A Study on the Use of Locative Prepositions by Chinese English Majors in English Writing

Abstract

This study aims to examine 40 Chinese English majors’ use of locative prepositions in English writing. The students were randomly selected from the English department of a private university in Fujian, China. They were first informed of the purpose of the study, followed by being required to participate in an English writing activity. Through the analysis of the collected 40 writing samples, the researchers of the study discovered that the prepositions “on”, “in” and “by” are the most frequently used in the participants’ writing; the prepositions “above”, “under” and “among” are the least frequently used. The locative preposition “in” has the highest frequency of use and also has the highest error frequency. Moreover, the error types that occur in the 40 Chinese college students’ use of prepositions (including locative prepositions) in English writing mainly include preposition redundancy, preposition omission, and misuse of prepositions.