This paper attempts to explore the effect of Chinese (L1) syntactic structures on the accurate pr... more This paper attempts to explore the effect of Chinese (L1) syntactic structures on the accurate production of English (L2) writing composition. The paper gives an overview of the literature concerning the field of Cross-Linguistic Influence (CLI) and also classifies the errors encountered by second language learners. Using 9 PMP writing exam papers, frequency of errors was recorded and then an error analysis was carried out to ascertain if there were any statistically significant errors. Errors were then situated in Stockwell, Bowen and Martin’s (1965) Hierarchy of Difficulty. The statistics show that, of the 19 error categories, 12 error categories were statistically significant which shows that Chinese learners of English have difficulty with many syntactic structures in English due to the negative language transfer of their L1. The findings suggest that English language instructors would perhaps be more effective if they emphasised learning areas of the English language which do not correspond well with the Chinese language.
This paper attempts to explore the effect of Chinese (L1) syntactic structures on the accurate pr... more This paper attempts to explore the effect of Chinese (L1) syntactic structures on the accurate production of English (L2) writing composition. The paper gives an overview of the literature concerning the field of Cross-Linguistic Influence (CLI) and also classifies the errors encountered by second language learners. Using 9 PMP writing exam papers, frequency of errors was recorded and then an error analysis was carried out to ascertain if there were any statistically significant errors. Errors were then situated in Stockwell, Bowen and Martin’s (1965) Hierarchy of Difficulty. The statistics show that, of the 19 error categories, 12 error categories were statistically significant which shows that Chinese learners of English have difficulty with many syntactic structures in English due to the negative language transfer of their L1. The findings suggest that English language instructors would perhaps be more effective if they emphasised learning areas of the English language which do not correspond well with the Chinese language.
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