First Advisor

Majorie Terdal

Term of Graduation

Spring 1988

Date of Publication

5-10-1988

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.) in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Department

English

Language

English

Subjects

English language -- Study and teaching -- Arabic speakers, English language -- Errors of usage, English language -- Rhetoric, English language -- Ability testing

DOI

10.15760/etd.5637

Physical Description

1 online resource (2, vi, 78 pages)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the type, possible source and gravity of errors found in the Test of Written English and Placement Tests compositions written by native speakers of Arabic at college level. The first part of the study is an error analysis designed to reveal the types of errors that are most frequently made by Arab students at college level. The sources of these errors are explained according to Richards' classification of errors as inter- and intralingual (1971). Seven types of errors are identified under interlingual category: articles, prepositions, the copula, embedded questions, pronoun retention, semantic and stylistic errors. Intralingual errors included errors in overgeneralization and ignorance of rule restriction.

The second part of the study is designed to reveal the types of errors made by Arab learners of English that affect the native speaker's understanding of the written text. Twenty grammatically deviant passages and ten semantically deviant ones make up a questionnaire that was designed to measure the effect of different types of errors on communication.

Rights

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Comments

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Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/21157

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