Analysis of Errors in English Argumentative Essays Written by Chinese University German Majors

Abstract

Although many people choose to learn a third language as globalization advances, English still plays an important role in the world. However, the intervention of a third language makes the sources of errors in English composition more complex and diverse. Therefore, in order to summarize the main types and causes of errors in English writing among Chinese German college students, the author conducted an empirical study. The participants were 30 sophomores majoring in German from Northeastern University in China, with Chinese as their first language, English as a second language and German as a third language. They were asked to write an argumentative essay of about 200 words in English in 30 minutes. After collecting all the essays, the author interviewed 8 participants. According to the research of predecessors and the characteristics of student errors, the author divides errors into four levels: substance errors, lexical errors, grammatical errors, and discourse errors. Each of these error types contains subcategories. According to statistics, there were a total of 260 errors in the sample, of which grammatical errors accounted for the highest proportion, accounting for 39.7%, followed by substance errors, accounting for 27.1%, and errors of misspelling occurred the most. Combined with interviews, it is found that the main causes of errors include L1 Chinese transfer, L3 German transfer, L2 English intralingual transfer, students' fear of English writing, and negative attitude towards teacher’s feedback. Finally, according to the research results, this paper summarizes some implications of English teaching for Chinese German college students.