Chapter One Introduction
1.1 General description of the study
The present study aims to investigate the errors in senior high school students，English argumentative writings. The participants involved in the research were 102senior two students from two parallel classes in Yangzhou middle school. Thetheoretical bases of this research are Contrastive Analysis，Error Analysis andInterlanguage.The research questions to be addressed in this study are as follows:
1. What types of errors are there in senior high school students' Englishargumentative writings?
2. What are the lexical errors made by senior high school students in their Englishargumentative writings?
3. What are the syntax errors made by senior high school students in their Englishargumentative writings?
4. What are the discourse errors made by senior high school students in their Englishargumentative writings?
102 students from two classes of senior two in Yangzhou middle schoolparticipated in the study. Two instruments were employed in this study. One was awriting test and tihie other was a questionnaire. All the data in this study, includingerrors in the writings and the results of questionnaire were collected by the author.Data collection included two parts: one was sorting out all the errors in students'writings and inputting the results into computer; another one was sorting out theamount of each choice in the questionnaire and inputting the results into computer.Data analysis involved calculating the amount of each type of errors in the writingsand the percentage of each choice in the questionnaire.
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1.2 Motivations for the study
The researcher was motivated to do this study for two reasons; one was theinadequate English writing ability of senior high school students，and the other wasthe inadequate research on senior high school students' English argumentativewriting in China,Firstly, during the process of English teaching in China，we have been fumblingaround in total darkness. And through the change of teaching notions andmethodologies and curriculum reform, we have improved the quality of Englishteaching on some extent Especially, large numbers of people have realized theimportance of communicative function. More and more emphasis was placed on oralEnglish classes. However，as an output capacity，English writing didn't improveaccordingly. Though English teachers have made great efforts，it receives little effectand students' writing ability cannot reach the expected goal. There is no doubt thatthe errors in the writing are the main reasons to lead the poor writing. This thesiscollected the writing materials in grade two in Yangzhou middle school. Accordingto the study, the fimdamental causes which lead to the senior hi动 school students'errors in English argumentative writing are expected to find out. Besides, with thehelp of previous research and the internship experience of the author, some teachingimplications which show positive impact on English writing teaching will be putforward.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Definition of errors in this study
Before analyzing the errors made by English learners，it is necessary for us tounderstand the definition of errors. However, various definitions of errors have beengiven from different perspectives by different specialists and scholars:In Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics，error is putby Richards as the use of a linguistic item in a way which affluent or native speakerof the language regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning (Jack C. Richards,John Piatt，Heidi Piatt 2002:159).Errors are the flowed side of learner speech or writing. They are those parts ofconversation or composition that deviates from some selected norm of maturelanguage performance (Dulay，Burt & Krashen 1982:138).Error is a linguistic form or combination of forms which, in the same contextand under similar conditions of production would，in all likelihood, not be producedby native speaker counterparts (Lennon，1991:182).Errors refer generally to the learners' misuse or misunderstanding of the targetlanguage, may it be grammatical or pragmatic (Hu Zhuanglin et, al. 1988:329).Errors refer to a deviation from the norms of the TL (R. Ellis 1994:51)，and alanguage error is an unsuccessful bit of language (James 2001).
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2.2 Theoretical foundations in this study
As a theoretical hypothesis formula, CA was popular during the 1950s to 1960s.The researchers of this theory insisted that by comparing and contrasting thelearners' LI or NL with the L2，new insights could be achieved in the languagelearning process.The early purpose of CA was to deal with some problems of second languagelearning and teaching. As Lado (1957)，one of main initiators of CA, states，the teacher who had made a comparison of the foreign language with the nativelanguage of the students will know better what the real problems are and can providefor teaching them'. The publication of Linguistics Across Cultures by Robert Ladobecame the real beginning of CA. In his book, the writer believes ttiat by comparingthe language and the culture to be learned with the native language and culture of thelearner systematically, the patterns that will cause difficulty in learning can bepredicted and described.
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Chapter Three Methodology.......... 19
3.1 Research questions.......... 19
3.2 Research designs.......... 19
Chapter Four Results and Discussions.......... 23
4.1 General description of errors in senior high school.......... 23
4.2 Lexical errors in senior high school students' English..........24
4.2.1 Word spelling errors.......... 24
4.2.2 Word collocation errors.......... 25
4.2.3 Word class errors.......... 26
4.3 Syntax errors in senior high school students' English..........28
4.3.1 Errors of function words.......... 28
4.3.2 Clause errors .......... 30
4.3.3 Sentences structure errors.......... 31
4.4 Discourse errors in senior high school students' English.......... 34
4.4.1 Lack of cohesion and coherence 35
4.4.2 Lack of clarity 37Chapter Five Conclusion..........39
5.1 Major Findings .......... 39
5.2 Pedagogical implications.......... 40
5.3 Limitations and suggestions for future studies ..........42
Chapter Four Results and Discussions
This chapter reports the results in the order of the research questions raised inChapter Three, and it tries to explain the reasons with the help of the results of thequestionnaire. It consists of four parts: the first part reports the genial description oferrors in students' English argumentative writings; the second part reports the lexicalerrors in senior high school students' English argumentative writings; the next twoparts report the syntax errors in senior high school students' English argumentativewritings and discourse errors in senior high school students' English argumentativewritings respectively. The table below shows the distribution of errors collected from the writingsamples. These errors are collected in terms of the classification of Carl James’ levelsand the real situation of senior hi迪 school students’ English writings. This researchmainly focuses on the three most frequent errors (lexical errors, syntax errors anddiscourse errors). Each of them will be discussed one by one in detail.
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Conclusion
This chapter consists of three sections. The first section summarizes the majorfindings yielded in the present study. The second section briefly discusses somepedagogical implications on the basis of the findings. The third section points outsome limitations of this study and some suggestions are also made for futureresearch in this field. Firstly，the number of lexical errors is 178，which accounts for 28.6% in thetotal number of errors, ranking the second among the three types of errors. Lexicalerrors were classified into three parts in this research: word spelling, wordcollocation and word class，among which word spelling errors have the largestamount which take up 13.3%. Besides, the numbers of word collocation errors andword class errors are 53 and 42，occupying 8.6% and 6,7% in all the lexical errorsrespectively. It can be concluded from the writing samples and questionnaires thatinter-lingual interference and students' bad writing habits are two major sources oflexical errors. In the process of language learning, learners often transfer the usagesand rales of native language to target language improperly. Generally speaking,when learners have some difficulties in the process of learning, they will turn to theirmother tongue or native languages for help. Besides, students' bad writing habitsincrease the frequency of lexical errors. Without good habits, there may be morelexical errors in English writing.
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Reference (omitted)