Syntactic Analysis of Errors in Iranian EFL Learners’ Written Productions

Abstract

The present study examines the status of different grammatical errors made by intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced students. To meet the goals, two judgment tests and one completion test are conducted. The result of the first judgment test determined that the most common errors committed more frequently by the EFL learners are in the area of prepositions. Then a completion test was taken to determine the type of preposition errors committed by the same participants. The results indicated that the wrong use of errors was more frequent than the omission or addition of errors and that these errors committed due to both inter-lingual and intra-lingual interferences. To investigate which wrong prepositions are used more frequently, another judgment test was taken. The prepositions selected for this purpose were into/to, in/at, with/by, of/from, over/on. These prepositions were selected due to the fact that each pair has one correspondence in Persian. The most frequent errors were examined in the use ‘of /from’. This may result from the fact that EFL learners use one preposition for both ‘of and from’ in Persian language and that some errors are fossilized in the mind of these learners. This study also indicates that there are some developmental errors that will be removed as the result of proficiency levels of students.