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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER THE INTERFERENCE OF FIRST LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH WRITING COMPOSITIONS: A STUDY OF ENGLISH MAJORS AT A LANGUAGE UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Trần Thị Thanh Phúc, PhD. Student: Đinh Bảo Ngọc Course: QH2014.F1.E1 HÀ NỘI – 2018 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA NGÔN NGỮ THỨ NHẤT TIẾNG VIỆT ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC VIẾT TIẾNG ANH: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐÀO TẠO NGOẠI NGỮ Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Trần Thị Thanh Phúc, PhD. Sinh viên: Đinh Bảo Ngọc Khóa: QH2014.F1.E1 HÀ NỘI – 2018 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Dinh Bao Ngoc, class QH2014.F1.E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language Teacher Education) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor‟s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. Signature Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The six-month process of conducting this graduation thesis has been such a valuable experience to me as a student researcher. Without the support of my supervisor, my teachers and beloved people, the completion of this paper could not have been possible. Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude towards Dr. Tran Thi Thanh Phuc, my supervisor, whose support and guidance has enriched my reservoir of knowledge, strengthened my research skills and encouraged me to finish this research. Secondly, I am thankful of all the participants of this study. Their substantial assistance in the data collection process has facilitated the validity of the data and the study in general. Lastly, I owe great appreciation for my beloved family and friends for their constant support, especially my classmates at QH2013.E1. These people have provided me with important academic consultant, research resources and emotional encouragement, which accompany me till the end of this journey. Thanks to their invaluable help, I have matured as a researcher and have had the determination to complete this research. i ABSTRACT The influence of mother tongue on second language learning has been a significant issue of research into second language acquisition, for mother tongue is an important part of learners‟ linguistic background. The present research aims at (1) identifying the errors caused by L1 interference in written compositions, and (2) investigating learners‟ perception of the reasons for such problems. The study employs error analysis to categorize errors in 106 written essays and organize interviews with students to explore their perceptions. The collected data from written essays and interviews are analyzed by quantitative and qualitative analysis. The results suggest that verb errors including verb voice and verb number are among the most prominent errors, while calque and collocation errors cause significant problems in lexis aspect. In terms of reasons behind L1 interference errors, two main causes are identified: the difference between Vietnamese and English, and learners‟ L1 habit. The study indicates important pedagogical implications for English learning and teaching, which are expected to benefit stakeholders in ESL / EFL contexts. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements Abstract Table of Contents List of abbreviations List of figures & tables i ii iii v vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Background of the study 1.2. Statement of research problem and questions 1.3. Scope of the study 1.4. Significance of the study 1.5. Organization of the study 1 2 3 3 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5 2.1. L1 transfer and L1 influence 2.2. Different approaches to second language acquisition 2.2.1. Contrastive Analysis 2.2.2. Error Analysis 2.2.3. Error analysis process 2.2.4. Error classification 5 6 6 8 9 11 2.3. Overview of previous studies 2.3.1. Studies of L1 interference 2.3.2. Studies of Vietnamese influence on ESL learners 16 16 19 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 22 3.1. Research design 3.2. Participants 3.3. Data collection 3.3.1. Data collection instrument 3.3.2. Data collection procedure 22 22 23 23 24 3.4. Data analysis 3.4.1. Error Analysis 3.4.2. Interview data 25 25 27 iii CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29 4.1. Overview of found errors 4.2. Frequencies of error types 4.2.1. Grammar errors 4.2.2. Lexis errors 4.3. Discussion of L1 interference errors 4.4. Discussion of reasons for L1 interference errors 29 32 32 39 46 48 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 52 5.1. Summanry of major findings of the research 52 5.2. Pedagogical implications 53 5.3. Limitations of the research 54 5.4. Suggestions for further study 54 REFERENCES 56 APPENDICES 61 Appendix 1 61 Appendix 2 63 Appendix 3 64 Appendix 4 66 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS %: percent CA: Contrastive Analysis EA: Error Analysis L1: First Language L2: Second Language EFL: English a Foreign language ESL: English as a Second Language TL: Target Language v LIST OF TABLES Table Name of table Page Table 1 Grammatical errors (Dagneaux, et al., 1996, cited in Lopez, 2009) 11 Table 2 Levels of errors (James, 1998) 12 Table 3 Types of lexical errors (James, 1998) 13 Table 4 Overview of related studies 16 Table 5 Error categorization chart 26 Table 6 Frequency of L1 errors 28 Table 7 Rank-order frequency of found grammar errors 31 Table 8 Rank-order frequency of found lexical errors 38 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Name of Figure Figure 1 Error frequencies per category vi Page 30 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the rationale of the study, states the research problems and specifies the scope and significance of the study. 1.1. Background of the study In the new era of globalization, the study of English as a second language has evidently claimed its international dominance. For learners from different linguistic backgrounds, the process of second language acquisition encompasses the trace of their mother tongue. In a broad sense, the mother tongue – the old knowledge – can influence the acquisition of second language – the new knowledge. This phenomenon is defined as “L1 transfer”, which can exert both positive and negative effects on second language acquisition (Ellis, 1997, p.51). In other words, when a person learns a foreign language, existing knowledge of the mother tongue can create challenges for him or her in the learning process. Such challenges are reflected in learners‟ errors, or interference errors, which are specified as those that “can be traced back in their mother tongue” (Lott, 1983, p. 256). Since errors found in language learning can take roots from learners‟ mother tongue, the study of L1 transfer is essential in an effort to improve the quality of L2 acquisition (Ellis, 1997). In the context of language learning in Vietnam, the challenges posed by L1 transfer can be considerable obstacles for Vietnamese ESL learners, considering the great disparity between Vietnamese and English. Tran (2007) reports that English is an inflectional language with German-Indo European origin, while Vietnamese is a typical isolating language from the Austro-Asiatic language family. The fact that Vietnamese is an isolating language, which means that words do not change in form, certainly causes trouble to learners during their second language acquisition process. (Mai, Vu & Hoang, 2003). Therefore, Vietnamese ESL learners consequently encounter numerous challenges: the habits of using L1 1 can affect their acquisition of L2 in different language components. This reliance may result in problematic language utterances or expressions, reducing the quality of the language products. As errors in the language production (including spoken and written forms) are inevitable, language intelligibility can be hampered with such shortcomings (K. Nguyen, 2015). As a student majoring in English at one of the most prestigious Vietnamese universities, the researcher used to experience and have witnessed numerous cases in which Vietnamese has a negative influence on students‟ English, particularly in written form. From the researcher‟s experience, even English majored students find this influence quite challenging. Therefore, the researcher has decided to conduct an investigation into this issue. By examining sophomore students‟ writing pieces with proper error analysis process, meaningful implications could be drawn to support the process of learning and teaching English. Another motive to conduct this study is to contribute to the validity of existing literature and enrich the scientific data in language transfer between English and Vietnamese. Recently, various studies have been conducted on the influence of other first languages such as Chinese (Timina, 2013; Wang, 2015), Spanish (González, 2016) or Arabic (Hussein & Mohammad, 2011). However, since each language has its individual distinction, these empirical findings can barely provide generalizations about Vietnamese influence. Despite a wide range of studies into L1 transfer, the number of studies into Vietnamese‟s influence on ESL learners is quite limited. Two worth mentioning studies are that of K. Nguyen (2015) which examines Vietnamese‟s influence on English acquisition and use of people in Hanoi and that of Ha (2011) which studies L1 influenced written errors made by high school students. Furthermore, undergraduate English majors are uncommonly chosen as subjects of existing studies, most of which focus on nonmajored or high school students. This research, which focuses on English majored 2 students‟ errors in English writing with relation to their L1 impact, hopes to bridge the gap in the existing literature of the field. 1.2. Statement of research problem and questions The study‟s primary purpose is to investigate the influence of mother tongue on written compositions by examining L1 interference errors found in the essays of English-majored students. The study also attempts to explore the perception of the students on the reasons behind such errors. In general, the study aims to answer the following questions: i. What are the L1 interference errors made by students in their English writing compositions? ii. What are possible reasons for L1 interference errors as perceived by students? 1.3. Scope of the research The research is conducted on a small population of English majored students of one university in Hanoi. It investigates the negative influence of Vietnamese as a mother tongue on English acquisition, specifically the errors in lexis and grammar made as a result of L1 influence. Besides, within the scope of this BA thesis, the research focuses on studying the written products of the students and excludes other skill areas. 1.4. Significance of the research In achieving all the research goals, the researcher hopes to provide beneficial resources for ESL scholars, teachers and students, as well as those who share the interest in the topic. Since the research reports the errors committed as a result of mother tongue influence, it would provide empirical evidence and updated data to resolve the inadequacy of study on L1 interference in written English. It would hopefully bridge the gap in existing literature about Vietnamese, 3 in particular, as a hindrance on SLA. Furthermore, the research would inform readers, possibly ESL teachers and students, of the reasons behind errors caused by L1 negative influence on writing skill. It would enable teachers and students to adjust teaching and learning strategies to avoid L1 negative influence on written compositions. 1.5. Organization The study report consists of 05 chapters as follows. - Chapter 1 – Introduction: The introduction presents an overview of the research including the background of the study, the research problem, its significance and scope. - Chapter 2 - Literature Review: The literature review includes a summary of major concepts and frameworks for this research, namely L1 transfer, error and error analysis, and a synthesis of related studies in L1 influence is also included. - Chapter 3 - Methodology: This section presents the research design of the study including the selection of participants, data collection, and data analysis procedure. - Chapter 4 - Findings and Discussion: This section reports the result and provides analysis and interpretation of the collected data. - Chapter 5 - Conclusion: This section sums up the findings and presents pedagogical implications from the research, while stating the limitations of the research and suggesting improvements for future studies. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents a review of the background literature of the study, including the conceptual framework and existing studies related to the research. The section starts with an overview of the definition of language transfer and mother tongue influence, then moves on to review the error analysis approach in second language study. The chapter also includes a review of related studies by international and Vietnamese scholars, in which the gap in existing literature is portrayed. 2.1. Language transfer and L1 influence First language, or mother tongue, referred to the language that humans acquired when they were at young age and that became a part of their development (Saville-Troike, 2006). Saville-Troike (2006) also defined second language (L2) as the additional language that people aimed to learn later in life, which is also called target language (TL). Second language was of great importance in learners‟ education, employment and other fundamental fields. Since people acquired different languages throughout their lives, there were inevitable interactions among them. One of these interactions was language transfer which was defined by Odlin (1989) to be the influence caused by similarities and differences between the target language and prior acquired knowledge (p. 27). This prior knowledge was not necessarily native language knowledge but any other ones. According to Ellis (1994), there existed several perspectives on language transfer including behaviorist, mentalist and cognitive view (cited in Lu, 2010). A simpler model of language transfer classification was made in consideration of language transfer sources, results and levels by Huafei (2010, cited in Wang, 2015). Language transfer could be divided into interlingual and intralingual 5 transfer, positive, negative and neutral transfer, or into different linguistic levels including phonetic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic transfer. In a multilingual context, language transfer could be observed in the relationship among several languages. In second language acquisition area, Ellis (1997) specifically discussed the influence of L1 on L2 and called it “L1 transfer” which involved both positive and negative effects of L1 on L2 learning (p. 51). He stated that L1 transfer could be one of the sources of errors in second language acquisition. Saville-Troike (2006) explained this negative influence to be the situation in which L1 knowledge was inappropriately applied to produce L2 utterances and therefore caused what was considered “error” (p. 19). Transfer was also regarded as communication strategy or learning strategy. Ellis (1997) explained that when learners with insufficient language knowledge encountered communication, they developed communication strategies. For example, they might borrow a L1 word to supply for a TL word they did not know. Mahmoud (2000) reported transfer as a communication strategy or learning strategy, by which hypotheses about the target language could be formed and tested. James (1998, p. 188) mentioned calque (literal translation from L1 into L2) and language switch (from L2 to L1) as two L1 based communication strategies which resulted in language errors. Meanwhile, Mitchell and Myles (2004) explained L1 negative transfer by discussing L1 as a set of habit. They claim that when learners acquire L1, they developed a “well-established” set of habits in language (p. 31). When learning L2, learners had to adopt a new set of habits, therefore, they were presented with either benefits or difficulties due to either the similarities or differences between the two languages. From this belief, contrastive analysis approach was introduced. 2.2. Different approaches to second language acquisition 2.2.1. Contrastive analysis 6 In the 1950s, Contrastive Analysis became a popular theoretical view on the issue. Lado (1957), a pioneer researcher on contrastive analysis theory, stated that contrastive analysis attempted to anticipate and made meaning of L2 learners‟ difficulties based on the comparison between their L1 and L2. The approach was based on Structuralism theory: CA compared L1 and L2 at each linguistic level to point out the types of interference of L1 in L2 (Lado, 1957, cited in Saville-Troike, 2006). Besides, CA was created with an influence of Behaviourism in which language learning was equated with the establishment of habits. In other words, the greater difference between L1 and L2 was, the more challenges L2 the learner might encounter (Saville-Troike, 2006; Mitchell & Myles, 2004). Originating from distinctive language families, Vietnamese and English features differed substantially. Tran (2007) presented a documentation analysis where he compared description of English grammatical features of major linguists like N. Chomsky, M. A. K. Halliday with that of Vietnamese linguists, namely Diep Quang Ban, Cao Xuan Hao, or Hoang Trong Phien and so forth. He analyzed the major similarities and differences in verbs, nouns and sentences in syntactic, semantic, pragmatic aspects. It appeared that the two languages differed in various aspects of verbs: from the structural aspect such as verb tense, finite verb form, the use of “to be”, to the pragmatic and semantic aspects. For nouns, features such as countable and uncountable nouns, noun complements were put into consideration (Tran, 2007). The study provided a comprehensive report of the disparity between two languages based on their commonly documented language features. Other cross-linguistic studies also indicated meaningful comparisons of Vietnamese and English features. For instance, Tang (2007) published a research on crosslinguistic features of the two languages on phonology and lexical semantics. Another research by T. Nguyen (2015) presented the difference between spoken and written English in comparison with Vietnamese, offering some valuable insights into Vietnamese adverbials, adjectivals and subordination. 7 However, there existed some problems with a contrastive analysis approach. More recent studies indicated that contrastive analysis did not accurately predict learner‟s issues. Odlin (1989) stated that the sole comparison of two languages could not anticipate certain errors made by students in L2 products. To be specific, he brought up the circumstance in which Spanish EFL learners produced the utterance “that very simple” without the verb “to be”, though Spanish and English shared similar grammatical structure (p. 18). Another problem with contrastive analysis approach was the scale of the task of comparing and contrasting two languages. Norrish (1983) claimed that conducting a contrastive analysis of two languages was not an easy task; it was challenging to devise a consistent framework for contrast: a mere analysis of one sentence in L1 and its equivalence in L2 could result in diverse interpretations. 2.2.2. Error analysis In 1967, Corder (1967) introduced Error Analysis (EA), a theory that focused on examining the errors made by learners in their target language. EA was based on the idea that learning a language was not the memorization of rules but the ability to learn and use language resource to create new utterances (SavilleTroike, 2006). Grami (2012) stated that EA offered more explanations of learners‟ errors than CA did, for the latter only predicted the errors caused by mother tongue interference and excluded other factors. While CA analyzed the language to predict learner‟s problem, EA regarded the learner – or more specifically, the learner‟s errors – as the subject of analysis. Error analysis, thus, provided more insights into other sources of learners‟ errors compared to CA. One important concept of error analysis was how an error was defined. Ellis (1994) defined error as the language element that deviated from the L2 target language. It is important though, to distinguish different terms relating to errors. Norrish (1983) presented the difference among an error, a mistake and a lapse. An error referred to something learners constantly did incorrectly because of lack in 8 knowledge. A mistake was a result of inconsistent use of a language item; learners might use it correctly or incorrectly at times. A lapse resulted from other factors unrelated to the learning process such as lack of concentration or fatigue. Ellis (1997) also emphasized the need to clarify errors and mistakes, suggesting that the consistency in learners‟ production of wrong language might assist the identification of errors and mistakes. The identification of errors claims its role in the process of teaching and learning L2. Since errors are produced by learners in their learning process, they reveal learners‟ ability and their progress. This point was supported by Gass and Selinker (2001), who stated that errors can act as “red flags” which could reflect learner‟s progress in their L2 learning (p. 78). Furthermore, Saville-Troike (2006) regarded errors as “the window to language learner‟s mind” (p. 39), emphasizing the important information that errors could reveal about language learners. Zaphar (2016) stated that only by identifying errors could learners resolve errors, making EA an essential task in L2 learning. All in all, investigating errors was of great vitality in improving the quality of L2 acquisition. To achieve the purpose of this study, it has been pinpointed that Error Analysis is an appropriate approach to the research methodology. 2.2.3. Error analysis process Ellis (1997) suggests that there are a number of steps to apply in the procedure of error analysis. - Collecting samples of learner language - Identifying the errors - Describing the errors - Explaining the errors - Evaluating/correcting the errors 9 Collecting samples of learner language: The first step of the process is to select the sample for analysis. The type of EA can be classified according to the size of the sample which can be massive, specific or incidental. Massive sample refers to several language samples from various students, while specific sample is a collection of one sample from a limited number of students. Incidental sample consists of one language sample from one student. Samples can be collected either at one single time or over a period of time. Since learners‟ errors can be affected by various factors, it is essential to consider language factor (medium, genre, content) and learner factor (level, mother tongue, language learning experience) in the process of collecting samples. Identifying the errors: Next, errors must be identified. With the collected samples, the initial task is to determine the language elements that deviate from the L2 or the target language. Describing the errors: At this step, the errors can be categorized by linguistic levels (morphology, syntax, and vocabulary), grammatical categories, or the way they deviate from the reconstructed utterances in the target language (Ellis, 1994; Ellis, 1997; Saville-Troike, 2006). Explaining the errors: When the errors are categorized, the important task is to explain their sources of errors. This process gives important insights into the origin of errors and create meaningful pedagogical implications. According to Gass and Selinker (2001), there are two types of errors in error analysis: interlingual and intralingual errors. While the former refers to L1-related errors, the latter refers to those related to the target language. To be specific, interlingual errors, or transfer errors are regarded as the errors caused by mother tongue interference. For example, the students can write a sentence in English with a Vietnamese structure. Evaluating the errors: After finding the origins of errors, the last step is to analyze the effects that errors exert on people addressed. The process involves identifying who to be addressed, what errors to be evaluated and the people to 10