English object an analysis of errors made by high school students = phân tích lỗi thường gặp trong việc sử dụng tân ngữ của học sinh trung học phổ thông

Many Vietnamese learners of English sometimes mistake object for other elements like subject or complement.. The second section is overview of theories related to the notion of error ana

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ng« v¨n träng

English Object - an analysis of errors

made by high school students

(Ph©n t ch lçi th-êng gÆp trong viÖc sö dông t©n ng÷

cña häc sinh trung häc phæ th«ng)

graduation thesis

Field: Linguistics

Vinh - 5/2008

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English Object - an analysis of errors

made by high school students

(Ph©n t ch lçi th-êng gÆp trong viÖc sö dông t©n ng÷ cña

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor

Vò ThÞ ViÖt H-¬ng M.A who gave me valuable advice and help in carrying out this graduation thesis

Also, I would like to thank all my teachers at the foreign language department of Vinh university for their lectures which are very useful for me to finish the study

I appreciate those who kindly gave me advice and helped me during the course of study at Vinh university

I wish to express my deep thanks to my parents and friends who have encouraged and supported me during the period of doing this thesis

Finally, I also wish to acknowledge my great appreciation to

my students, who took part in my survey actively

Vinh, summer, 2008

Ngo Van Trong

Acknowledgements i

Table of contents ii

List of table and diagram v

List of abbreviations and symbols vi

Part I: Introduction 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Method of the study 2

5 Design of the study 3

Part II: Content 4

Chapter I: Theoretical background 4

1.1 Object in English 4

1.1.1 Definition of English object 4

1.1.2 Types of object 5

1.1.2.1 Direct object 5

1.1.2.2 Indirect object 6

1.1.3 English object in Theme - Rheme structure 7

1.1.4 Object versus subject and complement in English 7

1.1.4.1 Object and subject 7

1.1.4.2 Object and complement 8

1.2 Overview of object in Vietnam 10

1.3 Features of English object 11

1.3.1 Morphological features of English object 11

1.3.1.1 A noun or noun clause as object 11

1.3.1.2 Personal pronoun as object 12

1.3.1.3 Reflexive pronoun as object 12

1.3.2.1 Non-finite clause 13

1.3.2.2 Finite clause 13

1.3.2.3 Transformational relations 14

1.4 Basic and common structures with English object 15

1.5 Errors in language learning process 16

1.5.1 Definition of error 16

1.5.2 Error versus mistakes 16

1.5.3 The concept of error analysis 18

1.5.4 The significance of learner's errors 19

1.5.5 Factors causing foreign language learners to make errors 20

1.5.5.1 Interlingual errors 20

1.5.5.2 Intralingual errors 21

Chapter II: The study 24

2.1 Research questions 24

2.2 Research setting 24

2.3 The subject 24

2.4 Data collection 25

2.5 Procedure 25

2.6 Predictable errors and mistakes made by high school students 25

2.7 Preliminary results and data collection 26

2.7.1 Results of exercise 1 26

2.7.2 Results of exercise 2 28

2.7.3 Results of exercise 3 29

2.7.4 Results of exercise 4 31

2.8 Errors and their causes 32

2.8.1 Errors and their causes in exercise 1 32

2.8.2 Errors and their causes in exercise 2 35

2.8.5 General tendency 45

Chapter III: Findings and implications 46

3.1 Research question review 46

3.1.1 Research question 1 46

3.1.2 Research question 2 46

3.1.3 Research question 3 47

3.2 Implications for teaching and learning English object 47

3.2.1 Implications for teaching 47

3.2.1.1 Suggestions for presentation 47

3.2.1.2 Suggestions for practice 49

3.2.1.3 Suggestions for production 50

3.3 Implications for learning English object 50

3.4 Suggestions for further research 51

Part III: Conclusion 52 References

Appendix

List of diagrams and tables

Diagram 2.1 Evaluation of students’ performance in doing exercise 1 27

Diagram 2.2 Evaluation of students’ performance in doing exercise 2 28

Diagram 2.3 Evaluation of students’ performance in doing exercise 3 30

Diagram 2.4 Evaluation of students’ performance in doing exercise 4 31

Table 2.1 Errors in exercise 1 27

Table 2.2 Errors in exercise 2 29

Table 2.3 Errors in exercise 3 31

Table 2.4 Errors in exercise 4 32

Table 2.5: Number of error causes in exercise 1 35

Table 2.6: Number of error causes in exercise 2 39

Table 2.7: Number of error causes in exercise 3 41

Table 2.8: Number of error causes in exercise 4 45

Table 2.9: Total of number of error causes in the survey 45

Lists of abbreviations And Symbols

Part I: Introduction

1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, tendency of globalization and integration has been taking place strongly in many countries including Vietnam In this process, English

is regarded as an effective international communicative language, playing a vital part in making people in different cultures and countries closer Therefore, more and more people attend English classes to learn it To many students, it can help them get a good job in future Some want to study English since they think that it offers a chance for advancement in their professional lives

Learning a foreign language also gives us a chance to both master a language and to understand much more our language Any sounds, words or item grammar and lexis of the foreign language may or may not have equivalents in the learner's mother tongue Therefore, advantage or disadvantage of learning a foreign language depends on the similarities and differences between the two languages

Vietnamese and English grammars have many different features, which should be taken into consideration more deeply through careful researches Major findings in such researches will be useful to apply into teaching and learning English The differences often make students meet obstacles in their acquisition of the target language Among these difficulties is the use of English object as a sentence element that plays an important role in forming structure

"Object" in English was written by many famous authors such as Randolph Quirk and Sidney Green Bacon"A university grammar of English" (1973) or Ronald Carter and Michael Mc Cathy "Cambridge grammar of English".(2006) However, to the best of my knowledge, so far error analysis

in area of using object in sentence structure has been carried out very little For that reason, we wish to make a small effort contributing to filling the gap

The second reason for the choice of this topic is that its frequencies of occurrence in English basic clause types, ranks third after verb and subject Many Vietnamese learners of English sometimes mistake object for other elements like subject or complement Therefore, they are unable to do basic object - related exercises that are very useful for practicing 4 skills in mastering English such as changing sentence from active to passive voice or vice versa, identifying object among other elements

For the above reasons, the author has decided to choose the topic:

"English object-an analysis of errors made by high school students"

2 Aims of the study

The study reported in this thesis aims to:

- Identify common errors in using English object

- Find out the major causes and sources of errors made by high school students in the area of using object

- Make some suggestions for teaching and learning English object effectively

3 Scope of the study

- Analyzing errors through the tests

- Classifying errors into typical type

- Finding out related reasons

4 Methods of the study

In order to conduct the research, the following methods are made:

- Descriptive method

- Statistic and classifying

- Analytic and synthetic method

- Quantitive

- Qualitive

5 Design of the study

The thesis consists of 3 parts:

 Part I: Introduction

This deals with the rationale, aim, scope and method of the study The design of the study is also mentioned

 Part II: Content

This part consists of three chapters

- Chapter I: Theoretical background

This chapter presents two sections The first section will clarify theoretical preliminaries on the notions of object, differences between object with subject and complement The second section is overview of theories related to the notion of error analysis as well as causes of errors in learning English

- Chapter II: The study

There are two sections in this chapter The first section depicts such elements related to the methodology of this study like research questions, setting, subjects, data collection and procedures of errors analysis The second section is intended to present preliminary results of the study, the analysis of errors

- Chapter III: Findings and Implications

This chapter suggests some effective ways in teaching and learning English object Some suggestions for further research are also given out

 Part III: Conclusion

This part is about the summary of what has been presented At the end

of the thesis, there will be some pages for references and appendix

Part II: content

Chapter I: Theoretical background

1.1 Object in English

1.1.1 Definition of English object

According to Carter and Carthy (Cambridge Grammar of English, 2006), a sentence is normally regarded as the largest unit of grammar A simple sentence consists of five constituents: subject, verb, complement, and object, adverbial They are abbreviated as S, V, C, O, A

Eg: I looked at her eyes

Object is considered as a secondary part of the sentence belonging to the second principal part-the predicate Object is also defined in its feature of giving the answer to what, which, who(m) questions

Eg: 1 He likes football (what does he like?)

Od

2 I hate selfish person (what kind of people do you hate?)

Od

3 Mrs Lan teaches Nam English (Who(m) does Mrs Lan teach English?)

Oi Od (What does Mrs Lan teach him?) Meanwhile, in Hewings (2000), he defined: "object is the person or thing affected by the action of the verb or that is involved in the result of the action"

According to him, there are two kinds of object: direct object and indirect object Object may be a noun, a pronoun, or a clause Object often occurs after the verb phrase

Eg: She has a beautiful love

I saw him watching television

Eg: I cut my fingers

S V Od

Direct object of an active clause can typically become the subject of a passive clause:

Eg: Everyone liked the teacher (the teacher is direct object)

The teacher was liked by everyone (the teacher is subject)

A noun phrase (in this case a single word) can be a joint direct object

of more than one verb Similarly, a string of coordinate object can stand after

Diana is going to give Anne a book

S V Oi Od

These sentences above can be written in another way:

Diana is going to give a book to Anne

S V Od A

The choice between using an indirect + direct object structure or an object + prepositional phrase depends on what the speaker wishes to focus on

in the message:

Eg: George handed Tim the telephone (End-focus on the telephone)

George handed the telephone to Tim (End-focus on Tim)

However, when two pronouns are involved, the prepositional construction is often preferred to an indirect object + direct object

Eg: She wrote her name and address on the card and gave it to me

I am sure that she gave them to them (Preferred to: gave them them)

Sometimes, we can omit one of the objects Usually, it is the indirect object which can be dropped:

I'm writing a letter (to you) to complain that your hotel services are

not good

1.1.3 Object in Theme-Rheme structure

In SVO structure, normally Subject is Theme, Object is Rheme and Verb is Transition The Theme is the beginning point of the sentence,

answering question "who" or "what" whereas the Rheme is the main part of

the sentence, expressing a comment or new information Look at this example:

Peter is drinking beer

Theme Transition Rheme

However, this order is not forced to follow every time as we can transpose Object to sentence-initial position This phenomenon is called

"thematisation"

Eg: That book I read over and over

Od

1.1.4 Object versus subject and complement in English

1.1.4.1 Object and subject

It can be easily seen that Subject and Object have the same morphological feature: both are expressed by noun, a noun phrase or a clause

She picked red pens

O

A happy life never comes to him

S

Differences between subject and object can be illustrated as follow:

Subject Object

- occurs before the verb phrase in

declarative clause, and immediately

after the operator in questions

Eg: David hits Tom

S O

- has number and person concord with

the verb phrase

- Transitive and intransitive correspondence:

SVO (with same verb root) SV

The wind opened the windows The windows opened

- Transitive and their corresponding adjectives:

SVO SVC

His behavior angered me I got angry because of his behavior

1.1.4.2 Object and complement

She made me angry

Object-complement

Comparing to definition of Object mentioned in previous part, we can see that object and complement can be a noun, a clause, both also occur after the verb:

Eg: He beats me She is a doctor

S V O S V Cs

However, their differences are that object can become subject in passive voice whereas complement can not

Eg: I kicked the ball  A ball was kicked by me

She is very beautiful  no change

b Direct object and subject complement

Both are similar in term of their first syntactic feature - their expression, these two can be noun phrase or nominal clause The only difference herewith

is the type of verbs used: with object, it is mono-transitive verb whereas with complement, it is intensive verb

Mono-transitive verb + object Intensive verb + complement

c Object plus complement and indirect object plus direct object

Sometimes, it would be rather hard to distinguish ditransitive verbs (including Oi + Od) and complex transitive verbs (including Od + Co or Od +A) when the two elements following them are noun phrases:

Ditransitive verbs Complex transitive verbs

He offered him a new job I consider him my father

The distinction of the two cases is that with ditransitive verbs, noun phrases indicate two different entities (Od - affected and Oi - recipient) meanwhile with complex transitive verbs Od and Co denote the same entity,

Co plays the role of attribute to object

1.2 Overview of object in Vietnamese

Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (Ng pháp Tiếng Việt, 1999) lists complement (including object) among the final part of the verb phrase According to him, the second part at the end of the verb phrase can be divided into many types However, if

we take into consideration the forms of the organization used to express significations we can have only two possibilities:

A Possibility of expressing it in one word/ phrase

a uống trà (have tea) uống một chén trà (have a cup of tea)

b mua dùng(buy for use) mua dùng ở nhà (buy for use at home)

B Possibility of expressing it in a whole clause

a thấy học sinh múa (see students dance)

b giảng cho học sinh nghe (explain for students to listen to)

Accordingly, there are three subordinate/ secondary element types in all (including object and other type of complement) Look at the following table:

Type 1

expressed only by a word

or a phrase

+ object :

affected object (ăn cơm)

locative object (đi Hà nội)

denoting time (ngủ tr-a-

sleep at noon)

denoting means (ăn bằng

đũa - eat with chopsticks)

Type 2

expressed by either a word

or a phrase or a clause

expresses what affects the

subject has to receive:

nghe nhạc (listen to music), nghe hát (listen to someone singing)

Type 3

expressed only by a clause

This type is in fact exchangeable with type 2 mentioned above

For example: Tôi để cho

hắn tẩu thoát (I let him escape)

+ complement expressed

by a verb):

b t học (force to learn)

ngồi ch (sit to wait)

expresses the content of thought or saying:

Tôi nghĩ rằng anh ấy rất tốt (I think that he is very good)

1.3 Features of English object

1.3.1 Morphological features of English object

1.3.1.1 A noun or noun clause as object

Let us judge the following table of contrast:

English Vietnamese

a noun 1 A dog beats a cat

2 I call him a fool

a Chó cắn mèo

b Tôi gọi gã là lão ngốc

a noun

clause

3 I don’ t believe what he said

4 We hope that all is fine

c ng tin những gì hắn ta nói

d Chúng ta hi vọng tất cả đều tốt đẹp

From the table, we can realize:

+ Object as a noun or noun clause often stands after transitive verb in both English and Vietnamese

+ Nominal that - clause and là - clause are alike in order

+ There is difference between object as a noun clause in English and Vietnamese When direct object is a wh-word/ whether clause, difference

arises when joining word is who (= Cs) < in contrast with ― ai‖ >, where (= A)

< in contrast with ― đâu‖ > In English, these are initiators of subordinate

clause whereas in Vietnamese they are in the required position – final place

in this clause

1.3.1.2 Personal pronoun as object

English Vietnamese

1 I gave him a book

2 She bought a toy for them

3 Who taught you that subject?

a Tôi đ-a cho anh ấy một cuốn sách

b Cô ấy mua đồ chơi cho chúng

c Ai đã dạy bạn môn học đó?

Again we can notice the following:

+ The position of pronoun object is often after transitive verb

+ When Od = you, ― it‖ (English) and ― anh‖ , ― nó‖ (Vietnamese), there

is no obvious formal contrast between subject and object

+ In English, we can make an obvious formal contrast between subject and object which is not applied to Vietnamese, thus:

English Vietnamese

(identical form) Subject Object

Tôi, tao Chúng tôi

Họ, chúng nó

H n, anh ta Nàng, cô ấy

1.3.1.3 Reflexive pronoun as object

Reflexive pronouns replace a co- referential noun phrase, normally within the same finite verb clause In Vietnamese, reflexive pronoun has the meaning ― t mi nh‖ , which has one form for all persons and numbers Meanwhile, this kind of pronoun in English is declensional: I - myself, you - yourself, they - themselves, he - himself, she - herself, we - ourselves

Example: He killed himself (Anh ta tự vẫn)

Reflexive pronoun in both English and Vietnamese is used to be emphasized In some case, we can omit the word ― mình‖ in Vietnamese However, in English,reflexive pronouns are one word

1.3.1.4 Interrogative pronoun as object

The interrogatives are identical in form and in case relations with the relative pronouns Look at a comparison between interrogative pronoun as object in English and Vietnamese:

a Who did you meet last night? Anh đã gặp ai tối qua?

b Which shirt do you like most? Bạn thích cái áo nào nhất?

c Which book did she give to whom? Cô ấy đ-a sách gì cho ai?

It is recognizable that interrogative pronoun in both languages is positioning in final or medial However, in English, wh- interrogative pronoun

as Od often stands in the initial position in the sentence, but in the Vietnamese equivalents, it is its required slot after the verb

1.3.2 Syntactic features of English object

1.3.2.1 Non-finite clause: is normally constructed without a subject

a) Ing-clause: can function as a direct object when standing after many

verbs such as: regret, admit, avoid, dislike, fancy, and remember

Eg: She regretted divorcing him

b) To-infinitive clause: like ing-clause, to-infinitive clause can undergo

as a direct object:

Eg: I like to play tennis

The use of to-infinitive in differentiated from gerund in English in contrast with the same structure of 2 verbs in Vietnamese For instance:

English Vietnamese

They wanted to go fishing Họ muốn đi câu

1.3.2.2 Finite clause: is a clause that always contains a subject as well

as a predicate (except for command or ellipsis)

a) That-clause: can serve as a direct object in the sentence:

Eg: I believe that he has changed very much (That-clause as Od)

b) Wh-relative clause: can be both direct object and indirect object

Eg: I want to see whoever is responsible for it (direct object)

He gave whoever came to the shop a hospitable smile (indirect object)

c) Wh-interrogative clause: may act as a direct object:

Eg: I know when he will come

d) Yes-No interrogative clause

Eg: Do you know whether she will come or not?

1.3.2.3 Transformational relations

a SVOO-SVOA transformation

SVOO clause can be changed into SVOA clause by using a prepositional phrase following the direct object for the indirect object preceding it

Eg: She sent her darling a letter  She sent a letter to her darling

Oi Od Od A

I bought her a house  I bought a house for her

Oi Od Od A

Apart from "to" and "for‖ , we can use "with" and "of"

Eg: I'll play you a chess  I'll play a chess with/against you

He asked Tom a favor  He asked a favor of Tom

b Active-Passive Transformation

- SVO: S + be + VpII + by + agent

Eg: Many people criticize the film  The film is criticized by many people

- SVOiOd: S + be + VpII + Od + by agent

S + be + VpII + Oi + by agent

Eg: My father gave me a watch  I was given a watch by my father

A watch was given to me by my father





- SVOC: S + be + VpII + by agent

Eg: I consider him my brother  He is considered my brother

- SVOA: S + be + VpII + A + by agent

Eg: I built this sandy castle very carefully  This sandy castle was

built very carefully

1.4 Basic and common structures with English object

a) Verb + direct object

Eg: I love cat

I think that she is right

b) Verb + indirect object + direct object

* Verbs are used with indirect + direct object construction: leave, lend,

make, offer, pay, send, save, bring

Eg: I brought them some food

- Some verbs require a prepositional phrase to follow: acknowledge,

announce, complain, confess, and explain

Eg: He announced to the committee that he will resign

c) Verb + Object + Complement

* Verb + object + object complement (adjective or a noun)

These verbs include: made, find, keep, get, and drive

Eg: I get him confused (adjective)

These verbs contain: appoint, elect, name, declare, and call Eg: They named me "Lion" (a noun)

* Verb + direct object + infinitive without to

There are many verbs preceding object plus infinitive without to such as: let, make, hear, have, help, see, and watch

Eg: I let you go

* Verb + direct object + -ing clause

Eg: I found her crying in the room

* Verb + direct object + ed

Some common verbs are: get, have

Eg: I had a few things repaired

1.5 Errors in language learning process

1.5.1 The notion of errors

Error is an inevitable phenomenon in language learning process To recognize an error one should first of all know what is meant by term "error"

Pit Corder uses the term "erroneous" to mean those utterances which are either superficially deviant or inappropriate in term of the target language grammar He regards errors as "the result of some failure or performance" (1971:152) Hendrickson in "Methodology in TESOL" (1987) defined that an error is an utterance, form or structure that a particular language teacher seems unacceptable because of its inappropriate use or its absence in real life discourse Another linguist is Carl James who gives the definition of error in

"error in language learning and use" as "being an instance of language that is unintentionally deviant and is not self-corrigible by its author In the

"Dictionary of language teaching and Applied linguistic" (1992), Richards et.al defined error as follows:

"In the speech or writing of a second or foreign language learner, error

is the use of linguistic item (e.g a word, a grammatical item, a speech act, etc.) in a way in which a fluent or native speaker of language regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning"

1.5.2 Errors and mistakes

Identifying errors goes beyond explaining what an error is However, as linguists pays attention to the distinction between an error and a mistake, it is necessary to go over definition of the two different phenomena

According to Richards et.al in "Dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistic" (1992), a learner makes a mistake when writing or

speaking because of lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness or some other aspects of performance Mistake can be self-corrected when attention is called Whereas, an error is the use of linguistic item in a way that a fluent or native speaker of the use of the language regards it as showing faulty or incomplete learning In other words, it occurs because the learner doesn't know what is correct, and thus it can't be self-corrected

Carl James displays his view to distinguish errors and mistakes in

"Errors in language learning and use" In his opinion, intentionality plays a decisive role in defining errors A mistake may be then defined as a slip of tongue or of handwriting, and an error is committed because of the writer/speaker's semantic and structure intentions If the learner is inclined and able to correct a fault in his or her output, it is assumed that the form he or she selected was an unintended fault or a mistake On the other hand, the learner can not correct, it is assumed that the form the learners use was the intended one, which is an error

Corder (1967:161) revealed that mistakes are not significant to the process of language learning because they do not reflect a shortage in our knowledge but are traceable to performance failure The learners normally immediately recognize their mistakes and correct them with more or less complete assurance Mistakes can happen to both native speakers and learners

In contrast, errors are of significance to the process of language learning The learners can not self-correct as they do not reflect knowledge, and only the learners of second language commit errors

In one word, the distinction between the two terms: error" and

"mistake" is not very clear However, the definition of errors and mistakes can

be drawn as follows:

Mistakes are the wrong forms that the learners can give correction when their wrongness is to be pointed out Errors are wrong forms that the learners can not correct although teacher points out their wrongness

Errors result from incomplete knowledge, thus, it is likely to correct errors by spending more time giving knowledge to pupils On the other hand, inattention, carelessness or several other aspects of performance are causes of mistakes We can correct their mistakes by reminding students of them

Look at these examples:

* Yesterday, I go to school

(Students knows and usually says usually say ― I went to school‖ )

* I seed him last week

(Student doesn’ t know the form of "see" in past tense)

To sum up, an error is an inappropriate use of language which the pupils are not aware of, whereas mistake originates from the incorrect use of language in performance

1.5.3 The concept of error analysis

Error analysis, a branch of applied linguistics, emerged in the sixties, is the study and analysis of errors made by second language learners Its primary focus is on the evidence that learners’ errors provide with an understanding of underlying process of second language acquisition As Corder (1974) says,

"By describing and classifying his errors in linguistic terms we build up a picture of the features of language which are causing him learning problems" Therefore, error analysis plays an important part in improving the learning and teaching and teaching quality

Error analysis is carried out in five successive stages as mentioned by Pit Corder (1974) These are:

- Identification of errors: to recognize an error, one should first of all know what "error" means and distinguish "error" and "mistake"

- Classification of errors: classifying errors can help us to diagnose learner's learning problems at any stage of their development

- Explanation of errors: in this step, we have to explain why the student makes errors and what causes of errors

- Evaluation of errors: bases on data of survey, we will know how many percents of students do well or badly

- Correction of errors: How should teacher correct students? What kinds

of feedback should they give? Does each of error need to be treated? Error analysis has an important role in finding these answers to these questions

1.5.4 The significance of error analysis

Error analysis is significant for teachers and learners of English as well

as syllabus designers and material producers

First, it helps the teachers to assess whatever they have taught and whatever the learners have learnt and make plans for the future If the teachers understand that learners can not achieve native speaker's competence directly, they would be ready to accept the varieties of language which the learner produces

Second, errors assist researchers in finding how language is learnt or acquired, what strategies the learners are using in the process of language acquisition

Third, they are also very necessary for the students himself because marking of errors could be regarded as a good way to help him recognize the nature of the language he is learning

Finally, syllabus designers and material producers can gain many benefits from the studies of error analysis Basing these studies, they can arrange target language items in their materials so that a lack of fit the learner's need and the items could be avoided

1.5.5 Factors causing foreign language learners to make errors

Error provides valuable insight into the language learning process By classifying and seeking the errors, one could build up a picture of the features

of language which cause learning problems

Learners’ commitment to errors can be caused by many factors According to Richard (1974:174), errors made by learners can be derived

from the interference of their mother tongue, which are called "interlingual errors"; others are caused by second language learners regardless of their mother tongue These are called intralingual errors

1.5.5.1 Interlingual errors

Dictionary of Language Teaching and Linguistic (1992) defines interlingual errors as being the result of language transfer, which is caused by the learner's first language

According to the behaviouristic psychology, language learning is a habit formation People learn a foreign language by responding to external stimuli and receiving proper reinforcement A proper habit is being formed by reinforcement, hence learning takes place Therefore, errors were considered

to be a wrong response to the stimulus, which should be corrected immediately after they were made Unless corrected properly, the error became a habit and a wrong behavioral pattern would stick in your mind

To acquire the new habit of the target language, the old habits have to

be overcome The old habits ― hinder or facilitate the formation of the new habit depending on the differences or similarities, respectively, between the old and the new‖ (Dulay H.C and Burt M.K, p97)

Learning a new response to the same stimulus would require

―extinction" of the old association Otherwise, the old habit would dominate The domination of an old habit to perform a new task is called "negative transfer" or "interference"

As Lado (1957:2) states that "individual tends to transfer the forms, meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign and culture‖ , we can see some examples as illustration for his idea:

- The form: + Vietnamese: tôi đi học

+ English: * I go school

- Meaning: + Vietnamese: chúng tôi đá bóng d-ới m-a

+ English: * We play football under the rain

- The culture: + Vietnamese: Nam vµ t«i ®ang ë nhµ

+ English: * Nam and I are staying at home

To sum up, interlingual errors are very common phenomena in learning foreign language Therefore, presenting this kind of error is very essential to find out suitable teaching and learning strategies

1.5.5.2 Intralingual errors

Interference from the students’ own language is not the only reason for committing errors Apart from it, there is intralingual error This error results from faulty or partial learning of the target language rather than language transfer They may be caused by the influence of one target language item upon another

Richard (1971b) defines intralingual errors as "those which reflect the general characteristics of rule learning and developmental errors‖ The learners have tendency to build up hypothesis about the target language from his limited experience of it in the classroom or textbook This type of error is caused by lack of sufficient knowledge as a whole Richard also mentioned the four causes of intralingual errors These are: overgeneralization, ignorance

of rule restriction, incomplete application of rules, false concept hypothesized

a) Over-generalization

According to Jacobovits (1969, p55), over-generalization is regarded as the use of previous strategies in new situations Some of these strategies for some reasons will be leading and inapplicable Over-generalization includes instances where the students create a wrong structure on the basis of his experience of other structure in the target language In other words, this error occurs when the students use the same structure for new items based on what they have learned:

For example: In formation of plural for a noun, the learner predicts

that every noun can be made plural by adding "s" because he thinks that the

plural form of ― hat" is "hats‖ so he adds "s" after "mouse" (*mouses), actually, it is "mice"

Overall, over-generalization starts from over learning of a structure caused by certain type of teaching technique

b) Ignorance of rule restrictions

This phenomenon happens when the students fail to observe the restrictions belongs to over-generalization Learner can commit errors due to

in many ways in the following examples:

* He made me to smile

He thinks that the structure with "make" can be as applicable as that with

"ask” It can be said that he ignores restrictions on the distribution of “ make":

Eg: * The meat smells freshly

The sentence above violates the limitation on concord between linking verbs and adjectives because the student insists that every verb always goes with adverb

c) Incomplete application of rules

Incomplete application of rules is caused by the fact that the learners perhaps primarily pay attention to effective communication without the need for mastering the rules The second reason for that error is the use of question

by the teacher as a technique to elicit utterances of learners

For example: Teacher: What was she saying?

Student: * She saying she would go to Hanoi

d) False concept hypothesized

Besides types of intralingual errors mentioned above, there is also another type which device from faulty comprehension of distinction in the target language Richards called this phenomenon "false concepts hypothesized" or "false conceptualization"

For example: * He is comes here

In this case, the learner misunderstands that "is" is the maker of present tense, as "was" is maker of the past tense

In conclusion, errors in second language learning committed by the learners originated from many sources Some errors are interlingual errors that result from the interference of the learner's own language Other errors are intralingual errors which include over-generalization, ignorance of rule restriction, incomplete application of rules and false concepts hypothesized

Chapter II: The study

This chapter will present the research design of this study Specifically, at the beginning of this chapter, there will be a description of the research site and participants Next techniques in data collection will be detailed Then, procedure of data analysis will be provided Finally, in this chapter, the results of the study will be presented under diagram For each diagram, there will be an interpretation of the results and explanation of the errors that students made

2.1 Research questions

The study in this thesis is carried out in order to answer the following research questions:

a What errors do high school students commit in using object in English?

b What might be the causes and sources of the errors in using English object?

c What suggestions can be made in the learning and teaching process

in order to help students obtain the use of English object?

2.2 Research setting

The study is carried out at Yen Khanh A High School, Ninh Binh province Students here are supposed to have three forty-five minute periods of English each week, and their procedure lasts 20 weeks a term Thus, they take

a total of 60 periods of English with three year program a term

2.3 The subject

The subject for this study includes 82 students at a high school They learn English as a compulsory subject at school Most of them have learnt English for six years and their knowledge of English is a full of grammatical aspect All of them have enough condition to take part in the test

2.4 Data collection

In order to collect data for the study, a test was designed It consists of

4 sections:

Section 1: required students to realize object in sentences

Section 2: asked students to transform sentences from active to passive Section 3: asked students to correct the mistakes related to object structures

Section 4: asked students to rewrite the sentence using object structures

2.5 Procedure

The procedure for error analysis is distinguished through 5 stages However, for the characteristics of this particular study, its procedure can be described in detailed as follows:

Firstly, all the 82 students were asked to do the test The time allowance for doing the test was 60 minutes Participants were not allowed to use any reference books or dictionaries, and they did the test under researcher’ s supervision The data collected were analyzed with descriptive method Descriptive statistics were used to obtain information on how the subject performed the tasks, and how often object errors occurred The data analysis was implemented on the basis of the theoretical discussion of the learner’ s errors presented in chapter I

2.6 Predictable errors and mistakes made by high school students

Basing on the theory of object and error analyses made in the previous chapter, I suppose that errors and mistakes in using object committed by Vietnamese high school students can be classified into 2 types: morphological and syntactic errors

- Morphological errors: these errors can be subdivided into the following types:

Type 1: non - recognition of noun or noun phrase used as object