Toward a Taxonomy of Written Errors: Investigation Into the Written Errors of Hong Kong Cantonese ESL Learners

Toward a Taxonomy of Written Errors: Investigation Into the Written Errors of Hong Kong Cantonese ESL Learners ALICE Y W CHAN City University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, China This article examines common lexicogrammatical problems found in Cantonese English as a second language (ESL) learners’ written English output A study was conducted with 387 student participants, who were asked to two untutored and unaided free-writing tasks of about 200–300 words each A range of lexicogrammatical error types commonly found among Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners was identified Errors from the lexical level included vocabulary compensation and inaccurate directionality; errors from the syntactic level included calquing, existential structures, incorrect ordering of adverbials, and independent clauses as subjects; and those from the discourse level included periphrastic-topic constructions Mothertongue influence was inevitably an important source of the problems, but inadequate mastery of correct usage of the target language and universal processes were also important factors The results of the study have potential for enhancing our understanding of the interlanguage grammar of learners and the nature, sources, and prevalence of learner problems The results also have promising pedagogical implications, as they inform teachers of the levels, nature, sources, prevalence, and gravity of learner errors and equip them with the key ingredients needed for the design of appropriate remedial instructional materials A discussion of how the taxonomical classification would be useful for language teachers is also given doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.219941 nglish is a ‘‘value-added’’ language in Hong Kong, indispensable for both upward and outward mobility, rather than a typical second or foreign language (Li, 1999, p 97) It is compulsorily taught at all secondary and primary schools and is the medium of instruction of about one third of the total number of secondary schools and the majority of tertiary institutions Despite its official status and added value, it is used in Hong Kong only in the formal domains of government, business, education, and law, typically in the presence of E TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 44, No 2, June 2010 295 native English speakers or non-Chinese speakers (Li, 1999) For intraethnic communications, Cantonese or Cantonese-English mixed code is preferred, and many Hong Kong Cantonese are under great social pressure not to switch entirely to English when communicating among themselves orally (Li, 2000) Many informal written exchanges are conducted in Chinese-Cantonese,1 standard written Chinese, or English-Chinese mixed code Cantonese English as a second language (ESL) learners’ exposure to English is very limited Many Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners encounter problems in learning the morphology, lexis, syntax, and semantics of English (e.g., Budge, 1989; Chan, 2003, 2004b, 2004c, 2004d; Chan, 1991; Chan, Kwan, & Li, 2002, 2003; Chan, Li, & Kwan, 2003; Gisborne, 2002; Green, 1991; Li, 2000; Webster & Lam, 1991; Webster, Ward, & Craig, 1987; Yip & Matthews, 1991; Yu, 1988a, 1988b) Despite claims that Hong Kong English should be viewed as a legitimate new variety because of the existence of unique, systematic features (Bolton, 2002; Bolton & Lim, 2002; Hung, 2002), it has been argued that Hong Kong English is not appropriately characterized as a new variety of English, because of its limited social role and the predominance of Standard English as the norms of reference (Li, 2000) Li contends that features in Hong Kong English can be more appropriately viewed as interlanguage features ESL teachers need to have a good understanding of the cognitive and psycholinguistic mechanisms at work in learners’ learning process in order to help them overcome their second language (L2) problems Because errors are indicative of a learner’s interlanguage2 and the errors made along a learner’s interlanguage continuum are often due to a complex interplay between both first language (L1)- and L2-related factors (Li & Chan, 1999), there is a need to investigate the written output of Cantonese ESL learners in order to uncover the extent of negative transfer and the interaction between transfer and other non– L1-related factors Results of such research should have considerable potential for alleviating English language teachers’ workload and for quickening students’ learning process Despite various attempts to diagnose Hong Kong ESL learners’ writing problems, there is a lack of systematic, large-scale studies which scrutinize a full range of written lexicogrammatical errors, analyze the possible causes, and establish a The word Cantonese used in this article refers to the variety per se, which may be spoken or written The word Chinese refers to standard written Chinese The written Chinese used in Hong Kong is a mixture of spoken Cantonese and standard written Chinese (Snow, 2004), and the term Chinese-Cantonese is used to refer to this special medium There have been some criticisms of the term ‘‘interlanguage.’’ Cook (1993) points out that the term is often used to refer ‘‘both to the learner’s knowledge of the second language and to the actual speech of L2 learners’’ (p 19) No such distinction is made in this article 296 TESOL QUARTERLY taxonomical classification The present study aimed at bridging such a research gap ERROR ANALYSIS AND TRANSFER ANALYSIS The approach used in the study could be seen as arising from the paradigms of error analysis (EA) and transfer analysis (TA) in L2 acquisition (SLA) research EA (Corder, 1967) compares learners’ interlanguage with the target language to locate mismatches Errors are seen as evidence of learning and could be described without the need to refer to a learner’s native language Earlier interest in error analysis waned, because it was thought that, even if learner errors could be predicted and understood, such errors could not be ameliorated EA was also attacked as ‘‘a pseudoprocedure in applied linguistics’’ (Bell, 1974, p 35) and was insufficient because of its biased practice of ‘‘analyzing out the errors and neglecting the careful description of the non-errors’’ (Hammarberg, 1974, p 185) Despite these criticisms during the 1970s and early 1980s, this paradigm has been revitalized following significant research in the past decades, such as James (1998), Kellerman (1995), Kellerman and Sharwood Smith (1986), and Odlin (1989), leading to the redefinition of the concept of TA Though EA is not a theory of acquisition, it is argued as a methodology for dealing with data (Cook, 1993), and teachers are attracted to this paradigm ‘‘by its promise of relevance to their everyday professional concerns’’ (James, 1998, p x) TA (James, 1990) compares learners’ interlanguage strings with their mother tongues It is a subprocedure in the diagnostic phase of EA and deals with interlanguage and target language mismatches assumed to be the results of mother-tongue interference Crosslinguistic influence is acknowledged, and learner errors are seen as a register of learners’ current perspective on the target language (James, 1998) Although structural comparisons of two languages are often uncertain correlates of learner behavior (Kellerman, 1995), with the data-handling methodology in EA and the acknowledgement of crosslinguistic influence in the identification of target language–interlanguage mismatches in TA, these two paradigms still remain useful means to understanding the cognitive and linguistic complexities involved in SLA PREVIOUS RESEARCH INTO WRITTEN ERRORS MADE BY CHINESE SPEAKERS Numerous small-scale studies have been carried out to investigate the written errors made by Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners Among the TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 297 problems documented include those with relative clauses, plural marking, and topicalization Mother-tongue interference has often been argued as the major cause Webster et al (1987) present various local ESL errors and conclude that all the errors may be attributed to mothertongue influence Green (1991) examined the overuse of topiccomment structure in Hong Kong English and argues that the structure is evidence of typological transfer Budge (1989) attributes Hong Kong students’ failure to mark plural nouns with -s in writing to the influence of Cantonese phonology Outside of Hong Kong, Deterding (2000), Tan (2005), and Zhu (2007) examined the influence of Chinese on written Singaporean English Poedjosodarmo (2000) investigated the influences of Malay on the written English of university students in Singapore Although Tan (2005) argues that Singlish arose due to the influences of the students’ mother tongues on all the lexical, syntactic, and discourse aspects of English, Zhu (2007) claims that not all errors can be attributed to Chinese influences To the author’s knowledge, none of these studies has attempted to establish a systematic taxonomy of lexicogrammatical learner errors to arrive at a generalizable conclusion about the cognitive and psycholinguistic mechanisms underlying the learning process OBJECTIVES The present study aimed to identify a range of lexicogrammatical errors commonly found in Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners’ written output and to establish an error taxonomy The underlying belief was that the nature and the causes of the errors could be more systematically and reliably generalized, if similar errors are classified into the same type PROCEDURE Data Collection: Phase I A study was conducted with 387 Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners, including 65 students from three local universities and 322 students from five local secondary schools (124 students from Form and 198 students from Form 33) The Form students (about 50% of the total number of participants) and Form students (about 30%) could be categorized as lower intermediate (L-I) and upper intermediate (U-I) learners, respectively, whereas the university students (about 20%) could 298 Form and Form students in Hong Kong are comparable to Grade and Grade 12 students in the United States, respectively TESOL QUARTERLY be categorized as advanced (A) learners Elementary learners were not included, because they are not accustomed to doing free writing in English The participants did two free-writing tasks administered at two different time slots of 40 minutes at an interval of about weeks A word limit was set at 200, 250, and 300 words for students at the three proficiency levels, respectively The participants produced 696 pieces of free writing (totaling about 158,000 words) Of these, 187 pieces, 116 pieces, and 47 pieces of narrative writing (a total of 350 pieces) were from the Form 3, Form 6, and university students, respectively; and 157 pieces, 124 pieces, and 65 pieces of descriptive writing (a total of 346 pieces) were from the students at the respective levels Data Analysis A research assistant, very proficient in English and holding a master’s degree in English, was engaged in identifying anomalous structures from the corpus The errors were then assigned to a working error taxonomy under the supervision of the researchers (the author and her collaborator) To ensure that the research assistant could extend the patterned anomalies to the entire corpus, the researchers coached the assistant in a series of error identification and categorization sessions Accuracy and consistency were maximized by having a second research assistant with similar linguistic background and training double-check the error taxonomy Where the two assistants’ judgments diverged, either one or both of the researchers reviewed the categorization to make a third judgment (see appendix) A comparison between the interlanguage strings and equivalent strings in the learners’ mother tongue was then carried out to determine whether crosslinguistic influences (Kellerman, 1995; Kellerman & Sharwood Smith, 1986) may have been at work Attempts were also made to ascribe the errors to possible sources where mother-tongue interference could not be observed Data Collection: Phase II The error taxonomy established (see Results: Phase I) gave prima facie evidence of syntactic transfer from Chinese to English In the second phase of the study, five error types thought to be the results of L1 interference, namely, omission of copulas, incorrect order of adverbials or adverbs, existential structures, misuse of relative clauses, and transitivity pattern confusion, were isolated, and the extent of syntactic transfer was further investigated with the use of individual interviews (including translation TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 299 tasks [from L1 to L2], explanations of translations, and self-reports) and group tests (including grammaticality judgment questionnaires and translation tasks [from L1 to L2]) The individual interviews were administered to a focus group of 42 students, and the group tests to a large sample of 710 students Differences between the performance of different age groups were also examined (for details, see Chan, 2004c) RESULTS Phase I Altogether, 4,997 tokens were identified and classified under 32 error types (see appendix) Morphological Level Twenty-one error tokens were associated with morphology Inappropriate selection of affixes (10 tokens: 10% from L-I, 30% from U-I, 60% from A) Inadequate mastery of English word-formation processes was probably the major cause, because the learners were apparently aware of the need for an affix and the meanings of the chosen affixes were often close to those of the target affixes Mothertongue interference did not seem to have been at work, because affixes are rarely used in Chinese or Chinese-Cantonese *their academic results are still dissatisfactory Overuse of affixes (11 tokens: 18% from L-I, 27% from U-I, 55% from A) Overuses of affixes were exemplars of overgeneralization, where the need for an affix in word formation had been overgeneralized Inadequate knowledge of the word class of a stem word was probably a reason for such overgeneralizations, because the learners did not seem to be aware that the original stems without the unwanted affixes suffice for the meanings conveyed *The happiness we have now cannot enlast Lexical Level Altogether, 617 error tokens belonged to the lexical level Inaccurate directionality (9 tokens: 22.2% from L-I, 66.7% from U-I, 11.1% from A) Such confusion was probably the result of mother-tongue interference, as the substitution words and the target words often have substitutable L1 Chinese-Cantonese equivalents with no directionality differences 300 TESOL QUARTERLY *I borrowed money from my friends and borrowed the money to him [cf lend; Chinese-Cantonese employs the same word ze3 for both borrow and lend.4] Synonym confusion (73 tokens: 58.9% from L-I, 35.6% from U-I, 5.5% from A) These errors showed learners’ difficulties in differentiating the appropriate uses of near synonyms and the contexts in which they should be used L1 influence may have been at work, as the confusable English synonyms often share the same or similar Chinese-Cantonese equivalents *My mother is nice, she didn’t fight me [cf beat; the Chinese-Cantonese equivalents of fight and beat are daa2 gaau1, and daa2, respectively, which are similar.] Vocabulary compensation (199 tokens: 37.7% from L-I, 47.2% from U-I, 15.1% from A) For this error type, the synonymy relation between the substitution words and the target words holds only in the learner’s mother tongue The substitution words (groups) and the target words (groups) have very different meanings and usage in English Mothertongue influence was one probable cause *Open TV and open the playstation [cf turn on; the Chinese-Cantonese equivalent of turn on is hoi1, the same as the Chinese-Cantonese equivalent of open.] Synforms (336 tokens: 54.5% from L-I, 33% from U-I, 12.5% from A) Synforms are lexical mis-hits selected because of formal resemblance to other L2 forms (Hall, 2002, p 71; Laufer, 1997) The learners’ insecure knowledge of both the target forms and their corresponding mis-hits was probably the major cause of the problem No mother-tongue interference was observed *I sleep on the bed, my mother also sleep nearly [cf nearby] Syntactic Level Altogether, 4,295 error tokens were found at the syntactic level Pseudotough movement (11 tokens: 9.1% from L-I, 81.8% from U-I, 9.1% from A) Characterized by the use of a tough adjective (e.g., easy) in an erroneous structure (Yip, 1995), pseudotough movement has been regarded a high-frequency erroneous structure for Cantonese ESL learners (Li & Chan, 1999) All Chinese characters in this article are transliterated using the Jyutping system (Tang et al., 2002) The number at the end of each romanized Cantonese syllable is a tone mark, indicating one of the six distinctive tones in Hong Kong Cantonese TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 301 *Up to now, we are not easy to work together [cf ngo5 mun4 bat1 jung4 ji6 jat1 hei2 gung1 zok35 (we not easy together work)] The Chinese-Cantonese equivalents of the English erroneous structures are both acceptable and common Mother-tongue interference was probably a major cause Acceptable sentences in the target language, such as John is not easy to convince, may also have led the learners into believing that these sentences with tough movement were positive evidence in support of their interlanguage hypothesis for the pseudotough movement structure (Chan & Li, 2002) misuse of until (33 tokens: 6.1% from L-I, 75.8% from U-I, 18.2% from A) Rather than using the preposition to show that something happens during a period before a particular time and stops at that time (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985), the learners used it with time adverbials like forever or now to emphasize the truth of the preceding statements at the time of speaking, including the time periods specified by the time adverbials, traceable to Chinese-Cantonese expressions zik6 zi3 or zik6 dou3 (Chan, 2003) *Until now, I enjoy the school life Misuse of conjunctions (42 tokens: 31% from L-I, 59.5% from U-I, 9.5% from A) Many of these errors had correlative pairs attached to both clauses of a complex sentence The influence of Chinese was evident: Chinese complex sentences are symmetrical and allow double conjunctions (correlative pairs) The Chinese equivalents of because and so, although and but are good examples of such correlative pairs (Chan, 2004a) *Although we can’t have our own life there, but now we are happy Duplicated comparatives or superlatives (47 tokens: 44.7% from L-I, 51.1% from U-I, 4.3% from A) Comparable constructions in ChineseCantonese may have affected the learners’ use of a redundant more or most, because the corresponding comparisons in Chinese-Cantonese are formed by the addition of the words bei2 (than) or gang3 (more) and zeoi3 (most) preceding the comparative adjectives and superlative adjectives, respectively (Li & Thompson, 1981; Matthews & Yip, 1994) Overgeneralization of the use of English more or most may also have been a probable cause, because the two words are used for making comparatives and superlatives for all polysyllabic English words and many bisyllabic English words 302 All the Chinese-Cantonese sentences used for comparison are grammatical ChineseCantonese sentences acceptable to native speakers of Cantonese TESOL QUARTERLY 10 *That is the most happiest time in [cf naa5 si6 ngo5 zoi6 haai4 tung4 si4 zeoi3 faai3 lok6 dik1 si4 hau6 (that is I in childhood most happy NOMINALIZER time)] Misordering of constituents in indirect questions (47 tokens: 23.4% from L-I, 70.2% from U-I, 6.4% from A) The incorrect placement of subject following operator mirrored the order of the two constituents in a direct wh- question: 11 *I don’t know where is it L1 interference was not evident, because in Chinese, wh- words occur in the same position in a sentence as non-question words having the same grammatical function (Li & Thompson, 1981) No reordering of subject and operator is required in an indirect wh- question Inadequate mastery of the correct ordering of constituents in English indirect questions was probably the main cause In-prepositional phrases (49 tokens: 73.5% from L-I, 24.5% from U-I, 2% from A) These consisted of the preposition in, either used redundantly or chosen inappropriately, in an in-prepositional phrase Such structures could be traceable to equivalent Chinese prepositional phrases, which often require the presence of the word zoi6 (in) 12 *In many years ago, my father [cf zoi6 han2 do1 nin4 cin4 (in many years ago)] Independent clauses as objects or subjects (54 tokens: 53.7% from L-I, 31.5% from U-I, 14.8% from A) L1 effects should have been at work, because it is acceptable to have two or more verb phrases or clauses in the same sentence (i.e., serial verb constructions) and for the first verb phrase or clause to be the subject of the whole sentence in Chinese (Li & Thompson, 1981; Matthews & Yip, 1994) A lack of awareness that an independent clause cannot be the object or subject of an English sentence may also have been a reason (Chan, Kwan, & Li, 2003) 13 *You don’t need to worry about the problem will struck at you [cf nei5 bat1 seoi1 jiu3 daam1 sam1 man6 tai4 wui5 jing2 hoeng2 nei5 (you not need worry problem will affect you)] Be + -ed (99 tokens: 29.3% from L-I, 50.5% from U-I, 20.2% from A) In these sentences, the verb to be coexists with the past participle (or past form) of the main verb This error can be traceable to ChineseCantonese structures with si6 (is) serving as a marker of special affirmation (Li & Thompson, 1981, p 151), linking the two major TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 303 constituents of the sentences to mean ‘‘It is true that.’’ However, it is unclear whether the forms of the verbs were past forms or past participles, because most of the words ended with -ed It is also unclear why the -ed form instead of the base form was used (see be + base form) 14 *She is always cried [cf taa1 si6 si4 seong4 huk1 dik1 (he IS always cry PARTICLE)] Pseudopassives and undergeneration of passives (110 tokens: 29.1% from LI, 53.6% from U-I, 17.3% from A) Many of these could be regarded as pseudopassives (cf Yip, 1995), which are ‘‘one reflection in the interlanguage of the Chinese typological characteristic of topicprominence’’ (p 97) Because the learners failed to generate the full range of English passive constructions, these errors could also be seen as cases of undergeneration of the target passive (Yip, 1995) Mothertongue interference was apparent 15 *The floor can automatic clean [cf ze5 dei6 baan2 ho2 ji5 zi6 dung6 cing1 git3 (the floor can automatic clean)] Omission of subjects (114 tokens: 64% from L-I, 22.8% from U-I, 13.2% from A) This was often associated with compound or complex sentences where both clauses shared the same subject, the subject was present in one of the clauses, the missing subject could be identified with the subject present in the other clause, or the missing subject was understood in the immediate context 16 *First, ‘ talk about the traffic [cf sau2 sin1 taam4 taam4 gaau1 tung1 man6 tai4 (first talk talk traffic problems)] Mother-tongue interference was observed, because a coreferential noun phrase in the second clause of a sentence or in subsequent sentences of a discourse is not normally mentioned in Chinese A coreferential pronoun may be used, but it is not obligatory (Li & Thompson, 1981) Subjects (and objects) may be omitted in Chinese when the constituents have been the topics of previous utterances, or when the reference is clear from the context (Matthews & Yip, 1994) Existential structures (118 tokens: 61% from L-I, 26.3% from U-I, 12.7% from A) Mother-tongue interference may have been at work, because the corresponding existential meaning in Chinese-Cantonese is expressed using jau5 (have) Students’ inadequate mastery of the different forms of the verb to be in English may also have been a probable cause Given that the perfect forms have been and has been of the 304 TESOL QUARTERLY verb to be are orthographically similar to the verb have, probable confusion because of such acceptable structures as There may have been some problems may also have led to the anomaly (Chan et al., 2002) 17 *There had many people at there [cf daan6 naa5 leoi5 jau5 han2 do1 jan4 (but there have many people)] Misuse of prepositions (126 tokens; 45.2% from L-I, 36.5% from U-I, 18.3% from A) In these sentences, an inappropriate preposition was chosen in place of an appropriate one, a superfluous preposition was added, or a required preposition was omitted 18 *We played card games on the bus although it was crowded of people 19 *I could meet more new friends and play with them besides from my brothers No L1 interference could be identified Direct translations of sentences such as Examples 18 and 19 not suggest the need for such inaccurate constituents Because the uses of English prepositions are not easy to generalize and choices of prepositions are often lexically determined and idiosyncratic, inadequate mastery of the choice and use of English prepositions was probably the major cause However, mother-tongue interference may have been at work for the production of sentences with missing prepositions: 20 *Which kind of examination system is appropriate ‘ the situation now? [cf naa5 jat1 zung2 haau2 si5 zai3 dou6 si6 sik1 hap6 jin6 zoi6 dik1 cing4 fong3 (which one kind exam system appropriate now NOMINALIZER situation)] Sentences such as Example 20, which had an adjectival complement (e.g., appropriate) used with a postmodifier lacking an appropriate preposition (e.g., the situation), were actually direct Chinese translations, because the corresponding Chinese constituents for the adjectives are often used as transitive verbs in Chinese (e.g., sik1 hap6 [appropriate]) Verb form selection (144 tokens: 36.8% from L-I, 47.2% from U-I, 16% from A) In these sentences, an -ing participle was used in place of a presenttense verb, a past form in place of a base-form verb, and the like Verbs in Chinese not exhibit different verb forms, so insufficient mastery of verbformation processes in English was probably a major cause 21 *Every day he driving his car Misuse of relative clauses (158 tokens: 18.4% from L-I, 53.2% from U-I, 28.5% from A) No direct L1 interference could be traceable for some TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 305 relative clause errors, because there are no relative pronouns in Chinese: Relative clauses in Chinese are formed by the nominalizer dik1 (e.g., oi3 [love] ngo5 [me] dik1 [NOMINALIZER] jan4 [person] [the person who loves me]) The erroneous English sentence errors (e.g., Example 22) and the Chinese translations not resemble each other 22 *She will cook the food what I like to eat Other errors identified were erroneous reduced relative clauses with a missing finite verb (e.g., Example 23) Inadequate mastery of the restrictions that a finite relative clause requires the co-occurrence of a relative pronoun and that a nonfinite relative clause precludes an explicit relative pronoun was probably the major reason 23 *I have a large family which including grandmother, The omission of relative pronouns, especially subject relative pronouns (e.g., Example 24), however, could be seen as resulting from L1 Direct translations of the English sentences showed great resemblance to Chinese relative clauses without the nominalizer dik1 24 * You are the first ‘ come to Hong Kong [cf nei5 si6 dai6 jat1 go3 loi4 heong1 gong2 (You are the first CLASSIFIER come Hong Kong)] Incorrect order of adverbials or adverbs (172 tokens: 91.3% from L-I, 7% from U-I, 1.7% from A) Most of these errors were associated with the incorrect placement of the adverb very, though other adverbs, such as never, were also sometimes misplaced 25 *I was very work hard to read [cf ngo5 han2 nou5 lik6 duk6 syu1 (I very hard read book)] In Chinese, han2 (very) is typically placed before verbs (e.g., han2 hei2 fun1 [very like]) and predicative adjectives or adjectival verbs (e.g., han2 jau5 jung6 [very useful]; Chan, Li, & Kwan, 2003; Matthews & Yip, 1994) Such resemblance between the syntactic behavior of Chinese verbs and adjectives, together with the acceptability of a similar very + ADJECTIVE structure in English, such as very good, may have led the students to think that the structure very + VERB was acceptable in English The acceptability of expressions such as I very much want to go may also explain the error Overgeneralization resulting from their inadequate understanding of the differences in forms and functions between the degree adverb very and adverbials such as very much and of the context which allows fronted adverbials may also have been the cause 306 TESOL QUARTERLY Serial verb constructions (190 tokens: 78.4% from L-I, 18.4% from U-I, 3.2% from A) These sentences had two or more verbs or verb clauses juxtaposed without any intervening marker The juxtaposed clauses in these constructions normally shared the same subject As serial verb constructions are widely acceptable in Chinese and the structure of the erroneous English constructions mirrored that of the corresponding L1 translations, mother-tongue interference was probably a major cause Inadequate mastery of the distinction between finite and nonfinite clauses in English was probably another cause English nonfinite infinitive clauses without the infinitive marker to (e.g., She helped me it) may also have been mistakenly taken as positive evidence, misleading the learners into using two finite verbs in the same sentence 26 *My mother was angry And took a stick beat me [cf jin4 hau6 naa4 hei2 jat1 zi1 paang5 daa2 ngo5 (then take up one CLASSIFER stick beat me)] Inappropriate case selection (193 tokens: 73.5% from L-I, 18.1% from U-I, 8.3% from A) Mother-tongue interference may not have been at work, because Chinese does not exhibit case distinctions: The same form is used for pronouns used as subjects and objects, and the nominalizer dik1 is added for showing possession (e.g., ngo5 dik1 baa1 baa1 [my father]) Inadequate mastery of the distinct forms for the different cases in English was probably the major cause of the problem 27 *My sister always laugh of our Punctuation problems (204 tokens: 56.9% from L-I, 35.2% from U-I, 7.8% from A) Some of these errors were comma splices, and others were sentence fragments The comma splices consisted of independent clauses separated by commas, whereas the sentence fragments were all stand-alone subordinate clauses introduced by a subordinator such as because, until, or if 28 *I saw her face, I will know that she was very angry, so I will go to my room, and 29 *I have a very happy childhood Because, my friend, my parents are very good No particular L1 interference could be traced, and it was hard to decide whether such mistakes were careless mistakes or whether they reflected the learners’ interlanguage features Transitivity pattern confusion (259 tokens: 40.5% from L-I, 40.5% from UI, 18.9% from A) Mother-tongue influence was probably the most important factor (Chan, 2004c), because the erroneous transitivity patterns of the verbs in question often coincided with the transitivity patterns of the corresponding Chinese equivalents TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 307 30 *We will not listen him [cf ngo5 mun4 bat1 wui5 ting3 taa1 (we not will listen him)] Be + base form (323 tokens: 72.4% from L-I, 23.2% from U-I, 4.3% from A) 31 *My father was always buy a toy [cf ngo5 baa1 baa1 si6 si4 soeng4 maai5 wun6 geoi6 kap1 ngo5 dik1 (I father is always buy toy give me PARTICLE)] In these sentences, the verb to be coexisted with the base form of the main verb, with an optional adverb in between the two verbs This error can be traceable to Chinese-Cantonese structures with si6 (is) serving as a marker of special affirmation (Li & Thompson, 1981, p 151), linking the two major constituents of the sentences to mean ‘‘It is true that’’ (see Be + -ed earlier) Omission of copulas (426 tokens: 71.6% from L-I, 23.7% from U-I, 4.7% from A) 32 *They will ‘ very happy [cf taa1 mun4 wui5 han2 faai3 lok6 (they will very happy)] Mother-tongue interference was undoubtedly a major cause: The Chinese copula si6 (be) is similar to the English verb to be when used as a linking verb between the subject and its nominal complement However, it does not co-occur with many auxiliary verbs such as nang4 (can) and wui5 (will) (Li & Thompson, 1981), especially when the subject complement is not nominal and there are no particular affirmative or emphatic functions Concord problems (444 tokens: 44.1% from L-I, 37.6% from U-I, 18.2% from A) No direct L1 interference was traceable, because Chinese nouns and verbs are not marked for number, tense, or person A lack of comparable equivalents in the mother tongue, leading to a lack of positive evidence in the L2, may probably have been the cause Inadequate mastery of target language constituent combinations was also likely 33 *I found a lot of shop but Word class confusion (450 tokens: 38% from L-I, 38.4% from U-I, 23.6% from A) This error type revealed the effects of a lack of distinct forms or derivations for different word classes in Chinese-Cantonese Such syntactic behavior may have led the learners to believing that English words behave similarly to Chinese 308 TESOL QUARTERLY 34 *It’s so interest Calquing (482 tokens: 64.1% from L-I, 29.3% from U-I, 6.6% from A) A calque is a type of borrowing in which each morpheme or word is translated into the equivalent morpheme or word in another language (Richards, Platt, & Platt, 1992) The individual target language words used semantically match the individual words in the native language 35 *My mother usually cooks something nice eat to me [cf ngo5 maa1 maa1 si4 soeng4 zyu2 jat1 se1 hou2 hek3 dik1 dung1 sai1 kap1 ngo5 (me mother usually cook some nice eat NOMINALIZER thing to me)] Discourse Level (64 Error Tokens) Discourse-related errors were associated with how the learners combined sentences or clauses into a broader text and their use of expressions within a text to refer to some portion of the discourse containing that text Periphrastic-topic constructions (25 tokens: 44% from L-I, 28% from U-I, 28% from A) These sentences had a topic-comment structure with the redundant use of a subject noun phrase or pronoun to repeat a fronted topic (Yip, 1995) A significant cause was L1 interference, because, in Chinese, topic-comment structures are very common 36 *Hong Kong in the year 2047, it will have [cf hoeng1 gong2 zoi6 2047 nin4 taa1 wui5 jau5 han2 do1 dung1 sai1 (Hong Kong in 2047 years it will have many things)] Use of it as discourse deixis (39 tokens: 48.7% from L-I, 30.8% from U-I, 20.5% from A) These sentences showed an inappropriate use of it without a clear referent, as a discourse-deictic expression to refer to a preceding or following portion of a discourse 37 * When I was talking to her, I feel it was so good L1 interference may not have been at work, because the structures of the erroneous English sentences were not comparable to those of their Chinese translations The Chinese third-person singular personal pronoun taa1 (it) also behaves differently from the use of it in such sentences Inadequate mastery of the pronoun and confusion resulting from the frequent use of dummy it in subject positions were probably the causes As can be seen from the above taxonomy, errors at all the morphological, lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels are found from the written output of students Despite the different populations of participants at the different proficiency levels, it can be seen that some TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 309 errors, such as incorrect order of adverbials or adverbs and inprepositional phrases, are more typical of lower-intermediate students (with a much higher proportion of errors made by this level of students than the proportions of errors made by students at other levels), whereas these errors are rarely found in advanced students’ writings Other errors, such as pseudotough movement and misuse of until, are more prevalent at the upper-intermediate levels but are rarely found in lowerintermediate students Morphological errors, though few in total, are prevalent at the advanced level of students Phase II The results of the second phase presented confirmatory evidence for syntactic transfer from Chinese to English with regard to the five syntactic patterns selected, indicating that, for those structures, many Chinese ESL learners tended to think in Chinese before they wrote in English The extent of syntactic transfer was particularly large for complex target structures (e.g., relative clauses) and among learners of a lower proficiency level, though advanced learners may also have relied on the syntax and vocabulary of their previous linguistic repertoire when encountering difficulty in producing output in the target language (for further details, see Chan, 2004c) Alternative explanations were not ruled out, including developmental sequences, similar but correct structural patterns found in the L2, and learners’ avoidance behavior POSSIBLE SOURCES OF ERROR L1 Transfer A close scrutiny of the error taxonomy (and the results of the second phase) shows that L1 transfer is inevitably an important source of learner errors The majority of the written output of the Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners is strongly reminiscent of the normative sentence structures in their L1 Many learners tend to think in their native language first, before converting their mental output into L2 written output Some learners may process their mental output directly in the L2 but constantly retrieve their L1 repertoire when encountering difficulties or dealing with unfamiliar concepts in their production of L2 written output The units affected range from the whole sentence to individual phrases or words at nearly all linguistic levels save the morphological level That L1 interference does not affect the morphological level is not difficult to understand, because Chinese is an isolating language and a typical Chinese word is a single morpheme (Li & Thompson, 1981) There is very 310 TESOL QUARTERLY little morphological complexity, and most words consist of just one morpheme not analyzable into component parts Lack of Facilitation From the L1 A lack of comparable equivalents in Chinese may also bring about learner difficulty For many error types identified, such as concord problems, verb form selection, and case selection, the target language features not have comparable equivalents in the learners’ native language No claims about L1 transfer could be arrived at, but the possibility of influence of a learner’s previous linguistic repertoire is not to be dismissed As is argued in the SLA literature, positive transfer resulting from the similarities between the target and native languages, ‘‘which is the facilitating influence of cognate vocabulary or any other similarities between the native and target languages’’ (Odlin, 1989, p 26), may significantly facilitate acquisition of different L2 aspects, including reading, writing, and grammar The subjects’ erroneous output suggests that the lack of comparable lexicogrammatical requirements in the native language may result in a lack of facilitation, which may in turn lead to added learner difficulty With the existing data from learners of only one L1 and the objectives of the study, it is impossible to affirm the facilitating effects of positive transfer on ESL acquisition by Cantonese speakers, because the effects of positive transfer can only be determined through a comparison between learners of different native languages (Odlin, 1989) However, there is reason to believe that learner difficulty might be attributed to a low level of positive transfer Non–L1-Related Factors A number of non–L1-related factors are also evident from the error taxonomy Lack of awareness of L2 norms Learners’ lack of awareness of L2 norms is inevitably the most significant non–L1-related factor Incorrect verb form selection, for example, and many other errors which have been described as the results of a low level of positive transfer, may be the results of learners’ lack of awareness of L2 norms and their inadequate mastery of the target language Misapplication of L2 rules and/or overgeneralization Learners’ misapplication of rules governing the formation of L2 comparative and superlative structures may be the source of their use of duplicated comparatives or superlatives The production of pseudotough movement structures under the influence of acceptable tough movement structures, and the overuse of affixes with words which not require TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 311 the corresponding affixes, may be seen as exemplars of overgeneralization, where learners overgeneralize the context for the movement of tough adjectives and the inventory of stem words which allow affixation Undergeneration Undergeneration is manifested in the learners’ production of pseudopassives, where they fail to generate the full range of passive constructions in the L2 Selectional mis-hits The use of synforms is a clear exemplar of learners’ selectional mis-hits in accessing their mental lexicons Universal processes The developmental sequence of interrogative acquisition, where subject-verb inversion is overgeneralized to embedded questions (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991) may be the source of the learners’ misordering of constituents in indirect questions Their difficulties with relative clauses could be seen as resulting from developmental sequences, as guided by the accessibility hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1977), with the subject position acquired earlier than the direct object position, which in turn is acquired earlier than the indirect object position, and so on Universal developmental processes found in both L1 and L2 acquisition (Brown, 1973; Odlin, 1989) could also explain the omission of copulas Interaction between L1- and non–L1-related factors An error is seldom solely attributed to one single source Non–L1-related factors often interact in an intricate fashion with L1-related factors Pseudopassives, for example, can be argued as an exemplification of undergeneration resulting from the reflection of the typological characteristic of topic prominence in Chinese, the learners’ L1 (Yip, 1995) Pseudotough movement structures should best be seen as the results of a complex interplay of overgeneralization (of tough movement) and L1 transfer How L1- and non–L1-related factors interact is beyond the scope of the present study, but it is evident that L2 acquisition is a complex process with different mechanisms working in tandem with each other THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS The findings of the present study provide ample contemporary data for the interlanguage grammars of Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners, inform the SLA communities of the extent of crosslinguistic influence, and reveal other non–L1-related causes As many current SLA theories acknowledge the importance of mother-tongue influence and are formulated on the assumption that transfer works in tandem with developmental factors and non–L1-related factors, the results provide enhanced theoretical underpinnings for these theories A lack of systematic and comprehensive account of Cantonese ESL learners’ written output in the SLA literature also renders the descriptive data in this article an invaluable bank of learning evidence Error analysis, being a post-hoc analytical instrument with all its methodo312 TESOL QUARTERLY logical limitations, is still a useful means of uncovering some of the cognitive, linguistic, and pragmatic complexities involved in L2 acquisition (James, 1998) The approach adopted by the present study may not be theoretically innovative, but the findings certainly possess a posteriori explanatory power PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS: HOW CAN THE ERROR TAXONOMY BE USEFUL FOR ESL TEACHING? Explicit remedial teaching has been argued in the literature as conducive to L2 learning (e.g., Bell, 1992; Carroll, Swain, & Roberge, 1992; Chan, 2006; Lightbown & Spada, 1990; Swain, 1993) Establishing an empirically based taxonomy of common errors is one preliminary step toward understanding the cognitive and psycholinguistic mechanisms at work in the learners’ learning process The findings of the study inform teaching professionals of the levels, nature, sources, and prevalence of learner errors and equip them with the key ingredients needed for the design of appropriate remedial instructional materials Although not all errors can be removed through the teacher’s intervention, an error taxonomy like that described in this article could help syllabus designers, curriculum writers, as well as ESL teachers to anticipate and diagnose learning problems, so that they will be more adept at identifying appropriate teaching strategies, designing quality error correction materials, and planning SLA educational programmes Levels of Errors Helping students overcome syntactic errors is probably one of the most pressing needs of many ESL teachers The error taxonomy established here alerts teaching professionals to the importance of dealing with errors at other levels, especially the lexical level, which occupies 12% of the total number of errors identified Lexical selection, which has often been neglected, should be an important component of an ESL writing course (Santos, 1988) Attention to morphological errors and discourse errors is also called for Though small in number, the morphological errors in the taxonomy inform us of an illuminating phenomenon about ESL vocabulary acquisition: that they are typically associated with higher proficiency students These errors may represent a different stage of ESL acquisition unique to higher proficiency learners Nature and Sources of Errors Many ESL teachers acknowledge the adverse effects of L1 interference but may not be aware of the extent of the effects They may also overlook TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 313 the non–L1-related factors and the complex interplay between L1- and non–L1-related factors Teachers who are ill-informed of the nature and sources of learner errors will find their design of remedial instructional materials daunting With an error taxonomy like the one established here, ESL teachers can adopt remedial instructional strategies applicable to the sources and nature of each error type accordingly A set of ready-made materials for each error type can be designed for use in the classroom and for sharing among teachers to facilitate team teaching and lesson preparation In the materials, examples of errors extracted from the taxonomy can be included to illustrate the core of the problem If the error type is mainly L1-induced, native examples can be used for contrast If other factors are at work, such as misapplication of rules, the subtle differences between the correct forms and the anomalies can be presented Self-access materials targeting higher proficiency students can also be developed along these lines to enable learners themselves to self-monitor and overcome their errors more efficiently and effectively In another study carried out by the author and her collaborators, remedial instructional materials based on the insights of the taxonomical classification were designed and implemented with over 450 secondary and university ESL students in Hong Kong It is found that the remedial instructional materials, which include different examples of the same error type, highlight the nature of the problems, and give reference to the sources of the errors where appropriate, are beneficial to ESL teaching and learning (Chan, 2006; Chan et al., 2002; Chan, Kwan, & Li, 2003; Chan, Li, & Kwan, 2003) Error Prevalence and Error Gravity Error gravity and error prevalence are other important concerns of ESL teachers Errors such as incorrect preposition choice, comma splices, and lack of pronoun agreement have been reported in the literature as less serious, whereas those which interfere with comprehension, such as relative clauses, word order, and word choice, have been regarded as more grievous and require more attention (Vann, Meyer, & Lorenz, 1984) Although previous error-gravity research in ESL establishes the gravity of learner errors, our taxonomy adds a further dimension to the classification: error prevalence From the taxonomy, it can be seen that some errors are more ubiquitous in general and others are more prevailing at a particular proficiency level Remedial efforts should of course be put on grievous errors, but prevalent errors, such as word class confusion, should also receive attention Based on the taxonomy established, an error-gravity scale and an error-prevalence scale can be devised from the most grievous or prevalent to the least grievous or prevalent ESL teachers can then map 314 TESOL QUARTERLY out their teaching sequence and prioritize their teaching focuses according to the prevalence and gravity scales A Concrete Example of the Use of the Taxonomical Classification Below is a short extract from the free writing of an intermediate learner (Form 3) In my childhood, I know everything is right or worm [synform] I feel me is very nice[case][concord] I very love my friend [adverbial order] I very like [adverbial order] my school because I have very good friend [concord] I know me is a very bad girl [case] [concord] I always sleeping [verb form] in my classroom I very happy [copula] With the error taxonomy in mind, teachers can codify each error (see coding in quote above) when marking students’ essays and classify the errors into lexical (e.g., synform), syntactic (e.g., copula), or errors of other levels They can then check the errors against the gravity and prevalence scales to sequence their teaching focuses Errors which are more typical of a higher proficiency level may be addressed at a later stage, but grievous and prevalent errors typical of the students’ proficiency level should be handled with immediacy On careful planning and prioritization of teaching focuses, teachers can then access the remedial instructional material bank for appropriate teaching materials The above coding can also be used for self-access purposes for students who have received explicit teaching on the corresponding error types Teachers can give students the corrected essays with the marked codes and refer students to the material bank for self-correction When students see the same code for their errors (such as I very love my friend and I very like my school), they will learn to generalize the nature of their errors and also the correction techniques CONCLUSION In this article, I have reported on the results of a study which identified common lexicogrammatical errors in Hong Kong Cantonese ESL students’ written English output It is argued that mother-tongue influence is inevitably an important source of learner problems, but lack of facilitation from the L1, inadequate mastery of correct usage, and universal processes may also be important contributing factors The error taxonomy presented in this article was established based on written data from Hong Kong secondary and university students, yet it can be expanded to include written TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 315 and spoken corpus produced by students at other proficiency levels and from other linguistic, social, or ethnic backgrounds ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the students who participated in the study Thanks are also due to my research collaborator, David Li, for his invaluable suggestions and input This study was supported by Strategic Research Grant number 7000975 from the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China THE AUTHOR Alice Y W Chan is an associate professor at the Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China Her research interests include error correction, grammar, 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X 0.22 0.66 0.84 0.94 9.1 6.1 31 44.7 81.8 75.8 59.5 51.1 9.1 18.2 9.5 4.3 ! ! ! ! 0.94 23.4 70.2 6.4 X 0.98 1.08 73.5 53.7 24.5 31.5 14.8 ! ! 1.98 2.2 29.3 29.1 50.5 53.6 20.2 17.3 ! ! 2.28 2.36 2.52 2.88 3.16 3.44 64 61 45.2 36.8 18.4 91.3 22.8 26.3 36.5 47.2 53.2 13.2 12.7 18.3 16 28.5 1.7 ! ! ! X ! ! 3.80 3.86 78.4 73.5 18.4 18.1 3.2 8.3 ! X 4.08 5.18 56.9 40.5 35.2 40.5 7.8 18.9 X ! 6.46 8.52 8.89 9.00 9.65 72.4 71.6 44.1 38 64.1 23.2 23.7 37.6 38.4 29.3 4.3 4.7 18.2 23.6 6.6 ! ! X X ! 0.50 44 28 28 ! 0.78 48.7 30.8 20.5 X Syntactic Level (85.95) Pseudotough movement Misuse of until Misuse of conjunctions Duplicated comparatives or superlatives Misordering of constituents in indirect questions In-prepositional phrases Independent clauses as objects or subjects Be + -ed Pseudopassives and undergeneration of passives Omission of subjects Existential structures Misuse of prepositions Verb form selection Misuse of relative clauses Incorrect order of adverbials or adverbs Serial verb constructions Inappropriate case selection Punctuation problems Transitivity pattern confusion Be + base form Omission of copulas Concord problems Word class confusion Calquing Discourse Level (1.28) Periphrastic-topic constructions Use of it as discourse deixis TOWARD A TAXONOMY OF WRITTEN ERRORS 319