西藏地区藏族高中学生英语写作错误分析.docx

硕士学位论文论文题目西藏地区藏族高中学生英语写作错误分析研究生姓名 指导教师姓名唐 鑫陆明副教授专 业 名 称外国语言学及应用语言学研 究 方 向论文提交日期英语教学2015 年 5 月A Study of Errors in English Writings by Tibetan High School Students in Tibet Autonomous Regionby Tang XinUnder the Supervision ofProfessor Lu MingSubmitted in Partial Fulfillment of the RequirementsFor the Degree of Master of ArtsSchool of Foreign StudiesSuzhou University May 2015iiACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI would like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who have helped me in the past three years in Soochow University when I worked for my M.A. degree.My deepest gratitude first goes to my supervisor, Professor Lu Ming, for her constant help, professional guidance and scholarly enlightenment, from which I have benefited a great deal.Special thanks go to Prof. Su Xiaojun, Prof. Gu Paiya and Prof. Jia Guanjie. It was the courses they offered that first provoked my interest in the area of Second Language Acquisition. Their incisive and brilliant lectures proved most beneficial to my understanding of many of the issues discussed in the present thesis.I would also like to extend my thanks to my colleagues in Lhasa Normal School, Danzeng Baizhen and Dengqing Zhuoma, but for their kind consistent help and assistance, I would not have accomplished this thesis.Tang Xin.ABSTRACTIn recent years, with the social progress and economic development, there are increasing trilinguals or so called three language learners. The cross-linguistic influence in Third Language Learning, as a result, draws more and more concern from linguists and language researchers. However, few studies have been conducted on language transfer among Chinese, Tibetan, and English. This situation is even worse in Tibet Autonomous Region due to various reasons like geographical position, economic condition and underdeveloped educational status. Therefore, very few researches has been done in the aspect of English teaching and learning in this Region, and researches concerning errors in Tibetan high school students English writing are much fewer. To make a change to the present situation, the author launches a study about errors in Tibetan high school students English writing in Lhasa, the biggest habitant of Tibetan minorities as well as the capital city of Tibet. The author conducts this study under an typical authentic linguistic environment of three languages, of which Tibetan, Chinese and English are coexisted, it aims to dig out the features and underlying interlingual causes of error in Tibetan students English writing, so as to provide a deep view on errors made by Tibetan students in their English writing and offer some pedagogical implications for High school English teaching in Tibet Autonomous Region.Taking Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and Language Transfer as the theoretical framework, and under a particular trilingual environment (Tibetan, Chinese and English) in Tibet, the present study proposes to give answers to the following two questions: (1) What errors do Tibetan students make in their English writing? (2) Do the Tibetan students L1 and L2 influence their English writing? 164 Grade Three high school Tibetan students from Lhasa Middle School are selected as subjects. By description, collection, classification and evaluation of errors detected in the English writing samples from the subjects, the author discusses and analyzes types of errors and percentage of each type. Based on the results of this procedure, under the guidance of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, andiiinformation gained from individual interview, each type of errors is further assessed and explained, so as to probe the issue that whether Tibetan students L1 and L2 influence their English writing and which language exerts greater influence.Some findings are obtained through the data analysis. First, there are in general 14 types of errors committed by Tibetan students in their English writing, which can be grouped into two major categories: morphological errors and syntactic errors; second, Tibetan language and Chinese language do influence Tibetan high school students during their English writing process and their L2 (Chinese) exerts greater influence as compared with their L1 (Tibetan).Key Words: Error Analysis, English Writing, Tibetan High School Students摘要近年来，随着社会的进步和经济的发展，三语学习者越来越多，三语学习过程中 的语言迁移现象也引起了越来越多的语言学家和研究者的关注。但在国内，对藏汉英 三种语言之间的相互迁移的研究还很少，特便是在西藏地区，由于地理、经济、教育 等方面的原因，基于藏汉英三语为背景的英语教学方面的研究还非常有限，而有关西 藏地区藏族高中学生英语写作错误的研究则寥寥无几。针对这种情况，本文作者在藏 族最大的聚居地，西藏省会拉萨市，展开了对西藏地区藏族高中学生的英语写作错误 的研究，以期在一个真实典型的三语环境下，挖掘出藏族高中学生英语写作错误的特 点原因和语际原因，此研究有助于加深对西藏地区藏族高中学生英语写作错误的认 识，并为西藏自治区的高中英语教学提供启示。本文以对比分析，错误分析和语言迁移三大理论为理论基础，以西藏自治区藏语， 汉语，英语三语共存的客观事实为研究背景，提出两个研究问题：（1）藏族学生的英 语写作中存在着那些错误？（2）这些错误是否受到他们的第一语言（藏语）和第二 语言（汉语）的影响？本文以 164 名来自西藏拉萨中学的高中三年级藏族学生为研究 对象，通过对他们的英语写作中的错误进行描述、搜集、分类和整理，进而归纳总结 出西藏地区藏族高中学生在英语写作错误中的种类和各种类的比重。在此基础上，采 用定性分析与定量分析相结合的方法，并结合访谈所得到的信息，对每一类错误进行 评估和解释，探讨了在藏族高中学生的英语写作过程中，是否受到其第一语言（藏语） 和第二语言（汉语）影响以及那种语言影响更大的问题。经研究发现，在西藏地区藏族高中学生的英语写作中，共存在 14 种类型的错误，这 14 种类型可归为两大类，即形态错误和句法错误。而在他们的英语写作过程中， 确实受到了来自第一语言（藏语）和第二语言（汉语）的影响，并且第二语言（汉语） 的影响比第一语言（藏语）的影响更大。关键词：错误分析，英语写作,藏族高中生Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTSiABSTRACTii摘要ivTable of ContentsvList of Abbreviations.viiChapter One Introduction11.1 Research background and need for the study11.2 Purpose and significance of the study11.3 Structure of the paper3Chapter Two Literature Review42.1 Theoretical framework42.1.1 Contrastive Analysis42.1.2 Error Analysis62.1.3 Language Transfer112.2 Related Studies Home and Abroad132.2.1 Studies related to error analysis in EFL teaching.132.2.2 Studies related to error analysis on EFL students writings142.2.3 Studies related to error analysis on Tibetan EFL students writings15Chapter ThreeResearch Methodology173.1 Research questions173.2 Participants173.3 Methods173.3.1 Textual analysis173.3.2 Interview183.4 Research procedure183.5 Data collection and analysis18Chapter FourResults and Discussions194.1 Errors committed in Tibetan students English writing194.1.1 Morphological errors204.1.2 Syntactic errors324.2 Influence of L1 and L2 on tibetan students English writings444.2.1 Intralingual errors.454.2.2 Interlingual errors.46Chapter FiveConclusion.535.1 Major findings535.2 Pedagogical Implications545.3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for Further Research55REFERENCE57Appendix I: Writing Samples60Appendix II: Interview Questions62List of AbbreviationsCAContrastive Analysis CAHContrastive Analysis Hypothesis EAError AnalysisEFLEnglish as a Foreign Language ILInterlanguageL1First Language L2Second Language LTLanguage TransferSLASecond Language Acquisition TLTarget LanguageChapter One Introduction1.1 Research background and need for the studyIn present China, a good English speaker may earn higher salary and have more opportunities. As in Lhasa, a remote city in the far west of China, a man with a command of English can provoke envy in his neighborhood and win praise from tourists. Then, it is an urgent task for people there to have a good command of English. Teachers in Tibet Autonomous Region are, to some degree, responsible for the current poor teaching quality and students low efficiency in English learning.Until today, the past 37 years have witnessed remarkable improvement and achievement in the area of English teaching and learning. However, Tibetan Autonomous Region, due to various reasons, lags far behind in this respect, as compared with other regions in China, especially the coastal cities. Consequently, little attention has been paid to researches on English teaching and learning in Tibet Autonomous Region. English writing, as one of the important parts of language learning, has been attracting Chinese researchers attention and fruitful research consequences have been made in this academic field. However, writing, as an integrated part in ones English learning process, has been extremely overlooked in the region; it is both urgent and significant to carry out the present study.1.2 Purpose and significance of the studyOf all 56 nationalities in China, Tibetan nationality, with a large population, stands out with its own culture and history, speaks its own language, and lives by its own life style in the far west part of the country. According to H. D. Brown (2001), language and culture were inextricably correlated. Tibetan students, therefore, fostered by their unique culture, naturally developed their own learning style.Because of the particular bilingual or tri-lingual environment in Tibet, language transfer is definitely unavoidable and, more often than not, overwhelmingly common in Tibetan students English learning progress, it can come from either Tibetan or Chinese or both. As a result, Tibetan students are confronted with more difficulties in their English learning as compared with Hans in inland cities. Besides, other factors as lower economic status, poorer teaching and learning condition, little consideration of their unique learning style, all contribute to Tibetan students poor English proficiency.In recent years, a multitude of researches have been conducted by means of EA in China. However, those concerned with minority students English learning are far from enough, and Tibetan students, as one of the ethnic groups, are extremely overlooked. Till today, very few studies have addressed on Tibetan students English learning, and the studies on Tibetan students English writing with CA and EA theories are much fewer.According to the authors survey in CNKI on Nov 8th, 2013, there are altogether 5dissertations and 7 articles dealing with errors in Tibetan students English writings; however, none of them was conducted in Tibet Autonomous Region. The situation is even worse since all their subjects chosen are either college Tibetan English majors or advanced Tibetan English learners studying in inland cities. In either case, the subjects are mostly top students, the generality or coverage of the research is in question and naturally in need of further research.In this study, 164 Grade Three Tibetan high school students from Lhasa Middle School, an ordinary high school in Lhasa, are chosen as subjects. By analyzing the results of the research, the author will discuss and then analyze the errors from Tibetan students English writings. This study is supposed to provide a particular view on errors made by Tibetan students in their English writing and offer some implications for English teaching in Tibet Autonomous Region.1.3 Structure of the paperThis thesis is structured into five chapters. Chapter One describes the background and the purpose of this study, and the structure of the thesis. Chapter Two briefly reviews the literature on CA, EA and LT; some related researches at home and abroad are also presented. In Chapter Three, the procedures of research design are presented. Chapter Four gives detailed discussion and analysis of the results. Chapter Five informs readers of the major findings, implications on teaching as well as limitations of the research and finally suggestions for further studies.Chapter Two Literature Review2.1 Theoretical frameworkIn his book Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis, James (2001:3) puts forth several common concepts in SLA, and describes some widely used tools concerning attitudes and treatment towards errors language learners make.Figure 1 Points of comparison for successive FL learning paradigmsL1/MTFL/SL (TL)Interlanguage (IL)MT:TL czokmqpari2so0n1s5(1C1o2nt5rastive Analysis) IL:TL comparisons (Error Analysis)MT:IL comparisons (Transfer Analysis)We can easily find out in this figure that three theories enjoy priority in dealing with errors in SLA, i.e. Contrastive Analysis (CA), Error Analysis (EA), and Transfer Analysis (TA), which serves as the foundational theories of this study. In this chapter, the author will give a detailed description of these theories one by one.2.1.1 Contrastive Analysis2.1.1.1 A brief Introduction of CAIn the 1950s and 1960s, an age of behaviorism, Contrastive Analysis was the most favored paradigm for researches in Second Language Learning. The popularity of CA owns much to Robert Lado and his reputed book Linguistics Across Cultures published in 1957, in which he introduced a comparison between the Mother Tongue of a person and hissecond language, namely CA. Contrastive Analysis (CA) is based on the hypothesis that “language learners like transferring the forms and meanings of their Mother Tongue to the foreign language they are going to learn”. According to Lado, it is the difference between the two language systems where the largest problem in any language learning hides. As a result, the focus of any language teaching should be only on the difference between two languages instead of the similarity.Based on Lados theory, Wardhaugh (1970) proclaimed two versions of CA Hypothesis: the strong version and the weak version. The strong version of this hypothesis claims to be able to predict the errors; however, the weak version is supposed to be used to identify errors after they are made by the language learner. Both versions received challenges and criticisms.Politzer (1978) stated, CA can highlight and predict the difficulties and errors of learners during their L2 learning. At that time, the American structuralists such as Noam Chomsky sticks to the idea that the basic problems in L2 learning are not caused by any fundamental difficulty in the new lanzgkuqage 2bu0t1e5s1se1n2ti5ally from learners L1 habits.Weinreich (1953) claimed that in second language learning, differences lead to difficulties, and difficulties lead to problems. That is to say, the greater the difference between two systems, the greater learning difficulty is. This opinion directly paved the way for Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH): “where two languages were similar, positive transfer would occur; where they were different, negative transfer, or interference, would happen” (Larsen & Long 2000). The underlying implication of this statement is: differences between the learners NL and TL will bring about difficulties which result in errors; yet, on the other hand, similarities between these two languages will facilitate their second language learning