ICLSL 2016
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/14246
Browse
2 results
Search Results
Item An Analysis of the Error Patterns in Spellings of the Students at the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce at the University of Sri Jayawardenepura, Sri Lanka(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Rabel, U.The topic of this study is to analyse the patterns of spelling errors among the second language learners of English. The aim of this study is to account for the underlying causes of spelling errors made by the first year and the second year students of the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce at the University of Sri Jayawardenepura. It first presents a general overview of writing and goes on to discuss the different writing systems such as the Alphabetic and the Phonetic Writing systems, to which English, being the Second Language of the sample group and Sinhalese, being the First Language of the sample group, belong to, respectively. It then goes on to explain the Acquisition of the Second Language and the concept of Error Analysis. Afterwards, it gives a detailed account of how data was collected and the ways in which the errors were classified. The errors were classified under Substitution, Omission, Confusion of Consonant Doubling, Addition, Misapplication of Spelling rules, Transposition and Homophone Confusion. The results are then statistically analysed and discussed accordingly. The distinction between English and Sinhalese writing systems which tends to be attributed to the occurrence of these misspellings has been accounted for. It is surmised that the Sinhalese being a phonetic language, where words are written according to their pronunciation, habitually contradicts with the orthographic system of English being an Alphabetic language, where there is no one to one grapheme correspondence, hence the students are unable to transcribe as they do with Sinhalese. Unaware of this characteristic, they transcribe by habit, causing the misspelling of words as one grapheme represents several sounds in relation to the environment in which it appears. Therefore it is this L1 interference that causes the spelling errors by these students. It is important for both teachers and learners to be aware of underlying causes of spelling errors, in order to assist in minimising erroneous spelling. It is argued that understanding these causes could be of great help not only to second/foreign language (L2/FL) learners, but also to university lecturers in this field.Item The Acquisition of Modal Verbs "Hui", "Neng" and "Keyi" by the Sri Lankan Students: An Error Analysis(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Piyumali, D.M.R.Using modal verbs correctly is a problematic area for the Sri Lankan students in learning Chinese, especially for the students in the primary level. One of the reasons for this is the number of Chinese modal verbs that are complex in their usage. Modal verbs are limited in number and they have characteristics different from the general syntax. "Hui", "neng" and "keyi" in Chinese represent the possibility of the auxiliary verb. Though their usage is similar, they can not be adjudged identical. Many Sri Lankan students use them in a bias prone manner. This paper analyses the semantic and grammatical features of "hui", "neng" and "keyi", studies the errors related to them and recommends suggestions to avoid them. The main method of investigation has been a questionnaire provided to the students learning Chinese. Data were collected from eighty students reading Chinese at Sri Lanka Sabaragamuwa University and the University of Kelaniya. On the basis of the analysis of errors, the author discusses the causes for errors and points out the main reasons for the negative transfer of mother tongue such as learning strategies, teachers and teaching materials, the difficulty of the target language itself...etc. According to the above analysis, some suggestions are put forward from different perspectives, hoping to improve the effectivity of teaching and the learning efficiency of the Sri Lanka students learning Chinese.