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Comparative Analysis of the Fossilized Errors in English Writing of Middle School and High School Students

Author: XingLiNa
Tutor: WangLinHai
School: Yanshan University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: English writing fossilization error analysis
CLC: G633.41
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2013
Downloads: 4
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Abstract

English is Chinese students’ secondary language. During the process of Englishlearning, fossilization is a natural phenomenon. Studies show that most L2learners fail toreach target language competence for some reasons. At some point in the learner’s path ofdevelopment, no further learning appears possible, and this is called Plateau period. Thisphenomenon is what we called fossilization. This phenomenon also exists in secondlanguage learners’ English writing study. It is one of the bottlenecks which restrict theimprovement of English Writing.In order to search the law of development of fossilization, and find effective ways ofreducing fossilization, the author has collected and analyzed the language errors of100senior high school students’ final examination compositions and the same compositionswrote by100junior middle school students; then try to find out the similarities anddifferences of the error types and error numbers. The result shows that the number of someerrors will be less or even disappear as the learners’ learning time increasing while someerrors will exist through the whole process of learning and repeat themselves time andtime again. This research is conducted on the basis of EA (Error Analysis)theory，Fossilization and combined with previous research achievements. The author combinesthe quantitative and qualitative methods and compares it from the following aspects:substance errors, text errors, pragmatic errors and discourse errors. From the perspectiveof empirical analysis, the author classified and count the statistical quantity of errors in the200compositions. Based on the cross-sectional analysis and longitudinal analysis of theerrors committed by the students in junior middle school and senior high school in theircompositions, the author tries to find out what kind of linguistic material is likely to befossilized. In order to see the changes of number in different learning stages better andfind out the fossilized language materials, the author uses the form of tables to present it;and combined with the previous research achievement and the results of the questionnairefor students and interviews of teachers, the author puts forward some possible causes offossilization in second language acquisition. At the end of the paper, some correspondingstrategies for preventing and surmounting the obstacles were provided, in the hope to promote student’ writing proficiency and reduce the influence of fossilization to thelowest.In the end, according to the current situation of English language teaching in juniormiddle school and senior high school, some English pedagogical suggestions are putforward. The author proposes that both teachers and students should pay attention to thesignificance of errors in the process of English learning, especially those highly appearingerrors. It is hoped that the results can help the teachers be aware of the characteristics ofthe students’ English writing learning and error committing at different stages. Accordingto the research result, teachers can get a comprehensive understanding of students’language situation. And the author also provides some suggestions on language cultureteaching and writing teaching approach. Hopefully, the study will be helpful to both theEnglish learners and English teachers in middle schools.

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