{"id":6160,"date":"2018-01-26T17:12:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T17:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltweekly.com\/?p=6160"},"modified":"2018-01-26T17:12:39","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T17:12:39","slug":"dictionary-use-by-first-year-engineering-students-in-esl-context-by-dr-kiran-chauhan-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/?p=6160","title":{"rendered":"‘A Linguistic Analysis of Common Grammar Errors in Writing due to First Language Interference: A Case of First Year Engineering Gujarati ESL Learners’ by Dr. Kiran Chauhan"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ELTWeekly Volume 9, Issue 1\u00a0| January 2<\/span>, 2017 | ISSN 0975-3036]<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Linguistic Analysis of Common Grammar Errors in Writing due to First Language Interference: A Case of First Year Engineering Gujarati ESL Learners<\/strong><\/p>\n

by<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Kiran Chauhan
\n<\/strong>Assistant Professor of English, Government Engineering College, Surat<\/p>\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n

This paper reports a study aimed to investigate students\u2019 interlanguage errors in grammar. The sample comprising 30 students identified belonged to a group enrolled in the First year of Engineering (2014) at Dr. S. & S. S. Ghandhy Government Engineering College, Surat, Gujarat, passing their Higher Secondary Board exams from vernacular medium schools. The purpose of the study was to find out the common grammar errors in writing by these learners due to interference of Gujarati which is their mother tongue. In order to identify their grammatical errors, sample of their written assignments were collected and a diagnostic test was conducted. Both contrastive and error analysis were employed to analyse the erroneous sentences and phrases that were extracted from the students\u2019 compositions and diagnostic test. Subsequently, the errors were recorded and classified and the reason for their occurrence was explained. An analysis of the errors suggests that students commit more errors due to mother tongue influence (interlingual interference) and less due to the development of the target language (intralingual interference).<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Errors are considered to be an inevitable part of acquiring a second language. In fact \u2018errors\u2019 are considered signs for language acquisition process. Learners are likely to make many common errors and many factors like mother tongue interference, transfer of training, inadequate learning, and faulty teaching can be responsible for the same. It is in a way difficult not to commit any errors or mistake for any second language learner while acquiring second language.<\/p>\n

There have been substantial researches, both in India and abroad, on sources of learners\u2019 errors and one of the major sources of error occurrence is first language interference (Wilkins 1972, Prasher 1977, Patrikar 1981, Joshi 1987, Cornell 1985, Awasthi 1995, Cook 1997). Learners, generally, rely on their native (first) language while producing response in second language. Eventually, high frequency of errors while using second language is the result of the linguistic disparity between First Language (L1) and Second Language (L2). In Ellis (1994) words, \u2018\u2026where there are differences between L1 and L2, the learners\u2019 L1 will probably interfere with the L2 (negative language transfer), whereas, when L1\u00a0 and L2 are similar, the L2 will assist the L2 learning (positive language transfer).<\/p>\n

In the context of Gujarat, majority learners of L2 (English) use Gujarati as their L1 (Mother tongue). For these learners, the syntactical pattern of vernacular language (Gujarati) is a major hindrance acquiring language skills in English (L2). \u00a0Most often they indulge in translating a native expression into foreign language following their innate structure (L1) rather than adopting the target language structure. Also when speaking in English, they think in their L1 and translate it into English. Therefore, the chances of errors in target language are increased. It is necessary, therefore, to identify and classify the type of errors so that the knowledge of interlingual errors can help the learners as well as teachers to decide which areas of grammar to focus in ESL classroom.<\/p>\n

Objectives<\/strong><\/p>\n