Definite and Indefinite Article Misuse Among Saudi Students Learning English as a Second Language

Abstract

This study was designed to observe and demonstrate common errors with regard to definite and indefinite English articles made by language learners. An in-depth quantitative analysis was then conducted to discover the causes behind the errors, and recommendation for improvement was suggested. For the purpose of the study, thirty (30) Saudi ESL students were randomly selected to test their awareness of definite and indefinite English articles. They were given the task to translate 28 simple Arabic sentences to English and were allowed thirty minutes to complete the job. Following an analysis of responses, it was revealed that while many errors were made by students when using articles, the misuse of the definite article "the" was the most frequent error, followed by the omission of the indefinite article "a". However, the omission of the indefinite article "an" was the least common error. The facts and figures also showed that along with Arabic interference, the misuse of a particular rule of English grammar, the target language, was also a major source of errors. Results exhibited that 87% of the errors were interlingual, illustrating the influence of the native language. In contrast, intralingual errors indicated 12.5% of article errors. The result clearly pointed to the fact that L1 interference had drastically affected the process of acquiring English articles.