ERROR ANALYSIS OF PASSIVE TRANSFORMATION AND
ERROR ANALYSIS OF PASSIVE TRANSFORMATION AND
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Date
2014-09
Authors
MOHAMMED, BDLIYA IDRISA
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Abstract
This is a linguistic study of the active – passive transformational problems of selected Bura
learners of English by means of Contrastive and Error Analyses. The main aim of this
research is to investigate the extent to which ingrained mother tongue habits interfere with the
learning of English active - passive transformation by Bura learners of English. The
objectives of the study are: to highlight the basic structural differences between English and
Bura active-passive transformations; to provide adequate analysis and interpretation of the
relationship between English and Bura active-passive transformation; and to identify
measures which may help Bura native speakers overcome some grammatical errors relating
to active - passive transformation. The study involves a detailed consideration of the
grammatical errors of three hundred (300) randomly sampled SS111 Bura students in six
selected private and public secondary schools in Biu and Hawul Local Government Areas of
Borno State. An eclectic analytical procedure is adopted. First, Chomsky’s (1957)
supposition that: if S is a grammatical sentence of the form NP1 + AUX + be + NP2, then the
corresponding NP2 + AUX + be + V + by + NP2 is also grammatical. Secondly, Adeyanju’s
(1978) CA analytical procedure of description of the two languages contrasted; selection of
elements to be contrasted; the contrast and prediction of areas of interference; then the
validation of the predictions through fieldwork such as error analysis. Also, Corder’s (1965)
Error Analysis (EA) model which involves four interdependent stages, namely: Recognition,
Description, Explanation and Correction of errors. The findings from this study have brought
to fore some important linguistic points which include the following: The passive exist in
Bura but there is a significant difference between English and Bura passives; these
differences in themselves hamper effective transformation of the English active voice into the
passive voice; there is the persistence of the following category of grammatical errors
namely: tense, concord, formal errors of lexis, morph-syntactic, punctuation and omission
errors. Most of the errors (78%) are due to developmental stage. Only (22%) of the errors
could be attributed to mother tongue interference. Most sentences also were discovered to
exhibit more than one (compound) error as there could be phonological miscues, concord or
morph-syntactic causes; both groups of Bura students in SS111 private and public secondary
schools were seen to have difficulties in transforming active into passive and they produce
similar grammatical errors. This implies that being in a private or public secondary school
had not significantly improved the students’ performance in active – passive transformation.
With these hard data at his disposal, the researcher was able to conclude that the
developmental stage of the learners and mother tongue interference are major sources of
errors for Bura students learning English active – passive transformations. Some active –
passive transformation forms that are completely non-existent in Bura but present in English
language were found to have posed some problems to the students
Description
BEING A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES,
FACULTY OF ARTS, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY,
ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF Ph.D DEGREE IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
SEPTEMBER, 2014
Keywords
ERROR ANALYSIS,, PASSIVE TRANSFORMATION,, PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS,, BURA LEARNERS,, ENGLISH.