2.2. FSs and error analysis
2.2.4. Current research on errors in the use of FSs
In general, research suggests that the most common type of FS errors involves prepositions and articles. In Qi and Ding’s (2011) study, the erroneous use of prepositions and articles accounted for approximately 60% of all the errors identified. This supports the findings of Nesselhauf (2005) about the most common collocational errors being non-lexical items such as prepositions and determiners.
It appears that Vietnamese learners are similarly susceptible to errors involving articles and prepositions. Thu and Huong (2005) reported that errors involving articles occur more frequently than other types of errors (for example, errors in the use of verbs), making up 31.49% of the total errors investigated. Articles remain a problematic area for Vietnamese learners who are at a high-intermediate level. The findings were confirmed by a more recent study conducted by Vu (2017) in which articles and prepositions were found to be the second and third most common
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erroneous areas respectively. This might be explained by the negative transfer of the Vietnamese language into learners’ developing interlanguage. In fact, Vietnamese has different systems of articles and prepositions from the ones in the English language, which likely causes Vietnamese learners to be prone to errors involving articles and prepositions (Dam, 2001; Vu, 2017). Therefore, it was expected that the participants in the present study would make FS errors involving articles and prepositions.
Previous studies show that each FS type presents unique challenges to EFL learners. In the case of collocations, verb-noun combinations have been found to be the most problematic. Specifically, the most common errors involve a wrong choice of verbs. The nouns that were found to accompany the most frequently inaccurately-used verbs include action, aim, attitude, problem, question, statement, step, and conclusion (Nesselhauf, 2005). In a similar vein, Zinkgrọf (2008) found that collocational errors often involve delexical verbs such as do, make, take, and have. Additionally, wrong choices of both nouns and verbs were reported (Zinkgrọf, 2008). In Vietnam, Nguyen et al., (2021) analyzed the written translations of Vietnamese university students who majored in English and found that the most common lexical errors they made involved both verb-noun and noun- noun combinations. In contrast, according to Boonyasaquan’s (2009) study of Thai students’ translations, the most frequently committed collocational errors were identified in adjective-noun combinations with literal translation being the strategy most widely used by students. Overall, it is safe to say that the most common collocational errors often involve erroneous uses of verbs, nouns, and adjectives.
Compared to collocations, the EA of idioms has not been as thoroughly explored, especially in the context of Vietnamese classrooms. However, it has been determined that idioms are a major source of difficulties for Vietnamese learners.
According to Phan, Nguyen, Ly, and Nguyen (2021), most learners find idioms to be problematic because they cannot find the English equivalents for Vietnamese idioms. This is particularly the case for items with cultural connotations. To deal with such difficulties, learners resort to the literal translation of idioms, which is argued to be the result of L1 influence and consequently, a lack of L2 competence
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(Boukhenfir & Bourbia, 2017). Interestingly, even when learners manage to translate idioms correctly in terms of meanings, they are still prone to using the wrong articles, such as under the one roof instead of under one roof (Nguyen, 2020). It seems that learners struggle with both the meaning and the form of idioms.
Among the three types of FSs discussed so far, phrasal verbs suffer the most severe case of learner avoidance (Dagut & Laufer, 1985). Liao and Fukuya (2004) investigated Chinese learners’ avoidance behavior toward phrasal verbs using different types of tests. They found that Chinese learners preferred one-word equivalents of English phrasal verbs. Liao and Fukuya (2004) attributed this behavior to the lack of phrasal verbs in learners’ L1. This finding aligns with Laufer and Eliasson’s (1993) and was later confirmed by Ghabanchi and Goudarzi (2012), Hautte (2018), and particularly in Vietnam by Tran and Tran (2019).
Furthermore, when learners attempt to use phrasal verbs, they often choose the wrong particles or inaccurately use phrasal verbs in place of normal verbs (Sonomura, 1993).
It could be argued that these problems might stem from the belief that phrasal verbs are meant to be used only in speaking and informal discourse and are generally avoided in formal English (Fletcher, 2005; Hundt & Mair, 1999; Marks, 2005). However, recent studies suggest that phrasal verbs actually make up a large proportion of verbs identified in both written and spoken academic English (Chen, Yang, Wei, & Jiang, 2015; Durna & Güneş, 2020). In fact, Alangari, Jaworska, and Laws (2020) found that phrasal verbs “constitute a substantial proportion of verb categories in current academic writing produced by expert writers in the discipline of Linguistics” (p. 10). This is in agreement with Park’s (2007) claim that phrasal verbs could be the most natural way to press an idea in many situations, including formal texts. These findings further highlight the importance of learning to use phrasal verbs properly and resolve phrasal verb avoidance for EFL learners.
All things considered, available evidence shows that ELF learners make a wide variety of errors in the use of FSs. The main cause of errors is often attributed to the differences between English and L1. The present study was expected to
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provide evidence as to whether Vietnamese learners would be susceptible to such errors.