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Model for Article Analysis McEldowney (1977) notes a great similarity in article errors in the English of Europeans, Asians, South Americans and Arabs with vastly different language backgrounds and states that the same types of error persist in the English of school children, college students, university students, English teachers, scientists and others. Page | 96 These errors centralize around three main areas: 1. Omission of a (n)/the/-s 2. Wrong insertion of a (n)/the/-s 3. Confusion of a (n)/the/-s This study has chosen to employ this category for investigating the errors in the use of articles, since such classification throws better insight into the specific environment where the L2 learners face problems (Thu, 2005, p. 93). Discussion : Omission of Articles Omission of articles errors refer to the absence of the articles (zero articles). Bataineh observes that the L2 learners inclined to commit omission or deletion of articles due to native language transfer and simplification (2005, p. 66). The L 2 learners’ inadequate knowledge of the forms of the English language tends to apply the equivalent native language structure on English. The following examples illustrate the learners’ incompleteness in the use of articles: 1) 2) 3) 4)
He has ( ) apple (an apple). He is in ( ) difficult situation to write examination (a difficult situation). He was ( ) lazy man (a lazy man). We play cricket in ( ) morning (in the morning)
The inherent complexity of the English articles is another reason for such errors in the writings. The learners find it difficult with the basics of articles as they fail to distinguish between the proper nouns and common nouns, or between countable nouns and uncountable nouns. The study finds the learners tend to overgeneralize when using articles. Errors in the omission of articles or addition may also be attributed to the fact that the L1 not only lacks an article system, but also lacks any morphemic system of marking noun singular/plural distinction, non-count/count distinction. Omission of Definite Articles The present study also noticed learners ignoring the definite article ‘the’ and the indefinite articles ‘a/an’. The following example illustrates incompetency faced by the learners in the use of definite article. 1) 2) 3) 4)
Students always help ( ) poor. ( ) Pongal is my best festival. Our teachers conducted a special class for ( ) students. My friend came to receive me at ( ) bus stop.
Learners’ deviation from the rules of the target language can be attributed as one of the reasons for such omission of articles. Bataineh observes many learners delete the indefinite article a (n ) the use of which is obligatory to some of the singular countable nouns such as campus, language, and accident (2005, p.11). The basic difference between structures of Volume 3 Issue 1
April 2014