A Corpus-based Study of Errors in Chinese English Majors ’ English Writing

On the basis of the corpus of English Majors’ Composition of Ludong University (EMC corpus), this thesis analyzes the errors in Chinese English Majors’ English writing and the reasons resulting in the errors. The research reveals that in the EMC corpus the proportion of “grammatical errors” ranks the highest, followed by “wrong usage”, “syntactic errors” and “errors of discourse constructions and content”; with the increasing time of learning, learners’ language proficiency has improved and is reflected by their error rate which has been decreasing year by year. Concerning the errors in English writing, this thesis proposes some corresponding strategies to reduce errors and improve the teaching of English writing.


Introduction
English writing is a highly integrated and practical course, which has become increasingly important.The training of it effectively promotes learners' comprehensive ability to acquire English.
Error Analysis (EA) is one of the first methods used to investigate language.In an early, seminal article The Significance of Learners' Errors, Corder (1967) noted that errors could be significant in three ways: 1) they provided the teacher with information about how much the learner had learnt; 2) they provided the researcher with evidence of how language was learnt, and 3) they served as devices by which the learner discovered the results of the target language.
Consequently, in recent years, many scholars have analyzed errors in English writing.Zhang Xiaolan (2004) studies errors in English writing based on EA, while her research lacks the support of corpus.Nie Qilong (2005) also does research on this topic, but his analysis lacks strategies to avoid errors.On the basis of the corpus of English Majors' Composition of Ludong University (EMC corpus), this thesis analyzes the errors in English writing, and provides some effective strategies to improve the teaching level.Corder (1974) suggested the following steps in EA research: 1) collection of a sample of learner language; 2) identification of errors; 3) description of errors; 4) explanation of errors; 5) evaluation of errors.This research design follows the five steps of EA.

Objectives of the Research
1) What are the general features of errors in Chinese English majors's English writing?
2) What are the reasons for those errors?
3) What are the developmental features of errors in different grades?4) What are the reasons for those developmental features?

Corpus
The corpus consists of compositions of English Majors in Ludong University.The compositions originate from the final exam on comprehensive English of Grade 2008Grade , 2007Grade and 2006 respectively in the first semester of the school year [2008][2009].The token of the corpus is 87,606 words, with 31,348 words in Grade 2008, 30,381 words in Grade 2007, and25,877 words in Grade 2006.

Data Collecting Method
Four steps are included.In the first place, compositions are input into computers manually and saved as documents (.txt), and after a random sampling check, the accurate rate of the input is 100 percent.Secondly, all the errors found in the compositions are collected and classified into four categories, which are "Errors of words", "Grammatical errors", "Syntactic errors", and "Errors of discourse constructions and content".Last but not least, data are collected and calculated and features revealed.Some typical examples of errors are as follows: 1) Misuse of words Errors focus on wrong usage, wrong collocation, wordiness, wrong part of speech, misuse of articles, ambiguous pronouns, and so on.
(1) From all these aspects we can use conclude that, the "Car-free Day" isn't worthwhile.(wrong usage).
(2) No cars will run in the roads.(wrong collocation) (3) In my opinion, I think confidence and self-confidence are of great importance.(wordiness)(4) Everyone who wants to success should try the best to become a confidence man.(wrong part of speech) (5) Only in this way, can a people become more skillful.(misuseof articles) (6) We share the shine and of everyday, but when we meet the wind and rain or even storm, you should think this way: "It's a natural thing.I can make it."(ambiguouspronouns) 2) Grammatical errors Grammatical errors consist in punctuation, spelling, tense, agreement, and voice errors, etc.

3) Syntactic errors
This is mainly about Chinglish, wrong sentence structure, wrong dangling modifiers and ambiguous sentence.( 12) For example, our government can make related rules to control the number of cars or some traffic rules.(Chinglish) (13) Without the day, people won't able to realize the importance of the problem.(wrong sentence structure) (14) At the age of six, my father bought my first present, a car-model.(wrong dangling modifiers) (15) They let me know that there was still something that I met difficulties.(ambiguous sentence)

4) Errors of discourse constructions and content
Errors are mainly concerning digression, incoherence, inconsistency and inanity.An essay with the title "Is Car-free Day Worthwhile?" in the corpus is taken for an example.
Is "Car-free Day" Worthwhile? "Car-free Day" would bring a lot of problems for us, so I don't think "Car-free Day" is worthwhile.
The aim of "Car-free Day" is to encourage citizens to go out to release themselves, so on that day, there would be too many cars on the street.This will bring us many bad effects.First, it may cause traffic jam.… As you know, traffic jam is a waste of time and energy.Second, it would cause traffic more accidents.…If it happens an accident, it will be sorrowful or the drivers and their family.Third, air polution will increase.On that day, the drivers don't care about the money, so they would drive their cars all the day long.It will not only waste energy, but also cause the air polution.Above all, ... So I don't agree that "Car-free Day" is worthwhile.
The key words of this passage are "Car-free Day" and "Worthwhile", and the theme is that whether "Car-free Day" is worthwhile.Firstly, the student mistakes "Car-free Day" as "a day in which cars can go anywhere freely", which results in the whole passage digressing from the subject.Secondly, the first sentence which means drivers can release themselves and the last three sentences of the second paragraph with the meaning that drivers do not care about money are ambiguous.In addition, the main point of the last three sentences of the second paragraph is "air pollution", but the student also mentions "waste energy".That is a specific example of incoherence and inconsistency.Finally, any of the problems referred above leads to inanity.

Data Analysis and Discussion
The following part is a general data analysis of EMC corpus and comparison between different grades in EMC corpus together with the reasons resulting in errors.

General Data Discussion and Reason Analysis
Based on the classification of all the errors, the proportion of both the error category and the error item is clearly demonstrated, and through analyzing the data, main reasons resulting in the errors are going to be found.

Data Discussion
In Table 1, the figures in column "Proportion" are the percentage resulting from dividing all the times of each "Error item" by the times of all the errors.The figures in column "Total" equal the sum of the proportion of each error item belonging to that same error category.

Reason Analysis
Among the many reasons leading to errors, vocabulary and the influence of negative transfer of mother tongue are on the top of the list.
1) The proportion of "Spelling errors" is the highest in all the error items (29.3%), taking almost one third of the whole proportion.Owning to learners' poor basic skills, the tension in examinations, or lacking enough time to check, there are many spelling errors.In addition, some learners tend to use long and complicated words, which they are not familiar with.Consequently, many spelling errors emerge.
2) Many learners tend to depend too much on their textbook, ignoring or having little interest in extensive reading, so that their vocabulary is rather limited.In addition, the process of memorizing English words bores some lerners, which also causes small vocabulary.The result is it's difficult for learners to find proper words to express themselves, which easily brings "Wrong usage".Besides, because of small vocabulary, learners could not figure out the implication of some words and often mistake the meaning.For example, the title of the composition for Grade Two is "Is 'Car-free Day' Worthwhile?", and many mistake "car-free" for "cars can be used freely", resulting in digression.
3) Many learners just pay attention to the Chinese meaning of words, while ignore the part of speech, the usage and the collocation of words, which often leads to "Wrong usage" ,"Wrong part of speech" and "Wrong collocation".4) Because of the reasons of both small vocabulary and inaccurate usage of words, learners usually either feel hard to find proper words to express themselves, or even though they have proper words, they do not know how to use them.That is why there are many errors like "Wrong usage", "Wrong collocation", "Chinglish" and "Ambiguous sentence".

Influence of Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue
Negative transfer hampers learning.It occurs when the mother tongue interferes the foreign language learning, or the previous performance interrupts the performance on a second language and leads to errors.Foreign language learners often use mother tongue in learning, which results in errors or inappropriate forms in the target language.Negative transfer as a phenomenon, exists in second language acquisition.Its influence permeates many aspects in teaching and learning with the following two most distinctive.

1) Negative transfer in word-usage
Negative transfer in word-usage is mainly manifested in that the learners whose mother tongue is Chinese unconsciously tend to find equivalents in English words.However, there are not absolutely equivalents between Chinese and English in many cases, and even though the meanings of words are similar, their usage or implications are distinct.In fact, learners often ignore this, which leads to "Wrong usage".Take some specifics to illustrate this situation.Firstly, there are a lot of collective nouns in English, and the indefinite article cannot modify them, which differs from Chinese.For instance, the sentence "Confidence is a spirit of a people." is wrong in English because the indefinite article "a" cannot modify the collective word "people".In addition, some learners are apt to copy mechanically and apply indiscriminately in the usage of words, for example, "pao che" should be "sports car" in English instead of a literal mechanical translation "run car".Furthermore, the style meaning of words is different between Chinese and English, while some learners often neglect the commendatory and derogatory implication of words.For example, the word "busybody", meaning "a person who is meddlesome", is derogatory in English rather than the commendatory meaning of "a man who is very busy at work" in Chinese.Finally, confusing the part of speech will cause "Wrong part of speech", for example, "What kind of live do you want to live?" is wrong because the first "live" is a verb.

2) Negative transfer in sentence structure
In the process of acquiring sentence structure English learners overlook the differences between the two languages and inevitably are influenced by mother tongue, which causes grammatical and syntactic errors.English is featured by hypotaxis, and there are many peculiar forms as tense, voice, and countable or uncountable nouns, etc, while Chinese is featured by parataxis, and has few of morphological changes; besides, English sentences focus on integrity and logic, but the Chinese ones are loose and not rigorous; attributives especially the long attributive clauses are usually placed after the headword in English, instead of being in front of the headword in Chinese; there are nominative case and objective case in English but there's no such cases in Chinese; English writing is developed following the order of time and place, but the Chinese writing is often developed in a reverse order.Consequently, if learners are not aware of these differences, they are quite likely to be influenced by their mother tongue, and inevitably make grammatical and syntactic errors in English writing.

Comparison of Three Grades and Reason Analysis
In Table 2, figures in column "Grade 1" are the percentage resulting from dividing all the times of each "Error item" in Grade 1 by the times of all the errors of the three grades, and the same method works out the figures in columns "Grade 2" and "Grade 3".

Insert Table 2 Here
Firstly, Table 2 tells that the total error proportion from Grade One to Grade Three is 44.71%, 39.89% and 15.40% respectively (See Table 2 "Total"), which shows it is in a gradually decreasing trend as a whole.The proportion of each error item and the toppest ten proportion also decrease gradually, and the exceptions will be explained in the following.This result shows that with the increasing time of learning learners' language proficiency has been improving step by step and the errors they make have been decreasing year by year.
Secondly, on one hand, in the "Error category", the proportion of "Wrong usage" (12.95%>7.63%>2.88%)and "Syntactic errors" (10.14%>6.99%>2.0%) is also decreasing from Grade One to Grade Three.But the proportion of Grade Two (24.27%) in "Grammatical errors" is the highest, followed by Grade One (20.74%), and Grade Three is the lowest (10.37%).The same exists in the proportion of error items "Punctuation errors", "Spelling errors", "Agreement errors", "Voice errors" in "Grammatical errors", i.e. the proportion of Grade Two is the largest, and then Grade One, and Grade Three is the lowest.The reason of the rebound of errors in Grade Two can be attributed to the following.Grammatical knowledge that freshmen possessed is very simple which is taught in senior middle school.The sentence structures and words freshmen used are relatively simple, and they can master them well, so that the proportion of "Grammatical errors" of is less than that of Grade Two.Learners of Grade Two in the first semester have had grammatical course for one semester after their entrance to university.However, because of the short period of learning time and the large amount of grammatical knowledge, most learners have not had a comprehensive grasp.With complicated process and further learning of grammar, the proportion of errors of Grade Two is the highest.Through further grammatical learning in the second semester of Grade Two and the consolidation of knowledge in the first semester of Grade Three, the performance in using grammar has improved, so that errors of Grade Three are less than those of Grade Two and One.On the other hand, in accordance with the normal acquisition, errors should decrease with the increasing learning period.However, the proportion of "Digression" (0.50%>0.08%>0.04%)and "Inconsistency" (0.31%>0.08%=0.08%) in Grade Two is higher than that of Grade One and Grade Three.This abnormity originates from the title of the composition for Grade Two-"Is Car-free Day Worthwhile?".Some learners mistake "Car-free Day" for "a day when cars can be used freely".This misunderstanding leads to "Digression" and "Inconsistency".In such a case, the proportion of "Errors of discourse constructions and content" rebounded in Grade Two.
Thirdly, the proportion in "Error category" is all in decreasing trend except for "Grammatical errors" and "Errors of discourse constructions and content", and the reasons are explained above.This proves again that with the increasing time of learning learners' language proficiency has improved and the errors they make have been decreasing year by year.
Fourthly, taken only the proportion rates that are more than 1% into consideration, the number of items from Grade One to Grade Three is 12, 10 and 4 respectively, exhibiting a progressive decrease.This indicates that along with the improving quality of language using of learners, the error rate also decreases gradually both as a whole and in detail, and their language becomes more and more standardized.
Finally, among the ten items that rank the highest proportion in Table 1, eight belong to the highest ten as for proportion in Table 2 (See Table 2 boldface).This demonstrates that though the error rates decrease gradually, the fundamental problems leading to errors, especially the simple errors of "Spelling errors" and "Agreement errors" have never been solved obviously.Therefore, it is very important for teachers to pay attention to the teaching of elementary English knowledge and the training of basic skills to help learners to enhance their English writing.

Implication for English Teaching
The process of learning English as a foreign language is actually a process of making errors, correcting errors and promoting the acquisition level.The objectives of error analysis are to show the problems existing in the process of learning so as to correct them timely, and to adopt effective proposals in future teaching and learning to avoid errors.To realize such a goal, English teaching can be improved in the following aspects.

Strengthening Language Teaching of Basic Knowledge
Teachers should strengthen teaching elementary knowledge especially vocabulary and grammar to make learners consolidate the basic knowledge.Besides, on the basis of the requirement of the teaching syllabus, teachers should guide learners to formulate appropriate learning strategies combining their own characteristics to master the rudiments better.
On one hand, in vocabulary, teachers should consciously teach the connotation, collocation and the usage of words, so as to train learners study and use words in context; guide learners to reinforcing the spelling and usage of words through images or word formation or associative memory to ensure a better command; strengthen supervision and regular inspection to ensure that learners absorb the knowledge timely and put the knowledge into practice.On the other hand, in grammar, firstly, teachers should focus on the explanation of grammatical differences between Chinese and English.In addition, for some basic and important grammar points, teachers should illustrate thoroughly in class and give assignments after class.It is necessary to help learners actively summarize grammatical rules and use them in speaking and writing on the basis of understanding.In the end, teachers can diversify assignments and let learners check their homework with each other, and thus the quality of training and feedback is guaranteed.

Utilizing Positive Transfer of Mother Tongue
As what's mentioned above, mother tongue plays a very important role in English teaching and learning.In the process of learning a new language, English learners will inevitably draw upon their mother tongue, especially in the beginning.For instance, in writing an English composition, many learners would think in Chinese about what to write and then translate their "mother tongue thoughts" into English.Some learners say that it is easier for them to memorize the context by mentally translating each sentence into Chinese.With no doubt, foreign language learners employed some transfer strategies in their English learning.But only when the strategies are used properly, will they facilitate the language learning.Therefore, teachers of English are expected to give learners guides to make good use of positive transfer.The following are some methods.

Translation and Back Translation
Teachers of English should design some specific translating exercises in the form of either English to Chinese or Chinese to English.It is an effective way to raise learners' awareness of the differences between two languages at lexical, syntactical, and textual level.This way at least has three advantages.The first is it lays emphasis on key points to which learners should pay attention.Second, it's helpful for learners who are not familiar with the sentences' structure.Third, it helps learners grasp different structures between mother tongue and the target language.In the process of doing these exercises, learners should not search for one-for-one equivalents between Chinese and English, but be encouraged to think in target language, and errors like "Chinglish" and "Ambiguous sentences" can be avoided.

Bilingual Extensive Reading
It is generally agreed that one of the effective ways to learn foreign language well is extensive reading, which also increases learners' interest.On the basis of this, English learners should be encouraged to read extensively, which enlarges vocabulary, provides information of the cultures of foreign countries and helps learners form the habit of thinking in English.Learners had better choose bilingual reading materials with Chinese version attached and read them within a certain period of time.Bilingual reading is necessary for English learners in that, first, learners can learn many words through reading, and use dictionaries to master the usage of them afterwards.In this way learners will not make mistakes like "Wrong usage", "Inanity", and "Digress".For example, if learners often read extensively, it is quite likely for them to know the meaning of "car-free", and they will not misunderstand it or make mistakes like "Digression" and "Inanity"; second, the Chinese version helps learners understand complicated sentences by analyzing different sentence structures between the two languages, and by comparison, learners will find out similarities and differences between the two languages, avoiding the "syntactic errors" and "Chinglish" in writing; third, bilingual reading enlarges the eyesight of learners and provides them with rich materials for writing, and thus decreases the errors of inanity.Meanwhile, teachers should give learners some guidance on how to do bilingual reading.For example, teachers should tell learners to consult the Chinese version only after they have made an effort but failed to guess the meaning of new words.Besides, teachers should advise learners to take some notes in the process of reading, which are very useful in writing compositions.

Countermeasures against Negative Transfer
Negative transfer is not simply an error, though it may result in errors in most cases.Based on this point, a proper attitude towards it should be developed.Teachers should not only point out learners' errors when they commit negative transfer, but also make students clearly know the reasons for their errors and provide ways to conquer negative transfer, such as encouraging learners to think in English and using proper dictionaries.

Encouraging Learners to Think in English
It is observed that many Chinese English majors produced sentences revealing negative transfer, because they put the Chinese ideas in their mind first, and then translate them into English.This easily brings about errors of choice of words, intra-sentence order and discourse, Chinglish, and incoherence.Teachers should encourage learners to think in English in the beginning, and assist them in forming such a habit, so that learners have no chance to translate their "Chinese thoughts" into English, and some errors, especially "Chinglish" will be effectively avoided.Achieving this requires combined effort of both teachers and learners.

Using Proper Dictionaries
Dictionaries that learners use play a crucial role in their process of foreign language acquisition.Using proper dictionaries in different stages of learning helps learners master words efficiently.An English-Chinese dictionary serves as a good teacher at the very beginning, but at the advanced stages, it seems unable to serve the whole end.
For example, at the beginning, when learners meet the word "shiver", the English-Chinese dictionary presents the Chinese meaning of "chan dou" that is easy to remember.But later, when they meet the word "tremble", which has the same Chinese meaning, they will be confused by the two synonyms.In this case, the English-English dictionary is effective in that, the explanations of the two words in Langman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2004English ( :1772English ( , 1516) ) are as follows: Tremble: a slight shaking happening in a way that you cannot control, esp., because you are upset or angry.Shiver: a slight movement of your body caused by cold or feat.
After reading these explanations, learners may be clearly aware of the meaning of these two similar words.An English-English dictionary is helpful in advanced learning.Thus it is strongly recommended that language learners use different kinds of dictionaries following different learning stages.It helps solving the problem of misusage of words.

Conclusion
A general analysis of the corpus reveals that the proportion of "grammatical errors" ranks the highest, with the proportion of "errors of words", "syntactic errors" and "errors of discourse constructions and content" the second, third and last.This situation roots in small vocabulary and the influence of negative transfer of mother tongue.In the perspective of three grades, errors made by Grade 1 are the most; errors of Grade 2 are less and errors of Grade 3 are the least.It tells that errors tend to become less and less with English majors' language proficiency becoming better and better.
The implications of this thesis for the teaching of English writing are as follows: 1) strengthening the teaching of basic knowledge; 2) making good use of positive transfer; 3) adopting countermeasures against negative transfer.
Error analysis of English writing is a very complicated research.This research is based on the corpus of argumentative essays, which might lead to some kinds of errors appearing too much and others too little.For this reason, the results of this research should be further proved by the corpus of other types of writing.

( 7 )
Today, with the rapid development of economy.The private cars are increasing rapidly.(punctuation errors) (8) Bill Gates has not finish his education in university.(tense errors) (9) It provides us with energy and help us make progress.(agreement errors) (10) People will go to work by buses or subways, and the traffic jam will be solve efficiently.(voice errors) (11) The proportion of spelling mistakes is very large in learners' compositions.

Table 2 .
Proportional distribution of the errors of the three grades