An Investigation of Definite Article as Fossilized Errors: Analysis of Classroom Presentations of EAP Students

Muhammad Waqar  Amin; Hafiza Kashaf  Arshad; Raza-E- Mustafa

doi:10.63056/ACAD.004.02.0322

Authors

Muhammad Waqar Amin PhD Scholar, Department of English, University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan Author
Hafiza Kashaf Arshad PhD Scholar, Department of English, University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan Author
Raza-E- Mustafa Assistant Professor Department of English, University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63056/ACAD.004.02.0322

Keywords:

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) , Contrastive Analysis (CA) , Error Analysis (EA), English for Academic Purpose (EAP), Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH).

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the errors committed by EAP students and for that purpose classroom presentations of the students of BS English are recorded and transcribed to compile a corpus for convenience of sampling and analysis. This prompts the current study to adopt convenient sampling technique and data is processed via antconc to get concordance which has definite article as key inventory. For complete elaboration of the data, qualitative approach is adopted and for theoretical framework Selinker’s theory of Interlanguage is followed. The findings of the study prove that EAP learners overgeneralize the rules as they either use definite article with proper nouns or use them in repeated sequences. The repetition is of two types that is consecutive repetition and repetition with different nouns. This study is beneficial for EAP teachers and also leaves research gaps for the researchers as well as they can compare written and spoken samples in future.