Linguistic Errors Research Articles

Detection and correction of linguistic errors: results according to linguistic preferences and uses

This paper examines the ability of 256 university students to detect and correct errors related to different linguistic aspects of Catalan, by means of a test including correct and incorrect sentences. The sentences included aspects of Catalan prescriptive grammar, errors caused by interference from Spanish, and discursive aspects (adequacy, coherence and cohesion). In addition to that, the ability of the students has also been linked to data from their language use and linguistic experience in the following areas: language spoken in the family, language spoken with friends, and formal and informal languages of preference. The results show that students whose preferred language is Spanish or either Spanish or Catalan are less competent than those using Catalan on a regular basis. Taking into account the type of error, students who use preferably Spanish or both languages show significantly worse results in the error detection task (in sentences containing grammar and interference errors) than those who prefer Catalan. In contrast, no significant differences are shown regarding discourse errors when the students' linguistic use is considered.

Presentations on business topics in L3 Russian: What should we learn from the evaluation by natives?

The paper focuses on oral presentations for business purposes in a foreign language (Russian). As an audio-visual discourse type, presentations require general communicative skills, presentation techniques, language proficiency, and the knowledge of culturally embedded, pragmatic practices which meet the expectations of the auditory. Against this background, this paper examines how native speakers of Russian perceive presentations by Russian speaking foreigners. This perceptual approach allows us to analyze a large complex of linguistic and non-linguistic features of presentations and to shed light on the expectations built up towards the realization of this discourse type within a certain language culture. Special attention is paid to linguistic characteristics of spoken communication that lead to the perception of a non-native accent, and towards the qualitative and quantitative impact of different types of linguistic errors on the evaluations by a native auditory.

Interlanguage Fossilization in Chinese EFL Writing—An Empirical Research of 20 English Major Students

This research is designed to investigate interlanguage fossilization in Chinese college students’ written output. Twelve common linguistic errors from 20 Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) learners’ writing assignments are observed. Results show that among 12 typical errors, five types of errors are declining while the rest are increasing, indicating a tendency towards fossilization. Analysis shows that negative/corrective feedback has played a key role in reducing fossilization of some errors, but it does not work in every case. Some errors tend to be fossilized for several reasons. First, language items that do not have a direct form-function relationship are likely to be fossilized. Second, advanced learners create their own language system and neglect the basic rules of grammar. Third, task difficulty takes learners’ attention away from form to meaning. Fourth, ingrained thinking patterns have a great impact on how learners organize their thoughts in writing. It is true that many Chinese EFL advanced learners reach a plateau in the process of acquiring English. However, attention, consciousness, and training of self-monitoring ability will help destabilize their interlanguage system.

A Comparison of Linguistic Errors of Iranian EFL Learners at Two Different Levels of Proficiency

This descriptive case study aimed to analyze syntactical, morphological and lexical errors produced by Iranian EFL learners at two different levels of basic and elementary. The proposed hypothesis predicted that there exist considerable differences between the errors produced by the participants with respect to their origin (interlingual, intralingual or developmental errors) as well as the type of error (lexical or grammatical). To this end, four Iranian EFL learners at basic level and four at elementary level, attending English language classes at Iran Language Institute were chosen using purposeful sampling. A test of proficiency was administered to ensure the participants in each group are homogenous regarding the level of proficiency. The participants’ performance in both oral and written activities as well as planned and unplanned ways were meticulously observed and recorded by the researcher in a six-month period. In addition to observation, data were also obtained through interviews and tests given at intervals of every two months to investigate any potential change. The qualitative data were coded, categorized and interpreted cyclically. It was concluded that learners at higher levels of proficiency produced more developmental and intralingual errors than learners at basic levels. Also learners at basic levels produced more interlingual errors. In addition learners at basic levels produced more grammatical errors than learners at elementary levels. On the other hand, learners at elementary level produced more lexical errors.

The effects of paper-based DDL on the acquisition of lexico-grammatical patterns in L2 writing

AbstractThis paper examines whether and to what extent data-driven learning (DDL) activities can improve the lexico-grammatical use of abstract nouns in L2 writing. A topic-based corpus was compiled to develop concordance learning activities, and 40 Chinese students majoring in English were randomly assigned to a control group or an experimental group. At the prewriting stage, both groups were given a list of five abstract nouns: the experimental group was provided with paper-based concordance lines to study the collocations of the words, while the control group was allowed to consult dictionaries for the usage of the words. The written texts of the pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test were analysed and compared between and within groups. The results showed that the written output by the experimental group, as compared with the control group, contained a higher variety of collocational and colligational patterns and had fewer linguistic errors in using the target abstract nouns. The post-experiment learning journals and questionnaires administered to the experimental group further confirmed that concordance activities encouraged usage-based learning, helped students notice the lexical collocations and prepositional colligations of the target words, and thus improved accuracy and complexity in their productive language. Despite these positive findings, potential problems of using concordance activities for independent learning were also reflected in the students’ written output and reported in the learning journals.

The right of pre-emption in the enforcement procedure in Serbia

This article raises the issue of compatibility of the amendments of the rules for enforcement sale of real property for the satisfaction of monetary claims with the concept of the right of pre-emption. Linguistic error in the amendments, where one word (conjunction) was dropped, has completely changed the effect and meaning of the right of pre-emption. Such an error cannot be deemed as irrelevant or harmless, not only because it cannot be reconciled with the overall enforcement framework, but also because it contradicts other regulations granting the right of pre-emption. Contradictions within the legal system open the door for legal uncertainty. It is the duty of legislature to avoid such contradictions. Equally, it is the duty of academia to raise such issues and initiate necessary reforms.

Paroles reprises, erreur et fluence dans les narrations orales spontanées des apprenants de français langue étrangère

This paper reports a study that investigated self-corrections in spontaneous oral narratives. Seventeen adults students of French as a foreign language were asked to imagine the story from a cartoon and a short silent film. Their performances were recorded and then transcribed. The corpus obtained contains 17255 words. The aim of the study is to provide surface descriptions and classifications of self-corrections and to determine their relationships to linguistic error. Four major types of self-corrections were distinguished: morphological, syntactic, semantic and lexical. The analysis shows that self-corrections are not only a mecanism used to repair errors but also a strategy used by the learners to buy time for lexical search and to promote greater oral fluency. Different cases of improved fluency via self-corrections are discussed, where prefabricated language also seems to play a strategic role.

Teksty modlitw eucharystycznych w świetle najnowszych zasad pisowni słownictwa religijnego

The article discusses the texts of eucharistic prayers from the perspective of recent religious vocabulary spelling rules approved by the Polish Language Council in 2010 and published in 2011. The article presents the characteristics of the most common linguistic errors that appear in the titles and texts of prayers. Both of them concern misspellings and punctuation errors. The first group of aberrations concern too frequent use of the capital letter and the wrong spelling of periphrases. The Author admit that although the writers may use capital letter by emotional reasons, nevertheless, they should use this consciously and responsibly as to not to obliterate the differences of meaning between words.

Not to Teach but Give Insights: Corpus-based Approach in Portuguese-English and Portuguese-Russian Cross-linguistic Error Correction

Foreign language learners make mechanical errors caused by cross-linguistic influence. It comes from trying to extract information from a native language (L1) and apply it in a second or foreign language (L2/FL). There are not many didactic materials proposing a set of techniques that train the skills to keep L1 and L2/FL apart and help students to reduce cross- linguistic errors. In alternative to a traditional rule-based teaching, a corpus-based approach provides a framework for exploring online corpora to give insights into authentic language use. The paper describes the types of errors caused by cross-linguistic Portuguese-English and Portuguese-Russian influence, and illustrates how some monolingual and bilingual online corpora may be rich sources for raising learner's awareness to face such linguistic obstacles.

On the Social Nature of Linguistic Prescriptions

Abstract The paper proposes an empirical method to investigate linguistic prescriptions as inherent corrective behaviors. The behaviors in question may but need not necessarily be supported by any explicit knowledge of rules. It is possible to gain insight into them, for example by extracting information about corrections from revision histories of texts (or by analyzing speech corpora where users correct themselves or one another). One easily available source of such information is the revision history of Wikipedia. As is shown, the most frequent and short corrections are limited to linguistic errors such as typos (and editorial conventions adopted in Wikipedia). By perusing an automatically generated revision corpus, one gains insight into the prescriptive nature of language empirically. At the same time, the prescriptions offered are not reducible to descriptions of the most frequent linguistic use.

Grammatical Errors and Feedback

This article discusses selected theoretical aspects of providing error feedback for language learners. The discussion focuses on feedback for grammatical errors, but many of its tenets appear to be of broader relevance. The theoretical considerations concerning the dialog with the learner about linguistic errors are discussed, and some conclusions for CALL system design will be drawn. This discussion focuses on errors in written text production and occasionally draws on examples from parser-based CALL, in particular on insights gained during the work on Textanaa prototype of a grammar checker for English-speaking learners of German.

Contribution de la linguistique à l’enseignement du français by Beatrice Pothier

data was examined by teams from two other countries. Each team receiving data was asked to reflect on the practices they observed and relate them to what occurs in their own context. This feedback was then sent back to the originating team of researchers. One chapter, “Des actes de langage dans les classes de FLE/FLS à Suceava, Roumanie: comparaison avec Marseille et Sao Paolo” illustrates les regards croisés by presenting what the Romanian team learned about their own pedagogical practices after reviewing and reflecting upon their data, as well as the explicit reflections that they received from their partner teams. In addition to the introductory chapters, the book features articles from five teams presenting a synthesis of their individual research findings and articles from five additional teams exploring in greater depth one particular aspect of their research. It concludes with an article by Carton highlighting the difficulties encountered in directly comparing the results from one country to another, even with the explicit protocol that each followed, and pointing the way to future research. Readers will not come away with many insights on how to teach French or integrate culture into the teaching of French; they will most certainly gain a better understanding, however, of how one’s own culture informs pedagogical practice. There are some fascinating insights sprinkled among the various articles, invoking what the researchers have learned about their teaching through close observation and analysis of their own teaching practices, those of others, and the reflections of colleagues from a different culture. This preliminary volume should interest both scholars of pedagogy, as well as reflective practitioners, and will hopefully encourage others to engage in classroom research, observation, and reflection of their own practices. University of Maryland, College Park Mary Ellen Scullen POTHIER, BÉATRICE. Contribution de la linguistique à l’enseignement du français. Québec: PU du Québec, 2011. ISBN 978-2-7605-3145-1. Pp. xi + 181. 19 a. The premise of Pothier’s book is a valuable one: many teachers may have misconceptions about the linguistic errors that their students make; therefore a better understanding of the structure of the French language will ultimately allow them to better understand their students’ difficulties. A specific goal is to offer guidance for helping French-speaking children make the difficult leap from oral to written language. Contribution de la linguistique thus aims to introduce French schoolteachers to some basic linguistic concepts and to help them anticipate , as well as interpret, the mistakes that their students will inevitably make. Throughout the volume, Pothier repeatedly underlines the vast difference between the spoken and written language, often discussing the historical evolution of French. She also stresses the importance of recognizing how literacy can bias our perceptions of language, giving the teacher an erroneous impression of a direct and logical relationship between the written code and the spoken word. Following the introductory chapter, the book begins on a promising note with a discussion of phonetics and phonology and the inevitable confusion that children will experience when trying to transfer their oral competence in French to the written word. For example, Pothier points out that a student who spells the word absent as “apsent” has made a logical spelling error related to the devoicing of the 1236 FRENCH REVIEW 86.6 bilabial stop (although any literate adult might believe that this word’s orthography perfectly reflects its pronunciation). The following chapter continues with the closely related topic of determining word boundaries in spoken language and teaching students to write correctly. This issue naturally raises questions of what constitutes a “word,” particularly in relation to compound nouns such as sac à dos, which students might attempt to spell as “sacados.” Pothier recommends helping students sort through their mental lexicons, trying to identify different phrases or expressions in which a word may appear (for example, sac-poubelle, sac de couchage). From these two initial chapters and their clear and concrete examples and implications , the book ventures into more abstract territory, discussing the arbitrary relationship between signifiant and signifié (to illustrate this point, Pothier presents the numerical systems of a handful of foreign languages); synonymy and polysemy; language functions (including communicative and cognitive, but also metalinguistic and...

An Investigation of Errors in the Oral Performance of Advanced-level Iranian EFL Students

The skill of speaking in a non-native language has been the subject of many scholarly investigations and different aspects of it have been meticulously examined in recent decades. However, one dimension of this crucial foreign language skill, i.e. errors of advanced language learners, has apparently received less than adequate attention as the bulk of relevant research has focused almost exclusively on speaking errors of beginning-level and intermediate-level learners. To delve into this under-researched line of research, the researcher benefited from the oral performances of a group of twenty advanced-level Iranian students of English. The oral presentations of the participants were recorded and then grammatical, lexical and pronunciational errors featuring in them were identified, categorized and analyzed. The findings illustrate that, contrary to what might be assumed, advanced-level learners commit numerous errors in all the foregoing categories, especially in pronunciation and grammar. The findings, therefore, reveal the need for more scholarly research on linguistic errors of advanced-level EFL learners. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n4p171

Measuring linguistic accuracy in an EFL writing class: An electronic communication channel

Overemphasis on error correction may lead U students to perform writing tasks in a stressed condition, while an electronic communications channel (i.e., an online discussion board) tends to provide a social space to produce written communicative data through the interaction among peer students in a more natural setting. From a social-cultural perspective, this study examined the effects that corrective feedback could have on the improvement in writing accuracy in the use of prepositions and the subject-verb agreement, the most frequently permitted error categories by L2 writers, over a semester. Written communication data produced by 25 students participating in an online discussion board during the semester were used to examine the effects of feedback on writing accuracy. A two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures and descriptive statistics were performed to examine mean differences in accuracy scores over three treatment time and to analyze the improvement in writing accuracy observed on the discussion board. The results showed that the effect of both direct and indirect corrective feedback on accuracy levels in the use of two linguistic errors was found to be significant in the set of post tests conducted in class. However, such an improvement in writing accuracy was not immediate in written data associated with an electronic communication channel. Specifically, an analysis of the communication data L2 students produced through the interaction with their peers did not support the role of corrective feedback hi students` writing accuracy. Unlike other studies emphasizing on the teaching practices of error correction at the local level, this study argues that the improvement in writing accuracy would be viewed as a natural progress of writing process. (Molqm Nidional Umveedty).

CAMINHOS PARA A SELEÇÃO DA NOMINATA DE UM DICIONÁRIO DE FALSOS AMIGOS

In this text, on the one hand, Durão and Werner propose that false friends refer both to the interlinguistic lemmatic pairs phonologic or morphlogically equal or similar, which, partaking or not the same etymon, disagree in at least one of its significations, and to the lemmatic pairs which have structural, orthographic and genre divergences between one language and the other. On the other hand, they focus their attention on the importance of taking data proceeding from contrastive analyses and from the analyses of the systematic linguistic errors produced by learners of the languages concerned as a foundation for the elaboration of a dictionary of false friends (DiFAPE). Such a dictionary is foremost addressed to speakers of Brazilian Portuguese who are students of Spanish as a foreign language or teachers of that language.

Written Languaging, Direct Correction, and Second Language Writing Revision

It has been argued that languaging plays a crucial role in learning a second language (L2). The effects of languaging, especially oral languaging (e.g., collaborative dialogue, private speech), have been tested on the learning of L2 knowledge domains. This study explored the effects of written languaging by asking 24 Japanese learners of English to write out their own explanations in Japanese of the corrections they received on a draft they had written. The effects of the type (e.g., grammar based vs. lexis based) of written languaging were then assessed by inspecting the success of immediate subsequent text revisions. Two major findings emerged. First, written languaging about direct feedback on linguistic errors in the first essay helped learners successfully correct these errors during immediate revision. Second, both lexis‐ and grammar‐based written languaging were associated with improved accuracy. These findings support arguments that providing learners with the opportunity to language about or reflect on their developing linguistic knowledge in the course of L2 learning mediates L2 learning and development. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are also discussed.

Kognitywne aspekty glottodydaktyki. Czeski student wobec pułapek komunikatywności

Foreign language learners are commonly taught explicit rules of grammar, but often fail to apply them when confronted with communicative tasks. The article provides analyses on linguistic errors encountered by teachers during language teaching processes effected in homogeneous, all-Czech groups participating in language courses. Additionally, the article discusses the problem of comprehending the glottodidactical (language education) process within the context of a particular communicative situation (cognitive approach). The main focus of the study relates to competitive planes that are subject to the occurence of linguistic interference. A particular attention is given to pronunciation, grammar (inflection and syntax), and to lexis. For primarily Czech-speaking users of the Polish language, the biggest difficulty as far as the pronunciation is concerned, is the pronunciation of alveolo-palatal consonants and palatal hard consonants that are not appropriately differntiated in their realisation (this refers in particular to [ś] and [s], but also to [c] and [c] ). A similar problem occurs in vowels – a hard vowel [y] is frquently replaced by a soft vowel [i]. A considerable number of occurences of the dental-alveolar [l] in place of the expected [] is identified and discussed. Within the domain of inflection, the article addresses the problem of the apparent equivalence at the level of the plural nominative and singular genetive of masculine nouns (the occurence of regular interference has been demonstrated), whereas a syntactical analysis has made it possible to indicate modifications at the linear level of utterances that are mainly related to an erroneous location of the Polish reflexive pronoun “sie”. With regard to lexis, the division of difficulties to be found within the glottodidactical process is raised (semantic, stylistical and onimic difficulties). Additionally, the article discusses the danger of the abuse of colloquial vocabulary in communiques created in informal situations. Key words: teaching of Polish as

Rehabilitation Targeted at Everyday Communication: Can We Change the Talk of People With Aphasia and Their Significant Others Within Conversation?

Wilkinson R, Wielaert S. Rehabilitation targeted at everyday communication: can we change the talk of people with aphasia and their significant others within conversation? Objective To investigate whether aphasia therapy can change the talk of speakers with aphasia and/or their significant others within conversation. Design Small number of intervention studies targeting conversations involving speakers with aphasia are reviewed. All are single case studies. Setting Key assessment in the studies was an audio or video recording of 1 or more conversations between the dyad, usually made in the home setting. Intervention in these studies took place in the participants' home or another setting, such as a therapy room. Participants In all of the studies reviewed, the participants consisted of a person with aphasia (PWA) and a significant other, usually the PWA's spouse. Interventions In all studies, therapy took the form of a behavioral intervention involving the provision of feedback to the significant other and/or PWA on their conversational behaviors uncovered by a conversation analysis assessment. Handouts, transcripts, discussion, and video feedback were used. Suggestions to permit participants to cope better with the effects of aphasia within conversation were given, and opportunities for practicing these strategies within conversation were provided. Main Outcome Measures Postintervention, 1 or more conversations involving the PWA and significant other were recorded in the same manner as the preintervention. Conversations were analyzed in relation to changes in the behaviors targeted in intervention, such as those involved in topic initiation or repair of linguistic errors. Results Each of the studies reviewed presented evidence that the talk of people with aphasia and/or their significant others can be changed in conversation. In some studies the evidence is primarily qualitative, in the form of observed changes to conversational behaviors postintervention. Some studies produce stronger evidence by combining qualitative and quantitative analyses of change. Conclusions There is evidence that intervention targeting conversations involving an aphasic speaker can achieve change. Future studies should move beyond single case designs, include more robust, quantifiable evidence of change, and provide evidence of maintenance of change.

Korean linguistic Errors on Written Tests of Science in Middle School 7th Grade

Korean linguistic Errors on Written Tests of Science in Middle School 7th Grade

Analysing of EFL Learners' Linguistic Errors: Evidence from Iranian Translation Trainees

This paper aims to investigate the Linguistic errors of Iranian translation trainees. The question this study tries to answer is what the most frequent linguistic errors of English translation students are. To answer this question 50 junior students of translation training programme from the Islamic Azad University of Lahijan participated in the experiment. They were selected randomly from among 80 students who participated in an OPT general proficiency test. They were given 20 Persian sentences. The sentences were simple, declarative, affirmative and active. For the analysis of errors “Corder's” taxonomy was used. The analysis indicated that the errors resulting from wrong selection of words, permutation and errors of incorrect use of tenses were the most frequent errors respectively.