the analysis of common errors; moreover, little investigation has been into the most probable factors that have effects on common syntactic errors in EFL student writing, particularly at DThU As a result, findings of the influential factors will propose several implications (1) for writing teachers in predicting and properly dealing with student writers’ errors and for syllabus designers in designing practical lesson plans and (2) for students in counting for the most frequent common errors and properly elaborating with them

in EFL writing

1.5 Scopes of the Study

The study was conducted to survey the common types of syntactic errors in academic English writing tasks that are popularly committed by English major students in their third year at DThU In order to identify the most common syntactic errors, the researcher collected 70 out of 100 students’ English essays on free-choice topics and distributed 100 questionnaires to the students for the purpose of identifying the sources of those errors

1.6 An Overview of the Methodology

The methodology of this study will be fully explained in Chapter 3 In this part, however, it is necessary to present the principles that have driven the study to its goals This research design consisted of two main phases, namely quantitative and the qualitative approaches First, the quantitative approach was used to test the relationship between the sources of error and the common syntactic errors in EFL student writing In addition, the quantitative approach was also implemented to test the frequency and number of errors shown in students’ sample essays In the second phase of the study, which is qualitative and fully descriptive, the methodology was implemented based on a profile of errors In doing so, the researcher marked students’ sample essays so as to identify syntactic errors before

proceeding to classify, describe, and quantify these errors

The instruments used for data collection in the study included EFL student essays and a questionnaire Data of the four sources of error and the common syntactic errors in writing was set up through five variables: (1) interlingual factors, (2) intralingual factors, (3) social factors, (4) cognitive factors, and (5) overall common syntactic errors in writing, which were then determined by means

of SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) Accordingly, common syntactic errors were identified and categorized, and then statistically analyzed by means of Markin software

1.7 Limitations of the Study

Although the aims of the study have been achieved, there still remain some

of its limitations The first limitation is on the target population of the study In order to control the internal validity of the research, the survey was restricted to third year majors of English, whose language competence and motivation for learning are generally identical Moreover, as the study was conducted at DThU, where students do not have as many advantages as those in metropolitan areas, the results of the study might not always be applicable to other institutions

The second limitation is on the writing samples themselves With free choice of topics, students might lessen their anxiety about scoring and time constraint; consequently, they might make good use of this by avoiding application

of grammatical points that they supposed to be incompetent in Furthermore, responses to the questionnaires might be objective or else subjective according to the respondents

1.8 Structure of the Study

The thesis consists of five chapters as follows:

 Chapter 1 presents an overview of the study First, the chapter provides the

background of the study Then, it focuses on the aims of the study and raises the research questions Next, it discusses the significance of the study and the scopes of the study Furthermore, an overview of the methodology and limitations of the study are mentioned The final part presents the structure of the thesis

 Chapter 2 makes a review of literature relating to the thesis In this chapter,

a review of related issues from previous studies is addressed Besides, the theoretical framework and hypotheses are set out accordingly

 Chapter 3 discusses the methodology of the study, including the research

design, instruments, questionnaire development, sample size and sampling procedures, and procedures for data collection and analysis

 Chapter 4 makes an analysis of data and discusses the findings from the

data collected

 Chapter 5 consists of the recommendations and the conclusion This

chapter contains the summary of the findings and proposes implications for classroom practice Finally, it gives out the conclusion and suggestions for future research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW, THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK,

AND HYPOTHESES

The purpose of this chapter is to review and analyze previous literature relating to concepts of sources of error and syntactic errors in L2 writing It presents the field of Error Analysis and provides definitions of errors and concepts of sources of error and common syntactic errors in L2 writing Also, this chapter states out the relationship between variables, and the main reasons that lead to the framework and hypotheses of research

2.1 Errors

2.1.1 Error Analysis

The study of errors is carried out by means of Error Analysis (EA), and the analysis of learner errors has long been a part of language pedagogy The field of

EA in second language acquisition (SLA) was established in the 1970s by Corder

and his colleagues It was in his article entitled The Significance of Learner Errors

that EA took a new turn Errors used to be regarded as “flaws” that needed to be eradicated; however, in one of his early, seminal article, Corder (1967) notes that errors can be significant in three ways:

(1) They provide the teacher with information about how much the learner has learnt;

(2) They provide the researcher with evidence of how language is learnt; (3) They serve as devices by which the learner discovers the rules of the target language

According to Ellis (1994), whereas the first one reflects the traditional role

of EA, the second significance of errors is of primary interest to L2 researchers and teachers in that it enables them to have comprehensive views of the process of L2 acquisition In addition, Corder (1967) emphasizes that systematically analyzing errors made by language learners makes it possible to determine areas

that need reinforcement in teaching EA is the examination of those errors committed by students in both the spoken and written medium

The study of error is part of the investigation of the process of language learning In this respect it resembles methodologically the study of the acquisition of the mother tongue It provides us with a picture of the linguistic development of a learner and may give us indications as to the learning process

In his view, errors provide feedback, that is to say, they tell the teacher something about the effectiveness of his teaching

Weireesh (1991) also considers learners’ errors to be of particular importance because the committing of errors is a device the learners use in order to learn According to him, EA is a valuable aid to identify and explain difficulties

faced by learners and it also serves as a reliable feedback to design a remedial teaching method This emphasizes the fact how serious the errors may be, once identified, learners will find it helpful and teachers will find it easy to do remedial work

Sercombe (2000 as cited in Darus, 2009) explains that EA serves three purposes: firstly, to find out the level of language proficiency the learner has reached; secondly, to obtain information about common difficulties in language learning, and thirdly, to find out how people learn a language From this statement

it can be concluded that the study of errors should also be viewed as something positive both for learners and teachers

Candling (2001) considers EA as “the monitoring and analysis of learner’s language” He refers to an error as a deviation Candling (2001) adds that the L2 learner’s errors are potentially important for the understanding of the process of SLA Olasehinde (2002) also argues that it is inevitable that learners make errors

He also cited that errors are unavoidable and a necessary part of the learning curve

Mitchell and Myles (2004) claim that errors if studied could reveal a developing system of the students L2 language and this system is dynamic and open to changes and resetting of parameters This view is as well supported by Stark (2001), who suggests that teachers need to view students’ errors positively and should not regard them as the learners’ failure to grasp the rules and structures

Corder (1967) identifies a model for EA of the following steps:

 Collection of a sample of learner language

 Identification if errors

 Description of errors

 Explanation of errors

 Evaluation of errors

It is noted that many studies do not include Step 5, rather, the evaluation of errors are generally handled as a separate issue Ellis et al (1985) provides clear examples of how to identify and analyze learners’ errors The initial step requires the selection of a corpus of language followed by the identification and classification of errors, and the next is to give an explanation of different types of errors

Accordingly, Corder (1974) revises the three steps of EA This model is applied in this study to analyze syntactic errors in writings The model is briefed as follows:

 Recognition of errors

 Description of errors

 Explanation of errors

2.1.2 Errors and Mistakes

According to Ellis (1994), “an error can be defined as a deviation from the

norms of the target language.” Taylor (as cited in Ellis, 1994) points out that the error source may be psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, epistemic, or may reside in the discourse structure Of these, SLA has attended only to psycholinguistic sources, which concern the nature of the L2 knowledge system and the difficulties learners have in using it in production (Ellis, 1994) Different psycholinguistic sources are plotted in the following figure:

transfer

competence intralingual (e.g overgeneralization, (‘errors’) transitional competence)

unique (e.g induced) errors

processing problems

It is noted from the figure above that there is a distinction between “errors” and “mistakes” According to Corder (1967), an error (technically, a competence error) takes place when the deviation arises as a result of lack of knowledge while

a mistake (namely, a performance mistake) occurs when learners fail to perform their competence Mistakes, then, are performance phenomena and are regular features of native-speaker speech, reflecting processing failures that arise as a result of competing plans, memory limitations and lack of automaticity With regard to this, we can define an error as a “lack of competence” and a mistake as a

“performance phenomena” This means that errors are something that we cannot correct; it is something that we will have to learn in order to correct and understand, while mistakes can be corrected as the knowledge is already learned

It is essential here to make a distinction between mistake and error Both Corder (1967 & 1971) and James (1998) reveal that errors are “systematic”, i.e likely to occur repeatedly and not recognized by the learner Hence, only the teacher or researcher would locate them, the learner would not (Gass and Selinker, 1994) And it is in this light that the researcher chose to focus on students’ errors and not mistakes According to Ellis (1994), “it is competence errors that have been consider central to the study of L2 acquisition.” Consequently, it is necessary

to review sources of competence errors in SLA

2.1.3 Sources of Error

One of the first and most important studies conducted in the field of EA is the one done by Richards (1971) His study involved learners from different language backgrounds (Japanese, Chinese, Burmese, French, Czech, Polish, Tagalog, Maori, Maltese, and Indian and West African Languages) and showed the different types of errors relating to production and distribution of verb groups, prepositions, articles, and the use of questions Based on this, he distinguishes three sources of error:

 Interference errors: errors resulting from the use of elements from one

language while speaking/writing another

 Intralingual errors: errors reflecting general characteristics of rule

learning such as faulty generalization, incomplete application of rules and incomplete application of rules and failure to learn conditions for rule application Intralingual errors are those errors that originate within the structure of English itself, as a result of misinterpretation of English grammatical rules

 Developmental errors: errors occurring when learners attempt to build up

hypotheses about the target language on the basis of limited experience These errors reflect the learner’s competence at a particular stage and illustrate some of the general characteristics of language acquisition

However, Richards (1974) classifies errors into two categories as follows:

 Interlingual errors: these errors are caused by mother tongue interference

 Intralingual and developmental errors: this kind of errors occurs during

the learning process of the second language at a stage when the learners have not really acquired the knowledge In addition, errors are also caused

by the difficulty or the problem of language itself

Elsewhere, some experts believe that the distinction between intralingual and interlingual errors is not always clear-cut as it may sound They also claim that

it is obviously more difficult to identify different types of intralingual errors that Richards (1971) described In order to deal with this problem, Dulay and Burt (1974) classify learners' errors into three broad categories:

 Developmental errors: errors that are similar to L1 acquisition

 Interference errors: errors that reflect the structure of the L1

 Unique errors: errors that are neither developmental nor interference

Stenson (1974 as cited in Karra, 2006) proposes another category, that of induced errors, which result from incorrect instruction of the language

Brown (1980 as cited in Hasyim, 2002) further classifies sources of error into the following categories:

 Interlingual transfer: that is the negative influence of the mother tongue

of learner

 Intralingual transfer: that is the negative transfer of items within the target

language In other words, the incorrect generalization of the rules within the target language

 Context of learning: this overlaps both types of transfer For example, the

classroom with the teacher and its materials in the case of school learning or the social situation in the case of untutored second language learning In a classroom context, the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make wrong generalization about the language

 Communication strategies: it is obvious that communication strategy is

the conscious employment of verbal mechanisms for communicating an idea when linguistic forms are not available to the learner for some reasons

Brown and Connor (as cited in Ellis, 1994) share the opinion that there are two categories or errors:

 Interlingual transfer errors: errors caused by the interference of the

learners’ L1 Brown (1994) states that especially in the early stages of learning a L2, before the system of the L2 is familiar; the L1 is the only previous linguistic system upon which the learner can draw The error occurs as a result of familiarity with the L1 Therefore, there is a transfer effect whether directly or indirectly of the L1 to the new language When parallel features of the two languages correspond exactly, there is a positive transfer from L1 to L2 When they do not correspond exactly, there is a negative transfer that is interference

 Intralingual and developmental errors: errors caused by inadequate

learning, difficulties inherent in the target language itself, faulty teaching, confused thinking or lack of contrast of both languages Brown (1994) cites

research suggesting that the early stages of language learning are characterized by a predominance of interlingual transfer, but once learners have begun to acquire parts of a new system, more and more intralingual transfer is manifested

Later, James (1998) shows the different types of learners' errors relating to omission, over-inclusion, misselection (use wrong words not wrong forms), misordering, blends (blending arises when two alternative grammatical forms are combined to produce an ungrammatical blend) Based on this, he states that there are four causes of errors

 Interlingual errors (Mother-tongue influence): these kinds of errors are

influenced by the source language which interferes with target language learning

 Intralingual errors: these types of errors are caused by the target language

itself such as false analogy, misanalysis (learners form a wrong hypothesis), incomplete rule application (this is the converse of overgeneralization or one might call it under-generalization as the learners do not use all the rules), exploiting redundancy (this error occurs by carrying considerable redundancy), overlooking co-occurrence restrictions (this error is caused by overlooking the exceptional rules), hypercorrection or monitor overuse (this results from the learners’ over-cautious and strict observance of the rules), overgeneralization or system simplification (this error is caused by the misuse of words or grammatical rules)

 Communication strategy-based errors: these errors are subdivided into

the holistic strategies or approximation and analytic strategies or circumlocution

 Induced errors: these errors are the result of being misled by the way in

which the teacher gives definitions, examples, explanations and arranges practice opportunities In other words, the errors are caused mostly by the teaching and learning process as follows: materials-induced errors, teacher-

talk induced errors, exercise-based induced errors, errors induced by pedagogical priorities, look-up errors

In fact, most researchers have been contented with a general distinction between interlingual errors and intralingual errors as defined by Richards (1974) Besides, sub-categorization of intralingual errors is not unproblematic but should

be credited for providing operational procedures for establishing which errors are intralingual (Ellis, 1994) Ellis (1994) remarks, “Where one researcher identified the source of an error as transfer, another researcher identified the source of the same error as intralingual.” Despite the different theories, overall, there is a consensus with a general distinction between interlingual errors and intralingual errors as a basis of error analysis

Based on the literature of all the above-mentioned theories and researches,

it is proven that the more interlingual and intralingual factors the learner is affected

by, the more errors he or she makes in SLA As a consequence, the first two hypotheses are formulated as follows:

 Hypothesis 1: Interlingual factors have a positive effect on common syntactic

errors in EFL writing

 Hypothesis 2: Intralingual factors have a positive effect on common syntactic

errors in EFL writing

In addition to the overall above-mentioned sources of error, other researchers also look into sources of error in L2 writing in particular According to Silva (1993), although L2 writing is strategically, rhetorically, and linguistically different in many ways from L1 writing, L1 models have had a significant influence on the L2 writing process Other causes of errors in writing are that the nature of academic literacy often confuses and disorients students, “particularly those who bring with them a set of conventions that are at odds with those of the academic world they are entering” (Kutz, Groden & Zamel, 1993) This means that the writing process is influenced by various educational, social, and cultural

experiences that students have in their native language These include textual issues, such as rhetorical and cultural preferences for organizing information and structuring arguments, commonly referred to as contrastive rhetoric (Connor, 1997), knowledge of appropriate genres (Johns, 1995; Swales, 1990), familiarity with writing topics (Shen, 1998), and distinct cultural and instructional socialization (Coleman, 1996; Holliday, 1997; Valdes, 1995) In other words, L2 writers have varying commands of the target language for instructional and cultural factors, which affect the way structural errors are treated from both social and cognitive points of view According to Swales (1990), “writing should not be viewed solely as an individually-oriented, inner-directed cognitive process, but as much as an acquired response to the discourse conventions within particular communities.” Flower et al (1990) also analyzes the academic task of reading to write to establish the interaction of context and cognition in performing a particular writing task

Recently, in her recent article, Myles (2002) finds that social and cognitive factors are two main sources of error in L2 writing, as mentioned below:

 Social factors:

Exploration of social factors gives us some ideas of why learners differ in rate of L2 learning, in proficiency type (for instance, conversational ability versus writing ability), and in ultimate proficiency (Ellis, 1994) Social factors are discovered by researching learners’ attitudes, motivation, and concrete goals toward their writing skill development According to McGroarty (1996 as cited in Myles 2002), research based on direct (self-report questionnaires) and indirect measures generally shows that learners with positive attitudes, motivation, and concrete goals will have these attitudes reinforced if they experience success Likewise, learners’ negative attitudes may be strengthened by lack of success or by failure One instance is that although L2 learners may have negative attitudes toward writing for academic purposes, many of them are financially and

professionally committed to graduating from English speaking universities, and as

a result, have strong reasons for learning and improving their skills According to Crystal (1997) and Graddol (1998), English functions as a mediator between

different socio-cultural and socio-economic paradigms

Similarly, there is a direct relationship between learner motivation and learner goals Individual learner motivation involves a desire to learn an L2 because individuals need to learn the target language to integrate into the community (when they are living in a social and cultural milieu which determines beliefs about language and culture) or for a particular purpose (writing a dissertation or getting a job) On the other hand, motivation acknowledges the role

of language that external influences and incentives play in strengthening the learners’ desire to achieve If students show an overall interest in the target language (integrative motivation), perceive that there is parental and social support, and have a desire to achieve their professional goals (instrumental motivation), they can become more proficient in their ability to write in English

In short, learners may continue to exhibit errors in their writing for the following social reasons:

(1) negative attitudes toward the target language,

(2) continued lack of progress in the L2,

(3) a wide social and psychological distance between them and the target culture, and

(4) a lack of integrative and instrumental motivation for learning

(Myles, 2002)

 Cognitive factors:

According to cognitive theory, communicating orally or in writing is an active process of skill development and gradual elimination of errors as the learner internalizes the language Indeed, acquisition is a product of the complex interaction of the linguistic environment and the learner’s internal mechanisms

With practice, there is continual restructuring as learners shift these internal representations in order to achieve increasing degrees of mastery in L2 (McLaughlin, 1988) One model that applies to both speaking and writing in a second language is Anderson's (1985 as cited in Myles, 2002) model of language production, which can be divided into three stages: (1) construction, in which the writer plans what he/she is going to write by brainstorming, using a mind-map or outline; (2) transformation, in which language rules are applied to transform intended meanings into the form of the message when the writer is composing or revising; and (3) execution, which corresponds to the physical process of producing the text The first two stages have been described as “setting goals and searching memory for information, then using production systems to generate language in phrases or constituents” (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990) Writers vacillate between these processes as they actively develop the meaning they wish to express

in writing Anderson's learning theory supports teaching approaches that combine the development of language and content knowledge, practice in using this

knowledge, and strategy training to encourage independent learning (Snow, 2001)

Based on the above-mentioned theory, it is pointed out that if social and cognitive factors affect the learner positively, errors in language learning will be reduced Accordingly, the third and fourth hypotheses are set as follows:

 Hypothesis 3: Social factors have a negative effect on common syntactic errors

in EFL writing

 Hypothesis 4: Cognitive factors have a negative effect on common syntactic

errors in EFL writing

2.2 Syntactic Errors

2.2.1 Syntax and Common Syntactic Features

Syntax or syntactic structures are, in the broad sense, opposed to semantics and in the narrow sense, opposed to phonemics and morphology As Chomsky (1956) defines it, “Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which

sentences are constructed in particular languages.” The term “syntax” is as well

defined in the Longman Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics as “the study

of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation

of sentences.”

The following are the definitions of some common syntactic features:

(1) Article: It is a word which is used with a noun, and which shows whether the

noun refers to something definite or something indefinite The main use of the definite article “the” in English is to show that the noun refers to a particular example of something The main use of the indefinite article “a/an”

in English is to show that the noun refers to something general or to something which has not been identified by the speaker When nouns are used without an article in English, this is sometimes called “zero article”

(Richards et al., 1992)

(2) Comma splice: It happens when two independent clauses are incorrectly

joined by a comma without a coordinating conjunction (Oshima & Hogue,

2000)

(3) Fragment (or sentence fragment): It is a group of words that begins with a

capital letter and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point but

is grammatically incomplete (Nordquist, 1997)

(4) Preposition: It is a word used with nouns, pronouns and gerunds to link them

grammatically to other words The phrase so formed, consisting of a

preposition and its complement, is a preposition (Richards et al., 1992)

(5) Relative clause: It is a clause which modifies a noun or a noun phrase The

noun which introduces a relative clause is known as a relative pronoun

(Richards et al., 1992)

(6) Singular/plural form: It is the form of a noun that typically denotes more than one person, thing, or instance in contrast with singular Although the English plural is commonly formed with the suffix -s or -es, the plural of

some nouns (such as sheep) is identical in form to the singular, while some

other nouns (such as dust) have no plural form (Nordquist, 1997)

(7) Subject-verb agreement: It is the correspondence of a verb with

its subject in person (first, second, or third) and number (singular or plural) Subject-verb agreement refers to the fact that the subject and verb in a sentence must agree in number (Nordquist, 1997)

(8) Verb tense: It is any one of the inflected forms in the conjugation of a verb

that indicates the time, such as past, present, or future, as well as the

continuance or completion of the action or state (The American Heritage

Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

(9) Verb form: A verb form can be (1) an infinitive (the base form of a verb),

(2) a gerund, or (3) a participle An infinitive can go with or without “to” The infinitive without “to” is known as bare infinitive or simple form, and the infinitive with “to” is sometimes called the “to-infinitive” The gerund is a verb form which ends in “-ing” and functions as a noun The participle is a non-finite verb form, which functions as an adjective, or is used in passive

sentences and to form perfect and progressive aspect (Richards et al., 1992) (10) Word form: Word form is a particular morphosyntactic form of a lexical

item occurring in certain grammatical environments (Trask, 1993) A word form error indicates that you have chosen the correct basic word, but the form

of the word does not suit its position in the sentence That is, you use a verb instead of a noun, a noun instead of an adjective, an adjective instead of an

adverb, etc Word class (or part of speech) is a group of words which are similar in function (Richards et al., 1992)

2.2.2 Common Syntactic Errors in Writing

Syntactic errors mean errors in handling structures larger than the word, namely phrase, clause, and sentence (James, 1998) According to Tabatabai’s (1985) study, he proposes that the 891 errors detected in his study were dispersed among 10 major categories such as mistakes with articles, prepositions, tenses,

number, conjunctions, adjectives, subjects and predicates, verb phrases, and pronouns The data for his research was drawn from 32 compositions written by 20 Iranian students who were in various fields of science and engineering at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York He finally reports that complexity of the English language, students' incomplete knowledge or ignorance

of certain structures, the interference of conversational English into written English, the transfer of training, lapses of memory, lack of sufficient practice informed writing, unfamiliarity with the requirements of written English, and pressure of communication were among the major causes of errors As it is obvious, the causes of errors that he reported are mostly intralingual

Likewise, Ahmadvand (2008) aimed at analyzing Iranian EFL learners' errors in their written productions He collected the required data from different productions of some 40 learners at pre-intermediate and intermediate levels As he reported, omissions, additions, and regularizations were among the most frequent types of errors Moreover, based upon data, it is shown that negative transfer accounts for only 30% of all errors and most of the errors are the result of misinformation Consequently, it is shown that negative transfer from Persian to English in written productions is neither the only source of error, nor the major one Indeed, Ahmadvand's (2008) results sharply decreased the role of L1 in the acquisition of English as a target language

Furthermore, a number of studies (Jonopolous, 1992; Santos, 1988; Lorenz and Met, 1988 as cited in Cabansag, 2012) affirm that a lack of grammatical accuracy in writing may impede progress James (1988) find that errors in writing such as tenses, prepositions and weak vocabulary are the most common and frequent types of errors that are committed by learners Since grammar is seen only

as a means to an end, some learners tend to re-emphasize its importance and in the process, they make many more errors The learners usually face difficulties in

learning the grammatical aspects of the target language, such as in subject-verb agreement, the use of preposition, articles and the use of correct tense

More recently, Darus and Subramaniam (2009) examined errors in a corpus

of 72 essays written by 72 participants The participants were Malaysian students who were studying at a secondary school in Malaysia, all of whom were non-English native speakers and hardly communicated in English outside the school Darus (2009) points out that there are six most common errors committed by the participants: singular/plural form, verb tense, word choice, preposition, subject-verb agreement and word order

Similarly, Darus and Chin (2009) investigated the most common errors in essays written in English by 70 Form One Chinese students in a public school in Perak All of these students came from Chinese speaking family where Chinese was their mother tongue The result of the research shows that there are four most errors made by Chinese students in writing: mechanics, tense, preposition and subject verb agreement

Based on the results of the above-mentioned researches, there raises the fifth hypothesis in this study:

 Hypothesis 5: There are five most common syntactic errors made by

Vietnamese students in EFL writing

2.3 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

2.3.1 Theoretical Framework

Theoretical framework is mainly based on literature review According to previous analysis, the constructs are integrated in a theoretical framework The framework guides development of the research hypotheses, which examine the relationships among variables of the research Following is the theoretical

framework:

Figure 2.2: Theoretical Framework

2.3.2 Research Hypotheses

All the hypotheses are summarized in the following table:

Table 2.1: Summary of Research Hypotheses

H1 Interlingual factors have a positive effect on common syntactic errors

H5 There are five most common syntactic errors made by Vietnamese

students in EFL writing

H1 H2 H3 H4

H5

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

As discussed in Chapter 1, the aims of the current study are to identify the most common syntactic errors made by Vietnamese students in EFL writing and to investigate the relationship between sources of error and common syntactic errors

in writing In order to explore the aims of the study, the methods and instruments has been briefly discussed in Chapter 1 In this chapter, the methods and instruments are presented elaborately In addition, the chapter also presents the

research design, sample size and sampling procedures, questionnaire

development, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures

In order to investigate the five most common syntactic errors in student writing, the researcher applied the qualitative approach In doing so, he marked all the essay samples to identify incorrect sentences before proceeding to classify, describe, and quantify these errors The qualitative method provided the depth of

understanding of the errors According to Tewksbury (2009), the knowledge gained through qualitative investigations is more informative and richer and offers enhanced understandings compared to that which is obtained via quantitative research

3.2 Sample Size and Sampling Procedures

The first phase tested the relationship between the sources of error and the common syntactic errors in student writing Based on the research framework, the total number of variables in this research was five, including four independent variables: (1) interlingual factor, (2) intralingual factor, (3) social factor and (4) cognitive factor, and one dependent variable: overall common syntactic error in writing According to literature review on the sample size, Tabachnick and Fidell (1989 as cited in Green, 1991) suggest that the number of subjects for each predictor in correlation analysis should be 5-to-1 In this study, due to the fact that there were a total of 18 items in the questionnaire (4 for interlingual factor, 5 for intralingual factor, 4 for social factor, 4 for cognitive factor, and 1 for overall common syntactic error in writing), the required sample size of this study was 5*18=90 Therefore, in this study, the total number of 100 valid responses for the sample size that the researcher received was satisfactory

In addition, the writing samples were used to investigate common syntactic errors in EFL student writing According to Halliday and Hassan (1976), writing allows writers to demonstrate their ability to construct a string of well-connected sentences that are grammatically and logically correct Moreover, for in-depth qualitative studies, Griffin and Hauser (1993) find that “20-30 in-depth interviews are necessary to uncover 90-95% of all customer needs for the product categories studied.” Consequently, a collection of 70 student essays made a satisfactory sampling for the study The sampling students were assigned to write a 300-500 words’ academic essay about a topic of their own choice without scoring and time constraint

The survey was conducted at DThU, a university located in Dong Thap Province, Vietnam The target population was English major students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, who were being trained to be EFL teachers,

translators, interpreters, etc The Interactions/Mosaic, Silver edition academic skills series are utilized as skills development textbooks in the training program In

the academic writing skills strand, language proficiencies are articulated from the high beginning to upper-intermediate levels

In order to control the internal validity of the research, the researcher sent

100 questionnaires over and collected 70 English academic essays from the target group of third year EFL major students The sampling students expected to be at the upper-intermediate level of proficiency in language skills, particularly in English academic composition At this proficiency level, students have already been able to write a typical five-paragraph academic essay and met the requirement of upper-intermediate level grammar In other words, such hypotheses about poor knowledge of academic composition or fundamental grammar have not been taken into consideration

The second instrument was the questionnaires In order to check the relationship between the sources of error and the common syntactic errors in student writing, data collection was made by delivering the questionnaires to students via email and network After being collected, the data would be analyzed using Descriptive Analysis, Reliability and Correlation Analysis in SPSS

3.4 Questionnaire Development

Questionnaires are printed forms for data collection, which include questions or statements to which the subjects are expected to respond, often anonymously (Seliger et al., 1989) A questionnaire is considered as a self-report data collection instrument that each research participant fills out as part of a research study For Seliger et al (1989) questionnaires are used mostly to collect data on phenomena which are not easily observed, such as attitudes, motivation, and self-concepts

A questionnaire or so-called measuring instrument is a formalized set of questions for obtaining information from respondents (Malhotra, 1996) Any questionnaire has three specific objectives First, it should transform necessary information related to the study into a list of questions that the respondents could answer Secondly, the questionnaire should bring about good dynamics, thus encouraging the respondents to participate in the interviews and complete the questionnaire Thirdly, the questionnaire should ensure minimum response errors (Malhotra, 1996)

On the other hand, Seliger et al (1989) proposes two common problems with questionnaires The first problem is the relatively low response rate when certain subjects respond and others do not The validity of the findings may be influenced by a low return rate The second problem is that questionnaires are not appropriate for subjects who cannot read and write When answering questionnaires in second language, the subjects very often have problems because they cannot read and answer in second language However, these two problems

could be overcome in the current study Firstly, before distributing the questionnaires, the researcher convinced the subjects to respond the questionnaires, made them understand the importance of their answers to the completion of the study as well as what the study could bring about Secondly, to make the questions used in the questionnaire had been properly understood by the subjects and answered correctly, the questionnaires were translated into mother tongue

The questionnaire in this study contained two main sections: The first section was comprised of two questions regarding the respondent’s gender and year of study The second section consisted of totally 18 items which were divided into five groups corresponding to the five factors as required by the measurement

in the research model In this part, each item was measured based on a 5-point Likert scale Likert-scale items are an useful and effective mean of determining opinions and attitudes (Turner, 1993) The Likert scale asks individuals to respond

to a series of statements by indicating whether they strongly agree, agree, are neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree with each statement (Seliger et al., 1989)

“Strongly agree” is assigned a weight of five points while “strongly disagree” gets the score of one (Seliger et al., 1989)

The questionnaire consisted of five groups as follows:

 First, interlingual factor was measured by a set of 4 items It was adapted from Richards (1974) as was mentioned in Chapter 2 Interlingual factor is the source of error caused by mother tongue interference; therefore, the questions in this part were used to investigate the interference of L1 to L2

 Second, intralingual factor was measured by a set of 5 items It was also adapted from Richards (1974) Intralingual factor is the source of error which occurs during the learning process of the second language at a stage when the learners have not really acquired the knowledge and also caused

by the difficulty or the problem of language itself

 Third, social factor is the source of error caused by the learners having

negative attitudes toward the target language; having a wide social and

psychological distance between them and the target culture; and lack of

integrative and instrumental motivation for learning (Myles, 2002) There

were totally 4 items to measure this factor

 Fourth, cognitive factor is the source of error caused by the learners’ lack of

practice, not applying the model of language production and having no

effective learner strategies (Myles, 2002) There were a total of 4 items to

measure this factor

 Finally, there was one question to measure the overall common syntactic

errors which students made in their writing (Darus et al., 2009)

To sum up, all the items were listed in Table 3.1 below and the complete

questionnaire was presented in Appendix 1

Table 3.1: Survey Items Used in the Study

from Sources of error