Tài liệu The first language syntactic interference in english writings of first year english majors at bac lieu university

PEOPLE‟S COMMITTEE OF BINH DUONG PROVINCE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY --------------------- HUYNH THI UT THE FIRST LANGUAGE SYNTACTIC INTERFERENCE IN ENGLISH WRITINGS OF FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT BAC LIEU UNIVERSITY MASTER THESIS MAJOR: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CODE: 8220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr. HOANG QUOC BINH DUONG - 2018 i DECLARATION The thesis entitled “The first language syntactic interference in English writings of first-year English majors at Bac Lieu University” is conducted under the supervision of Assoc. Prof & Dr. HOANG QUOC. I declare that the information reported in this paper is the result of my own work, except where due reference is made. The thesis has not been accepted for any degree and is not concurrently submitted to any candidature for any other degree or diploma. Huynh Thi Ut December, 2018 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my deepest and heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof & Dr. HOANG QUOC, who gave me invaluable inspiration, support, devotion, and careful guidance as well as patience through the whole course of my research. He is very enthusiastic, responsible and principled supervisor. Before I had begun to do the research, he offered me a schedule to follow. He devoted his precious time to read and give me perceptive feedback as well as comments and suggestions on the previous drafts of each chapter. Without him, the current study could not have seen the light. My sincere thanks will be surely dedicated to all my lecturers of the Master program for their profound knowledge, whole-hearted instructions and great enthusiasms. I also acknowledge Mr. Lien Trong Nghia, an English teacher of Foreign Language Division, BLU, who instructed me initial steps to use SPSS program for data analysis. My thanks are due to my beloved students in the English Linguistic and Literature classes, at BLU, who involved in my thesis. Without their assistance, my study could not have been conducted. I am also grateful to my colleagues at the English Division, BLU, who gave me good conditions during the time I followed the M.A. course. All of their help meaningfully contributed to the completion of my study in the master program. Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my husband, who was always by my side when I was in difficulties and gave me mental support as well as great encouragement and motivation during my M.A. program. ii ABSTRACT Extensive studies have been conducted regarding mother tongue (L1) interference and developing English writing skill. However, this study aims to investigate the influence of the Vietnamese language on English (L2) writing at Bac Lieu University (BLU), specially refer to syntactic aspects. The literature review of the study is planned in two chapters where a theoretical background of the research area is discussed. Besides, the study is conducted by adopting James‟ Error Taxonomy and following the procedures of error analysis (EA): collecting samples of learner language, identifying, describing, and explaining. In addition, to achieve the aims, the research method adopted for this piece of work a questionnaire that is administered to forty students as well as an interview for four students of Bac Lieu University. Moreover, the instrument for data collection was a written test in which students were asked to write a passage. The samples were gathered and analyzed based on their syntactic features. The results from this study indicate that the most common Vietnamese interference errors were tense, misuse of preposition, article, omission “be” and word order. It could be concluded those errors emerged mostly due to the influence of their native language. On the basis of the results obtained, some implications and recommendations have been proposed to help students overcome their difficulties in order to improve their writing skill, and others to help teachers in their way of teaching the writing skill. Key Words: Interference; Syntactic; Contrastive Analysis. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .............................................................................................................i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...........................................................................................ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. iv LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS ......................................................................................... ix Chapter 1 ......................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background to the study .......................................................................................... 1 1.2 The problem statement ............................................................................................ 3 1.3 The aims of the study ............................................................................................... 4 1.4 Research questions ................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Significance of the study .......................................................................................... 4 1.6 Scope of the study ..................................................................................................... 5 1.7 Organization of the study ........................................................................................ 5 1.8 Definitions of key terms ........................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 ......................................................................................................................... 8 LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................. 8 2.1 The Theory of Interlanguage .................................................................................. 8 2.2 Definition of Interference/ Transfer ....................................................................... 9 2.3 Types of Transfer ................................................................................................... 10 2.3.1 Positive transfer ................................................................................................. 10 2.3.2 Negative transfer ............................................................................................... 10 2.4 Contrastive Analysis (CA) ..................................................................................... 11 2.5 Error Analysis (EA) ............................................................................................... 12 2.6 Definition of Errors ................................................................................................ 13 2.7 Significance of Errors ............................................................................................ 14 2.8 Errors versus Mistakes .......................................................................................... 14 2.9 Sources of Errors.................................................................................................... 15 iv 2.9.1 Interlingual errors .............................................................................................. 16 2.9.2 Intralingual Errors ............................................................................................. 18 2.10 Classifications of Errors ...................................................................................... 19 2.11 Model of Error Analysis ...................................................................................... 21 2.11.1 Collection of a sample of learner language ..................................................... 21 2.11.2 Identification of Errors .................................................................................... 21 2.11.3 Description of Errors ....................................................................................... 22 2.11.4 Explanation of Errors ...................................................................................... 22 2.12 Contrastive analysis of Vietnamese and English syntactic .............................. 22 2.12.1 Contrastive analysis of Vietnamese and English Tense ................................. 22 2.12.2 Contrastive Analysis of Vietnamese and English Preposition ........................ 23 2.12.3 Contrastive Analysis of Vietnamese and English Articles ............................. 25 2.12.4 Contrastive Analysis of Vietnamese and English Word-Order ...................... 26 2.12.5 Contrastive Analysis of Vietnamese and English Omission “Be”.................. 27 2.13 Previous studies .................................................................................................... 27 2.14 Summary ............................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 3 ....................................................................................................................... 31 RESEARCH METHODS ............................................................................................ 31 3.1 Research design ...................................................................................................... 31 3.2 Research context: Bac Lieu University ................................................................ 31 3.3 Participants ............................................................................................................. 32 3.4 Writing Curriculum ............................................................................................... 33 3.5 Research instruments............................................................................................. 34 3.6 Data collection Procedure...................................................................................... 37 3.7 Data analysis ........................................................................................................... 40 3.8 Validity and reliability ........................................................................................... 41 3.9 Summary ................................................................................................................. 42 Chapter 4 ....................................................................................................................... 43 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .................................................................... 43 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 43 4.2 Analysis of Students’ Questionnaire .................................................................... 43 4.2.1 Students‟ Attitude about Their Writing in English ........................................... 43 v 4.2.2 Students‟ Errors in Grammar ............................................................................ 45 4.2.3 Students‟ Writing Learning Strategies .............................................................. 46 4.2.4 Students‟ Perception on the Influence of Mother Tongue on English Writing 48 4.3 Questionnaire Result Discussion ........................................................................... 50 4.4 Analysis of Students’ Interview ............................................................................ 52 4.5 Students’ Compositions: Analysis and Discussion .............................................. 56 4.5.1 Students‟ Syntactic Errors ................................................................................. 56 4.5.2 The Cause of Syntactic Errors in Students‟ Writing ......................................... 65 4.6 Summary of the Findings ...................................................................................... 68 Chapter 5 ....................................................................................................................... 71 CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS ANDRECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................... 71 5.1 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 71 5.2 Implications ............................................................................................................ 72 5.3 Limitation of the research ..................................................................................... 72 5.4 Recommendations .................................................................................................. 73 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 75 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................. 80 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Background Information of the Participants .................................. 33 Table 4.1: Students’ Attitude about Their Writing in English ........................ 43 Table 4.2: Students’ Errors in Grammar .......................................................... 45 Table 4.3: Types of Errors in Grammar ............................................................ 46 Table 4.4: Students’ Writing Learning Strategies ............................................ 47 Table 4.5: Students’ Perception on the Influence of Mother Tongue on English Writing .................................................................................................... 49 Table 4.6: Total number of first year students’ syntactic errors .................... 56 Table 4.7: Preposition Errors ............................................................................. 58 Table 4.8: Article Errors ..................................................................................... 61 Table 4.9: Interlingual vs. Intralingual transfer errors ................................... 65 Table 4.10: Total number of interlingual errors ............................................... 67 Table 4.11: Total number of intralingual errors ............................................... 68 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1:Total number of first year students’ syntactic errors ................ 57 Figure 4.2: Interlingual vs. Intralingual transfer errors .............................. 66 viii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS BLU: Bac Lieu University CA: Contrastive Analysis EA: Error Analysis EFL: English as a Foreign Language L1: First Language L2: Second Language NL: Native Language TG: Target Language SLA: Second Language Acquisition ix Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 describes in detail (1)Background to the study, (2) the rationale for the study, (3) the aims and the objectives of the research, (4) the significance of the research, (5) the scope of the research, (6) the research questions, and (7) the organization of the thesis. 1.1 Background to the study Writing is often considered an indispensable skill that enables students to develop an appropriate level to communicate with people from different backgrounds and for different purposes. It is widely accepted that writing in English is becoming a useful way of international communication. It is used by millions of native and non-native speakers to communicate with each other. According to Harmer (2004), due to writing, students can express their ideas in written form and gain a high level of communication. As such, English writing is becoming more demanding in the age of globalization where people entirely communicate via email and other communicative technologies and writing is inevitably required to be used as an effective tools at workplace or organizations where international cooperation is taken place. In the Vietnamese context, writing in English as a foreign language (EFL) becomes a primary concern for university students because they need this skill in their academic life (e.g. studying abroad, understanding academic information, international business, tourism, entertainment, scientific research, politics and so forth). For this reason, many universities provide writing courses which are compulsory subjects for students to register. Writing is part of the university curriculum taught to those who are in English major. However, of the four English skills, writing has been found to be a complex process for EFL learners to master (Watcharapunyawong & Usaha, 2013). Producing a piece of writing with coherence and fluency is the most difficult activity to do in language learning (Nunan, 1999). In addition, the difficulties lie in the process of finding ideas and converting the ideas into comprehensible texts, and writing requires some 1 skills such as grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, and spelling (Richard & Renandya, 2002). Therefore, it is unavoidable to find errors made by this group of learners in acquiring English writing skill. There are several factors that affect writing learning process and a considerable number of studies have been conducted to find out causes of writing problems (Penny, 2001; Bennui, 2008; Watcharapunyawong & Usaha, 2013; Hinnon, 2014). Some studies indicate that there tends to be interference from students‟ first language (L1) in the process of writing in English (Benson, 2002; Collins, 2002; Chen & Huang, 2003). L1 interference with regard to the terms “crosslinguistic and language transfer” refers to the influence of native language structures on students‟ performance and development in the target language (Hashim, 1999). As EFL students write in the English language, they transfer previous or existing knowledge of the mother tongue into the target language (TL). Therefore, the errors of native language interference are likely to be shown in the learners‟ written productions. Second language learners produce pieces of writing containing incorrect grammar structures as well as inappropriate vocabulary items due to direct translation from L1 into English. In the last decade, several studies have been carried out across the world, which have proved that the interference of the mother tongue is a severe problem in EFL and ESL writing contexts. Bhela (1999) investigated L1 interference in L2 writing. The participants are from four different contexts, including a Spanish, a Vietnamese, a Cambodian, and an Italian student who were asked to write stories in their native language and in English. The findings indicated that the learners frequently use structures in their mother tongue when producing structures in the target language. Due to L1 influence, the learners produced ineffective written stories with inappropriate structures. Abisamra (2003) also carried out a research that focused upon studying ten essays written by Arabic-speaking EFL students in their ninth grade. After analysis, she found that the major cause of their committed errors were negative L1 transfer 'interference' and intralingual interference. Similarly, Vietnamese learners face many difficulties to learn writing skill due to a lot of the grammatical dissimilarities between the MT (Vietnamese) and the TL 2 (English). Most of them may be so familiar in their mother tongue considered to understand the grammatical system when they make English grammar. Learners‟ first language (L1) may have significances on the second language (L2) acquisition. At Bac Lieu University (BLU), many previous studies have been done but mainly focused on teaching methodologies. Studies concerning L1 syntactic interference have not done yet. In fact, the English majors are expectable to be able to use grammar correctly but many grammatical errors have been found in their past exam papers of writing. It seems that the misuse of syntax due to students‟ mother tongue has not been treated effectively and it has partly showed the failure of the language acquisition. 1.2 The problem statement Like any other learners of English, BLU learners have several problems with Vietnamese language interference when writing in English. From the teaching experiences and the interviews with four English-major students at BLU, the researcher of this current study has found that English-major students have great difficulties in writing courses and they are unable to produce a written production without committing an error. Through the language writing process, BLU students seem to rely on their mother tongue (Vietnamese) when they produce written pieces in English. As a result, the interference of L1 language causes them to commit various types of linguistic errors, specifically the acquisition of syntactic aspect. There are a lot of grammatical errors in their compositions which cannot convey what the writers would like to express. That is to say, the mother tongue interfered the students‟ L2 writing, which eventually reduced the effectiveness of their writing. Carefully considering BLU students‟ problems of English writing, the researcher assumes that it can be a big challenge for the writing teachers in the context of BLU to find a wide range of methods to accomplish effective strategies of teaching English writing. What they need to do is firstly devoting themselves to help the students effectively develop their writing skill. Moreover, the teachers attempt to explore the kinds of interference errors in students‟ English writing and classify their writing errors into different categories as well as analyze the reasons. The researcher considers that only through understanding 3 the L1 influence in the process of EFL writing, teachers can indicate students' difficulties in learning English and adopt appropriate teaching strategies to help EFL students to learn English writing skill better. This is the reason why the research on “The first language syntactic interference in English writings of first-year English majors at Bac Lieu University” has been carried out for this study. It is expected that the findings gained from this study will help BLU teachers to find out appropriate approaches and methods that can assist students to enhance their writing accuracy. 1.3 The aims of the study The present study generally aims to investigate the interference of Vietnamese syntactic structures into English writings made by BLU learners. More specifically, this study has two main objectives: (1) to explore the types of syntactic errors committed by BLU learners, and (2) to investigate to what extend syntactic errors committed by BLU learners due to their mother tongue‟ syntactic structures. The main focus of the study is on the syntactic errors committed by these EFL learners, which helps to see whether there is a relationship between students‟ mother tongue and the grammatical errors they make in their English writings. Besides, the research discusses the pedagogical implications for teaching English writing to students in Vietnam. It will be useful for many writing teachers to take into consideration the problem of L1 interference so that they will have some strategies that could help students to lessen basic mistakes when writing in the L2 as well as to focus their attention on the content and thus give way to academic writing. 1.4 Research questions In order to achieve the aims and objectives of the study, the research questions below would be answered. 1. What types of syntactic errors in English writings are made by BLU students? 2. To what extent do these syntactic errors come from the syntactic structures of the mother tongue? 1.5 Significance of the study 4 This research is expected to be useful and significant for English learners at BLU in identifying the main types of syntactic interference errors they encounter while writing English language. Investigating and analyzing the common errors of BLU learners in writing is very essential to know the weaknesses of students. Knowing the most serious syntactic errors made by BLU learners makes the teachers give more attention to them and take them into account for enhancing the writing skill of EFL students at BLU. In addition, the findings of the study can be necessary for future studies, which would contribute to the field of academic writing. 1.6 Scope of the study Due to the limited time and the restricted scope of the thesis, this study focuses on first-year English major students at BLU. It analyzes 80 compositions written by first-year students. In addition, this study could not cover all types of errors. Only the syntactic errors in the compositions are taken into consideration, thereby proposing some pedagogical suggestions for teaching and learning writing skill at BLU. 1.7 Organization of the study The thesis consists of five main chapters as follows: Chapter 1 has presented a statement of the problem concerned to students‟ mother tongue interference in writing in the context of BLU. The background information on the problem and the reasons to conduct the research are also presented to assert that the problem being addressed is researchable. It then introduces the aims, the significance of the research and the research questions. Finally, the thesis organization is mentioned in the last section of the chapter. The literature review presented in chapter 2 first attempts to clarify some concepts used in the thesis. Besides, a number of related interference studies and the studies on the relationship between interference and writing are cited. The review concludes with a brief summary of the studies and their implications in EFL writing classes. Chapter 3 focuses on the research method which describes the research design and procedures, the populations, the samplings and the materials used in the study. A 5 detail description of the instrument for the data collection was followed by an explanation of how the data were analyzed. Chapter 4 studies the results and analyzes the collected data of the investigation. Firstly, it reveals the results of the questionnaires analyzed by SPSS 16.0 which presenting students‟ attitudes and behaviors towards learning English writing. Secondly, this is to answer the research questions about the possible kinds of syntactic interference errors BLU students usually make in their English writing. The last chapter summarizes and interprets the main results of the study. It also discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Finally, the limitations of the research and recommendations for further research are addressed. 1.8 Definitions of key terms - Syntactic errors refer to using incorrect grammar structures when they are required as defined. - Bac Lieu University (BLU) is a small university of Bac Lieu Province in the Mekong Delta where the researcher did this study. - CA (Contrastive Analysis) is the careful study of two languages with the intention of identifying their structural dissimilarities and similarities. - Error analysis (EA) is defined as the systematic study of the errors that occur while the learner uses the Target Language. It can be viewed as a means of finding a shortcut to the analysis of the learner‟s difficulties in second/foreign language learning, listing, and classifying of the errors contained in a sample of learner´s speech or writing. - Foreign language: any language used in a country other than one's own; a language that is studied mostly for cultural insight. - First Language acquisition (L1): is the natural process in which children subconsciously possess and develop the linguistic knowledge of the setting they live in. - Interlingual errors are those that result from a language transfer that is caused by the interference of L1 into L2. 6 - Intralingual errors are those that result from faulty or partial learning of L2, rather than from language transfer. - Interlanguage is the type of language (or linguistic system) used by second and foreign language learners who are in the process of learning a target language. - Interference: refers to the speaker or writer applying knowledge from their mother tongue to a second language. - Language transfer (also known as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and cross meaning) refers to speakers or writers applying knowledge from their native language to a second language. - Mother tongue is the language that a person has grown up speaking from early childhood. - Target Language (TL) is the language learners are studying, and also the individual items of language that they want to learn, or the teacher wants them to learn. 7 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter deals with the general framework, which examines five major issues related to the phenomenon of interference. Firstly, there is an analysis of the concept of "interlanguage" in various studies. Secondly, an overview of the notion of interference or transfer, its historical background and its main characteristics are reviewed. Then, there is a review of the most important theories that have tackled the issue of L1 interference or transfer. Primarily, it is Contrastive Analysis (CA). Finally, the concepts of Error Analysis (EA), the nature of errors and their potential causes are reviewed and thoroughly explained. 2.1 The Theory of Interlanguage The term “interlanguage” has a great impact on the field of L2 acquisition. It is defined as "a system that has a structurally intermediate status between the native language (NL) and target language (TL)" (Brown, 1994:203). In other words, interlanguage is neither the system of the NL nor the system of the TL. Richards and Schmidt (2002:267) explain it as a different system from both the NL and the TL. Selinker (1972:214) states that "The existence of a separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from a learner's attempted production of a TL norm. This linguistic system we will call 'interlanguage' (IL)". Selinker proposes the notion of "interlanguage" as a linguistic system with its own rules, which bases on the learner‟s attempts to interact with his/her new surroundings in the TL. Hence, for Selinker, the linguistic system produced by the learners is considered as a whole set of language rules that constitute a natural language, which includes the comprehension among its speakers. Selinker (1972:210) lists five factors, which might cause the output of interlanguage: 8 (1) Language transfer: fossilizable items, rules, subsystems that occurred in the interlanguage because of transfer from the native language. (2) Transfer of training: items resulting from particular approaches used in training. (3) Strategies of second language learning: identifiable approaches by the learner to the material being learned. (4) Strategies of foreign-language communication: identifiable approaches by the learner to communicate with native speakers of the TL. (5) Overgeneralization of TL linguistic material: overgeneralization of TL rules and semantic features. 2.2 Definition of Interference/ Transfer Since interference (transfer) is considered to be an important factor in studies on second language acquisition and language teaching, different scholars give their different understandings about it and focus on its different aspects, resulting in a number of definitions about interference. Language interference, also known as cross-linguistic interference or transfer, is "the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously acquired” (Odlin 1989: 27). Learners, particularly in the first stages of L2 acquisition, usually transfer items and structures based on the influence of their L1. Odlin (1989) regards the influence as interference or negative transfer (i.e., when L1 interferes with the acquisition of L2), and positive transfer (i.e., when L1 assists the acquisition of L2). Besides, Richards and Schmidt (2002:267) define interlingual (interference) errors as being the result of language negative transfer, which is caused by the learner‟s first language influence. This occurs at different levels such as transfer of phonology, grammatical and lexical - semantic elements of the native language into the target language. 9 Additionally, Ellis (1994:51) refers to interference as „transfer‟, which he says is “the influence that the learner‟s L1 exerts over the acquisition of an L2”. This above definition clarify that in learning the TL, learners tend to use some of the rules they have already acquired in L1 in the production and understanding of L2. This means that they exert some influences using L1 over L2. This influence is frequently apparent in the errors committed by learners either orally or in writing. According to Ellis (1994) learners have a tendency for the use of their L1 knowledge because they believe it will help them in the learning task or become sufficiently proficient in the L2. Expressing the same belief, Lott (1983:256) defines interference as „errors in the learner‟s use of the foreign language that can be traced back to the mother tongue‟. As Lott (1983) suggests, by analyzing the students' errors, teachers can find out the causes of these an error, for example, mother tongue interference, or teaching techniques, or problems inherent in the target language. To sum up, many definitions have been given to the term “interference”. However, Ellis (1994) gave a comprehensive definition of interference. According to the current study, interference is “the influence that the learner‟s L1 exerts over the acquisition of an L2” (Ellis, 1994:51). 2.3 Types of Transfer Transfer is studied in two categories: negative transfer and positive transfer. 2.3.1 Positive transfer Positive transfer is considered as an important part of L2 learning. It helps learners acquire knowledge more easily and function effectively in situations where they could solve the problems they have never seen before. Ellis (2000:300) maintains that “if the two languages are identical learning can take place easily through „positive transfer‟ of the native language pattern”. For Ellis, the similarity in language features can be a facilitative effect to the acquisition of L2. 2.3.2 Negative transfer Corder (1973:132) states that “the most known source of foreign language learning errors is that of L1transfer”. According to Corder (1973), L1 interference is a 10