不同母語之英語學習者動名搭配詞錯誤分析

No Thumbnail Available

Date

2016

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

在第二語言學習之搭配詞研究中,動詞與名詞的搭配是十分重要的。先前研究主要是探討英語學習者在動名搭配詞的過度使用、過少使用與錯誤使用。在錯誤使用的研究中,研究者大部分以人工檢查,或者是結合語料搜索工具和人工檢查的方式,在學習者的英語作文中找尋錯誤搭配詞,這些方式需要相當大量的人力與時間。此外,這些研究大部分探討一到兩個非英語系國家之搭配詞錯誤,較少研究討論多國學習者的動名搭配詞錯誤,此現象可能和現有語料搜索工具的限制有關。因此,本研究藉由Sketch Engine中半自動化搜索搭配詞錯誤的功能,以此相對節省時間與人力之方式,來探討十一個不同母語之英語學習者的搭配詞錯誤,並且列出普遍型錯誤(六個以上不同母語之英語學習者共同犯的錯誤)和特定型錯誤(六種母語以下或特定幾種母語人士才會犯的錯誤)。本研究討論的學習者語料為TOEFL 11,此語料含有十一個國家英語學習者的托福作文,這些英語學習者的母語有阿拉伯文、中文、法文、德文、印地語、義大利語、日文、韓文、西班牙文、泰盧固語(印度東部德拉維人語言)和土耳其文等十一種語言。 本研究回答以下三個研究問題:(1)對於這十一種不同母語之英語學習者,最頻繁的動名搭配詞錯誤有哪些? (2) 這些動名搭配詞錯誤可以分為哪些類別?(3) 在這些搭配詞錯誤當中,哪些錯誤是普遍型錯誤,而哪些錯誤是特定型錯誤? 針對第一個問題,本研究找出了109類之錯誤,共發生了807次,在這些錯誤中,較常發生的錯誤包括agree, travel, specialize, loose 和 do。agree、travel和specialize的錯誤和省略後面介系詞有關,而學習者也常搞混loose和lose,此現象可能與此兩字字形和字義有某些程度的相似有關。另外do屬於虛義動詞(delexical verb),學習者傾向於在虛義動詞後接任何一個名詞,因為虛義動詞較無明確意義,因而造成學習者之搭配詞誤用。 而關於第二個研究問題,本研究的搭配詞錯誤可以分為四類,分別是錯誤動詞搭配、介系詞錯誤、錯誤名詞搭配和其他錯誤等等。最後,本研究發現61種普遍性錯誤分別是錯誤動詞搭配(*do, *loose, *experiment, *try and *reach), 介系詞錯誤(*agree, *travel, *specialize, *listen, *search, *go, *participate), 錯誤名詞搭配 (*sale) 和其他錯誤。這些錯誤顯示出學習者對於虛義動詞、字義和字型相似之動詞、使用特定動詞時省略介系詞等共同問題。 另一方面,此研究也發現48種特定型錯誤,這些錯誤以他們的語言系列(language family)做分類,有十五類之錯誤屬於一個語系,二十六類錯誤為兩個語系所共享,七類錯誤為三個語系所共有,印歐語系(Indo-European)傾向產生錯誤動詞搭配,而阿爾泰語語系(Altaic)傾向犯較多介系詞錯誤。另外,韓國學習者和日本學習者常常犯相同之錯誤,此現象可能與他們皆屬於同一語系有關。
The dimension of verb-noun collocations has been important in studies of EFL learners’ collocation use. Much research has investigated the overuse, underuse or misuse of verb-noun collocations in different EFL learner groups. In terms of misuse of verb-noun collocations, these studies usually examined collocation errors in learner production with manual inspection or the combination of corpus tool and manual inspection, which needs a lot of time and efforts. In addition, they mostly observed errors made by one or two nonnative groups. Relatively few studies discussed the cross-linguistic use of collocation errors made by learners of several L1s. The possible reason might be due to the limited function of corpus tools. Therefore, the present study, introducing a semi-automated method of a query system, Sketch Engine, aims to explore the cross-linguistic use of collocation errors in eleven EFL learner groups in a more time-saving and less laborious way. The universal errors, defined as errors shared by more than six learner groups, and specific errors, shared by certain learner groups, will be revealed. The learner corpus examined in the study is TOEFL 11, which includes essays written by learners of eleven mother tongues, containing Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Telugu, and Turkish. Three research questions will be answered in the present study. These questions are (1) to find out the frequent verb noun collocation errors made by eleven EFL learner groups, (2) to explore what the error types of these miscollocations are and (3) to discover universal collocation errors shared by more than six learner groups and specific errors made by certain learner groups. First, 109 types of miscollocations were found in the present research, with with 807 occurrences in total. Among these miscollocations, the frequent miscollocations containing thedeviant use of agree, travel, specialize, loose and do, were shown in the finding. The incorrect use of agree, travel and specialize is related to missing prepositions. The misuse of the verb loose is attributed to learners’ confusion of lose with loose because they have similar forms and a certain degree of shared meanings. Finally, the misuse of the do, which is a delexical verb, might be due to the lack of specific meanings of delexical verbs. As for the second research question, four groups of error types were found, including deviant verb usages, deviant prepositions of verbs, deviant noun usages and other types. Both deviant verb usages and deviant prepositions contain 46 error types, followed by deviant noun usages, comprising 13 types and the others containing 4 types. Finally, there are 61 types of universal errors shared by over six learner groups in TOEFL 11, including deviant verb usages (*do, *loose, *experiment, *try and *reach), deviant prepositions of verbs (*agree, *travel, *specialize, *listen, *search, *go and *participate), deviant noun usages (*sale) and others. These results showed the learners’ problems with delexical verbs, verbs sharing similar meaning and forms, and lack of prepositions when using certain verbs. On the other hand, 48 specific errors shared by less than six learner groups were found. These errors were categorized by language families with 15 types made by one language family, 26 by two language families and 7 by more than three language families. Indo-European language family tends to make more errors of deviant verbs while Altaic makes more errors of missing prepositions. Besides, Korean and Japanese learners tend to make the same mistakes quite often in TOEFL 11, attributed to their similar L1 background.

Description

Keywords

動名搭配詞, 半自動化, 跨語言錯誤, Sketch Engine, Sketch-Diff, Verb-noun collocations, semi-automated, cross-linguistic errors, Sketch Engine, Sketch-Diff

Citation

Collections