ANALYZING THE PROBLEMS FACED BY MONOLINGUALS AND BILINGUALS DEVELOPING “GENITIVE CASE” IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Mohammadreza Valizadeh, Parisa Baghchesaraei

Abstract


The objective of the present study was to find out whether the monolinguals and bilinguals learning English as a foreign language in Iran commit similar or different errors in learning the different types of the genitive case. A total number of 120 male and female English learners at three levels of English proficiency took part in the study. Out of these participants, 60 were monolinguals whose native language was Persian and 60 were bilinguals who spoke Turkish as the first language and Persian as the second one. They were selected randomly from different Iranian EFL learning institutes. To collect the learners’ errors, a genitive test based on possible errors due to interference from Turkish and Persian language was designed and administered. To ensure the reliability of the test, the internal consistency of ‘Chronbach’s Alpha’ was employed. The errors of the two groups (Monolinguals & Bilinguals) were identified and classified according to the different types of genitive case. Then, the sources of the errors were established by the principles of ‘error analysis’. The results indicated that both groups committed similar errors, though to a varying degree. The sources of errors seem to be attributed to transfer from both Turkish and Persian language. Another finding is that, the similarities between languages, either between Persian and English or between Turkish and English did not prevent their speakers from committing errors; in conclusion, the idea of positive transfer due to similarities between native and target language needs to be treated cautiously. This study confirms the effect of the negative transfer from both the mother tongue and the second language on the target language

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter

DOI

Keywords


genitive case, bilinguals, monolinguals

References


Ahmadvand, M., 2008. Analyzing errors of Iranian EFL learners in their written productions. Retrieved March 27, 2009.

Bayat, F. 2012. An analysis of the effect of Persian as a native language on the learning of possessive adjectives and pronouns of English as an EFL on the basis of contrastive Analysis”. (Unpublished Master’s thesis). Faculty of literature and foreign languages, Payame Noor University, Tehran.

Brown, H. D. 2007. Principles of language learning and teaching. 5th-ed. White Plains, New York: Pearson Education.

Corder, S.P. 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Hedeshi, M. S. 2012. A contrastive analysis of tenses in English Persina. (Unpublished Master’s thesis). Faculty of literature and foreign languages, Azad University, Tehran.

Jafarpour, A. A., & Koosha, M. 2006. Data-driven learning and teaching collocation of prepositions: the case of Iranian EFL students. Journal of faculty of letters and Humanities. Asian EFL Journal, 8(4), 192-209. From http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/...

James, C. (1980). Contrastive Analysis. London: Longman.

Keshavarz, M. H., & Astaneh, H. 2004. “The impact of bilinguality on the learning of English Vocabulary as a foreign language (L3). Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 7(4): 295- 302. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mohammad_Keshavarz6/...English-Vocabulary-as-a-Foreign-Language-L3.pdf

Khodabandeh, F., 2007. Analysis of students' errors: The case of headlines. The Asian ESP Journal, 3(1): 6-21.

Muguiro, N.F., 2013. Genitives and of possessive structures and their use constraints for Argentinian EFL learners: A reflective stance towards grammar errors. Argentinian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1): 34-44. Retrieved from http://www.faapi.org.ar/ajal/issues/101/AJALVol1(1).pdf#page=35

Nayernia, M., 2011. Writing errors, what they can tell a teacher? MJAL, 3(2): 200-218. Retrieved from http://www.mjal.org/removedprofiles/...pdf

Olofin, A.O., 2013. Effects Of Bilingualism On The Essays Of Yoruba/English Bilinguals. European Journal of Arts and Humanities, 1(1): 36-47. From http://www.marynsam.com/uploads/1/4/0/7/14075053/effects_of_bilingualism_on_the_essays.pdf

Pallant, J, 2013. SPSS Survival Manual: A Step by Step guide to data analysis using IBM SPSS. (5th ed.). Berkshire, England, Open University Press.

Sattari, A. 2012. An analysis of grammatical errors in Iranian students' English Writings. Iranian EFL Journal, 8(2): 143-157. Retrieved from http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/...

Selinker, L, 1992. Rediscovering Interlanguage. Longman Inc., New York.

Sokeng, P. C. 2014. Grammatical Errors of Bilingual 1 Francophone Learners of English in the University of Yaounde I. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(9): 1778-1785. doi: 10.4304/tpls.4.9.1778-1785

Ziahosseiny, S. M. 2006. Contrastive Analysis of Persian and English & Error Analysis. Tehran: Rahnema publications.

منابع فارسی

بساطی، هوشنگ و شهلا رقیب دوست؛ بررسی تولید ساختار be-passive زبان انگلیسی توسط زبان آموزان فارسی زبان از دیدگاه دستور ساختاری شناختی؛ مجله پژوهش های زبانی؛ دانشگاه تهران؛ دوره 4، شماره 1، صفحه 41-60؛ بهار و تابستان 1392؛ https://jolr.ut.ac.ir/article_35923_3097.html




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejfl.v0i0.781

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright © 2015 - 2023. European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching (ISSN 2537-1754) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms.

All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).