A Corpus-based Study on the Errors of Number of English Nouns in French and Chinese EFL learners : Insight from Psycholinguistic

Abstract

Singular and plural forms of English nouns play an important role in linguistic processing, and in writing assessment. Learners' skill of second language (L2) singular and plural forms of nouns are influenced by their native language (L1). However, previous studies of L1 influence did not focus on this kind of learners' skill in a cross-linguistic context. This study examines the error types of singular and plural forms of English nouns made by French and Chinese EFL learners in a self-built corpus, which consists of 40 argumentative writing selected from TOFEL 11. The findings show that learners of both L1s made a large number of singular and plural forms errors. Type IV is the most common error in both French and Chinese EFL learners, especially at lower L2 proficiency levels. Chinese EFL learners made fewer errors than French EFL learners in Type np5 errors, while French EFL learners did a better job in Type np6 errors. The main reason for the errors was found to be L1 transfer, followed by intralingual interference. Furthermore, pedagogical implications are drawn from the error analysis of French and Chinese EFL learners' skills on singular and plural forms of English nouns.