基于语料库的英语专业硕士研究生毕业论文语言错误研究

1、硕士学位论文论文题目研 究 生 姓 名指导教师姓名专 业 名 称研 究 方 向论文提交日期基于语料库的英语专业硕士研究生毕业论文语言错误研究李喆贾冠杰（教授）外国语言学及应用语言学应用语言学2014 年 6 月A Corpus-Based Study of the LanguageErrors in English Majors MA ThesesByLi Zhe Under the Supervision ofProfessor Jia GuanjieSubmitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

2、Master of Arts School of Foreign Languages Soochow University2014ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI have been looking forward to this moment when I could take the opportunity toextend my heartfelt thanks to all those who have helped me in one way or another. Ialways know that it is a fairly long list. My first and f

3、oremost gratitude goes to my supervisor Professor Jia Guanjie,without whose patient guidance and help the thesis could not have been finished. My thanks for Ms. Li Huiyun are beyond measure. As a spiritual support these years, she has been affecting my life at a higher level. Owing to her unfailing

4、love andcare, I have developed a delightful character without conscious effort. Such a characterbrings others comfort and myself good luck. Because of her, I have spent mypostgraduate days with more vitality and happiness than ever expected. All these havefor sure contributed to my composition of th

5、e thesis.I am also grateful to other teachers who have imparted knowledge to me, whohave shared experiences with me and who have impressed me with personal charm. Iam very proud of our School of Foreign Languages to have such amiable and excellentteachers, and Ill never forget them.In the end, Im ob

6、liged to give the sincerest thanks to my roommates, my family,my students and my friends for their healing encouragement and support in my difficult times.iABSTRACTAmong the basic language skills, writing is probably the most integrated and demanding one. In addition to developing an idea, learners

7、need also resort tovocabulary, grammar, syntactic and textual knowledge in a writing task. As a result,even advanced learners like postgraduates majoring in English may still commit errors in writing. Master of Arts (MA) theses are the result of learners three years of academicwork as well as over t

8、en years of English learning. An excess of language errors thereinwould undoubtedly affect the overall quality of the theses and may also arouse aversionin the Thesis Defense Committee. Although there are a number of studies on learners language errors in the field of second language acquisition, fe

9、w have investigated thelanguage errors in English majors MA theses. The present study is thus in an attempt togain a knowledge of the frequent errors and their causes in the hope of helping learnersto raise awareness to improve the quality of MA theses, and helping teachers to devise new ways for re

10、medial teaching. In accordance with the purpose of the study, two research questions are addressedbelow: (1) What frequent language errors do English majors make in their MA theses?(2) What are the possible causes of the frequent errors?The answers are sought by analyzing the 504 MA theses selected

11、from Corpus ofEnglish Majors MA Theses with the help of the automatic error-detection function ofthe online system Turnitin and by interpreting the questionnaire and interviewconcerning the causes of the errors. The theses analyzed are equally represented by thethree levels of universities in China

12、(“Project 985” universities, “Project 211” universities and “Other” universities) to see whether significant difference in errorsexists among them. In response to the research questions, some findings of the study aresummarized in the following:(1) MA students of English still make a lot of errors i

13、n their theses. Among all the errors detected by e-rater of Turnitin, article error, sentence fragment, run-on sentenceiiand preposition error are the most frequent types. Besides, the error distributions of the three levels of universities generally follow the same pattern as that of the whole. The

14、reis no significant difference in the errors among the three levels of universities exceptbetween “Other” universities and the other two levels of universities in sentencefragment, and between “Project 985” and “Project 211” universities in preposition error. (2) Possible causes of these errors incl

15、ude incomplete knowledge of a certaingrammatical item, casual attitude towards uncertainties, negative thinking patterntransfer from Chinese, carelessness in writing and reviewing, and lack of genreknowledge.After identifying learners areas of difficulty and investigating the causes, a seriesof impl

16、ications are pointed out accordingly in the hope of helping improve learners writing performance in MA theses as well as on other occasions. Key words: language errors; MA students of English; MA theses; corpus; causes oferrors Written by Li Zhe Supervised by Jia Guanjieiii摘要在语言基本技能中，写作应该算是最综合、要求最高的

17、一项。写作时学习者不仅要发展思路，还需要依靠词汇、语法、句法和篇章知识将思路表达出来。因此，即使是像英语专业硕士研究生这样的学习者在写作中也可能会犯错误。毕业论文是英语专业硕士研究生三年学术研究和十多年英语学习结果的展示，语言错误过多无疑会影响整个论文质量，还可能引起答辩老师的反感。在二语习得领域尽管已经有不少对学习者语言错误的研究，却很少有研究涉及到英语专业硕士生毕业论文的语言错误。介于此，本研究旨在了解英语专业研究生在写作中常犯的错误及错误原因，以期帮助学习者增强意识，提高毕业论文质量，帮助教师根据错误原因，进行补救教学。对应研究目的，本研究回答两个研究问题：1英语专业学生在硕士毕业论文中

18、常犯哪些语言错误？2这些常犯错误的可能原因是什么？研究借助在线系统Turnitin的错误自动检测功能分析了选自英语专业硕士研究生毕业论文语料库中的504篇论文并进行了一些关于错误原因的问卷调查和采访。504篇论文均等选自中国三类学校（“985工程”学校，“211工程”学校，“其它”学校），以便研究三类学校中错误是否存在显著差异。对应研究问题，该研究有两个主要发现： 1 英语专业硕士研究生在毕业论文中仍会犯很多错误。在检测出的所有错误类型中，冠词错误、分裂句、连写句和介词错误数量最多。另外，三类学校论文中错误分布情况与总的错误分布情况大体一致。除“其他”学校和另外两类学校在分裂句上，“985”学

19、校和“211”学校在介词错误上有显著差异外，其它均无显著差异。 2 这些错误可能的原因包括对某一语法项目不完备的知识、对不确定之处的随意态度、母语思维方式的负迁移、写作和检查时的不认真、缺乏体裁方面的知识等。在确定出学生写作时会遇到困难的地方并找到错误原因之后，作者提出了一些对教学的启示和建议，以求帮助学生改善在毕业论文及其他写作中的表现。关键词：语言错误；英语专业硕士研究生;毕业论文；语料库；错误原因作者：李喆iv指导教师：贾冠杰CONTENTSACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .iABSTRACT .ii摘 要 .ivCHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION .11.1 Signi

20、ficance and Purpose of the Study .11.2 Structure of the Thesis .2CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW .32.1 Error .3 Definition and distinction .3 Error Analysis .52.2 Interlanguage Hypothesis .7 Interlanguage .7 Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis .82.3 Corpus Linguistic Approach .9 Corpus .9 Learner corpu

21、s.10utomated error detection . 11 2.4 Related Studies .12 Error studies abroad .12 Error studies in China . 132.5 Summary .14CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY .153.1 Research Questions .153.2 Materials .153.3 Instruments .15 Turnitin .15 Questionnaire .16 Interview .163.4 Procedures .173.5 Data Analysis .18

22、CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .194.1 Error Analysis .19 Frequent errors in English major MA theses .19 Differences of errors among different levels of universities .244.2 Possible Causes of These Errors .28 Causes of article errors .29 Causes of sentence fragments .30 Causes of run-on sentence

23、s .31 Causes of preposition errors .32CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION .345.1 Major Findings of the Study .345.2 Implications of the Study .355.3 Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for Further Research37REFERENCES .38APPENDIXES .42MA: Master of ArtsIL: InterlanguageList of AbbreviationsTL: Targ

24、et Language FL: Foreign LanguageEA: Error Analysis CA: Contrastive AnalysisSLA: Second Language AcquisitionL2: Second LanguageCIA: Contrastive Interlanguage AnalysisL1: First LanguageMT: Mother TongueNS: Native SpeakerEFL: English as a Foreign Language ICLE: International Corpus of Learner EnglishNL

25、P: Natural Language ProcessingESL: English as a second languageCLEC: Chinese Learner English CorpusETS: Educational Testing Service CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION This chapter demonstrates the significance and purpose of the present study andthen outlines the general structure of the thesis. 1.1 Significan

26、ce and Purpose of the StudyErrors are inevitable in the process of learning a foreign language. They mayeither be signs of learners positive tryout of what is beyond their current competence orreveal learners learning difficulties which could possibly lead to fossilization of errors.To put it anothe

27、r way, errors either tell how language is learned or reflect what it is thatneeds to be retaught in a renewed way. As a result, the study of learners errors is eithertheoretically or pedagogically valuable. Among the basic language skills, writing is probably the most integrated and demanding one. I

28、n addition to developing an idea, learners need also resort tovocabulary, grammar, syntactic and textual knowledge in a writing task. That makes sense of why “writing is the weakest part for learners”, as noted by Li (2006). “Thepresence of various errors is a big problem affecting the overall quali

29、ty of writing.”(Jiang，1995)MA theses are the result of learners three years of academic work as well as overten years of English learning. An excess of language errors therein would undoubtedlyaffect the overall quality of the theses and may also arouse aversion in the ThesisDefense Committee. Yet d

30、espite the abundance of studies on learners language errors in writing, covering writing errors committed by middle school students and collegestudents, by English majors and non-English majors, few has investigated the language errors in English majors MA theses. Probably its because postgraduates

31、of English areregarded to be at a fairly high level where they no longer have problems with writingaccuracy. Another possible reason is that MA thesis is too long to process manually.Anyway, whatever the real reason might be, it is the fact that there is a general lack ofempirical knowledge of Engli

32、sh major postgraduates problems and needs in writing1while such a knowledge is of great value in “planning remedial syllabuses and devisingappropriate techniques of correction” (Corder, 1981). “The suggestion that we shouldtake more account of the learners needs in planning our syllabuses is not new

33、, but has not apparently led to any investigations.” (Corder, 1981)Besides, in previous error studies, the causes of errors have been almost exclusively analyzed by the researcher alone reviewing related literature or makingsubjective judgment on the basis of erroneous learner language. Concerning t

34、he above-mentioned, the present study sets out to gain a knowledge of English major postgraduates problems in writing and their causes by processing 504MA theses selected from Corpus of English Majors MA Theses with the help of theautomatic error-detection function of the online system Turnitin and

35、by analyzing thedata collected from the interview and questionnaire. It is hoped that in doing so, MA students of English could enhance their awareness of improving the quality of MA theses with access to a repertoire of frequent errors committed by their peers, andteachers could work out ways for f

36、uture remedial teaching with the error causesavailable,. Therefore, a study of the language errors in English majors MA theses andtheir causes like the present one is both significant and necessary. 1.2 Structure of the ThesisThe thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One serves as the introdu

37、ctionpart which lays out the general structure of the thesis after making clear the significanceand purpose of the study. Chapter Two is literature review that reviews related terms,theoretical framework and related studies at home and abroad. The terms and theories are arranged into three parts: er

38、ror, interlanguage hypothesis and corpus linguisticapproach. Chapter Three describes methodology, covering research questions, materials,instruments and procedures of the study. Chapter Four provides the statistical results ofthe quantitative study and analyzes the interview and questionnaire. Chapt

39、er Five is the final chapter, in which all the findings and implications of the study are summarized.Afterwards, limitations and suggestions for further research are pointed out as theconcluding part of the thesis.2CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEWThis chapter reviews some related terms, sets the theoret

40、ical background, andsummarizes studies related to the present one. Since the study focuses on a particular category of learner language on the basis of a self-built corpus and studies the errorswith the help of an automated error detection tool, the terms and theories to be reviewedshould be centere

41、d around error, interlanguage and corpus.2.1 Error Definition and classificationVarious definitions of errors have been put forward with differences informulation. James (2001) defines a language error as “an unsuccessful bit of language in terms of the discrepancy between interlanguage (IL) and the

42、 native speakers version,the target language (TL)”. According to Norrish (1987), an error is “a systematicdeviation when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong”.Cunningworth (1987) believes an error to be “a systematic deviation from the norms ofthe language being learned”

43、. To be plainer, an error is a learner language form thatdeviates from, or violates, a target language rule. The emphasis on systematicity ofdeviations in the latter two definitions distinguishes an error from a mistake which is made as a result of carelessness or fatigue of the moment.Corder (1967)

44、 introduced the error: mistake distinction into modern debate, associating errors with failures in competence and mistakes with failures in performance. He insists that mistakes are of no significance to the process of language learning since they are self-correctable and do not reflect a defect in

45、our knowledge system whereas errors are everything that mistakes are not: they are of significance;they do reflect knowledge; they are not self-correctable. In fact, plausible though it may look in theory, the criterion of self-correctability3of mistakes is problematic to apply in practice. It is well noticed that people whocompose in a foreign language (FL) can be given ample time to review their text, but still overlook ungram