A Corpus-Based Analysis of Syntactic/Semantic Errors in University Level EFL Learners’ Writing

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate different types of errors identified from the essays written by 68 Asian EFL learners at a Korean university. The learner corpus containing these essays consisted of 2498 errors; based on the schemes suggested by previous researchers, those errors were analyzed according to error classification, i.e., sentence fragments, run-ons, comma splices, word order, verb tense, verb form, subject verb agreement, word form, determiners, prepositions, and word choice. Of all the error types committed by college-level learners, word choice had the highest error frequency, accounting for around 33%. Word choice issues in EFL students’ writing could be due to a traditional way of English learning such as rote memorization of vocabulary and purely receptive reading skills. Thus, instructor suggestions on practical learning methods concerning word choice in writing can be certainly helpful and teachers would also need to pedagogically utilize EFL written word choice strategies in a more effective way.