VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
*** NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG
A STUDY ON SENTENCE ERRORS IN THE ENGLISH
COMPOSITIONS OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT
DIPLOMATIC ACADEMY OF VIETNAM

(NGHIÊN CỨU LỖI VỀ CÂU TRONG CÁC BÀI VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN
NĂM THỨ HAI HỌC VIỆN NGOẠI GIAO VIỆT NAM)
M.A. Minor ProgrammeThesis

Supervisor : Prof. Dr Hoàng Văn Vân
Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60 14 10
Hanoi, 2013

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. The frequency of sentence structure errors
Table 2. The frequency of fragments
Table 3. The frequency of run-on sentences
Table 4. The frequency of stringy sentences
Table 5. The frequency of “the sentence structure errors of the other types”
Table 6. The sources of errors v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages
Statement of authorship i
Acknowledgement ii
Abstract iii
List of tables iv
Table of content v
Part A: Introduction 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims 2
3. Methods 3
4. Research questions 4
5. Significance 4
Part B: Development 5
Chapter 1: Literature review 5

2.5.4 The explanation of run-on sentences 26
2.6 Discussion 28
2.6.1 Research question 1 28
2.6.2 Research question 2 31
Part C: Conclusion 34
1 Recapitulation 34
2 The major findings of the research 34
3 Pedagogical implications and recommendations 35
3.1 To the syllabus 36
3.2 To the learners 36
3.3 To the teachers 37
3.4 Limitations and suggestions for further study 42
References 43
Appendices 44

1
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

In this part of the study, the research background and the motivation for the
study implementation would be presented.
As for the research background, this study is one among the studies in the
field of error analysis which has been a part of language pedagogy for a long time.
In Vietnam in general and in University of Language and International Study-
National University of Vietnam in particular, there have been many studies on the
field of error analysis in English language teaching. Some of the studies have tried
to investigate errors in writing skills such as Nguyễn Thị Hương, (2007), Nguyễn
Văn Lợi, (2007), Nguyễn Thị Duyên, (2007). Some others have also examined the
writing errors but in the specific terms such as articles Mai Thị Ngân, (2011) or


The present study has two main goals. The first one is to find out the
sentence errors made by the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of
Vietnam. There is a wide range of sentence errors in the students‟ writings. To get
an insight into the errors, the author should know what kinds of sentence errors they
are. Actually, there are a number of sentence errors which have been found by many
other scholars and researchers. This study needs to find out if the participants of this
institution made the entire sentence errors mentioned in the literature review.
Beside, this minor thesis also needs to find out if there are any other sentence errors
only made by these students. One more question concerning sentence errors this
study need to clarify is how frequent these errors are.
The second aim of this minor thesis is to find out the causes of the sentence
errors made by the students. There must be reasons why the errors came into
existence. Actually, in the field of error analysis, many causes of errors have been
offered. This research should also consider if all the causes for the errors the
students made are the same as the causes which have been reviewed. Finally yet
importantly, the present study is also aimed to see if there are any other causes else
leading to sentence error existence.
In deed, the overall goal of this study is to improve the students‟ academic
writing skill. The specific ways to help may vary depending on the errors and the

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causes which were found out. There may be some changes in the teaching process
or in the design of the writing syllabus. By doing so, the students‟ academic writing
skill will be improved in more than one ways. The first way is that they will not
make such kinds of sentence errors. The second one is that the students will be able
to put more ideas into their writing. This, in turn, will make students to organize
better their essays and thus the coherence and cohesion are all improved then.

3. Methods

The study was supposed to have a great deal of significance. The first one is
for the students. This research will help to improve one of the most significant
English skills for the students. That is because the students will be noticed what
mistakes, errors they are likely to make. They are also given more knowledge about
English and then they will not write the sentence errors causing by their lack of
knowledge about English. To the teachers, the research also helps them in their
writing teaching. With the results found out, their academic writing teaching will be
more effective and more straightforward. That is because the teachers at the
Academy would know what their students know already and what they do not.
Beside, the teachers would not try many ways in vain to prevent the errors because
they have known the causes already. The present study also contributes its findings
to the field of error analysis to confirm the already found findings. Furthermore, the
study affirms that error analysis is crucial in writing teaching. 5
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

As the title suggests, this study is concerned with the sentence errors made
by the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. In order to carry
out this research, this chapter attempts to provide the background related to error
analysis terms and studies which have been stated and done by various scholars. It
will first examine the notion of error and its characteristics. Then it will reexamine
the notion of error analysis. This will be followed by another part in which the
author presents the causes of errors in language learning. The final section is
devoted to sentence errors found out by previous researchers.

1.1 What is an error?


name error. We would like to discuss the problematic sentences are errors or
mistakes in the part error explanation.

1.3 Error analysis

Error Analysis (EA) as a method of the study of errors played a new role in
second language (L2) acquisition research in the 1970s. EA became the principal
methodology used for investigating learner language and L2 acquisition (Corder,
1975). EA is concerned with the learner language and the process of language
learning. Corder (1981: 36) suggests three key steps of EA research: 1)
identification of errors, 2) description of errors, and 3) explanation of errors.
Among the steps, explanation for cause of errors is regarded as the most important
stage as it deals with how and why errors are made, which will then give insights
into what and how a learner learns. Choon (1993) gives some suggestions on
carrying out an error analysis research. According to her, one has to identify the
errors first, and then the errors are classified according to different categories. She
suggested that the system of error classification should be flexible. The last step is
to determine how much they deviate from the target language norm, to what extent
they affect communication. Error analysis can help a language teacher deal with the
specific and common language problems students have so that he or she can know
what should be focused more in a syllabus. 7
1.4 Causes of errors in language learning

There are many views about the causes of errors in second language
learning. These views are the interlinguistic causes, intralinguistic causes and
teaching-induced causes, which can be subdivided as follows:


walked quickly to catch the train.

1.4.3 Fossilization

Normally, it is expected that a learner progresses further along the learning
continuum, so that his “inter-language” moves closer and closer to the target
language system and contains fewer and fewer mistakes. However, learners may
produce errors or mistakes many times and they never disappear entirely. Such
errors are often described as being fossilized, which means that they have become
permanent features of the learner‟s output. Touchie (1986:78) confirmed this as
“Some errors, specially errors in pronunciation, persist for long periods and
become quite difficult to get rid of.”

1.4.4 Errors due to the effect of teaching

Most foreign language learners acquire the target language by constantly
exposing to materials and certain teaching methods. Therefore, second language
acquisition is affected by the way the target language is presented. In the case when
there is an over-emphasis on some certain language knowledge, learners may also
overuse the language knowledge. Sometimes, there are also the faulty rules given
by teachers, according to Hubbard (1983) “the teacher can also induce mistakes by
indulging in some overgeneralization himself, indicating that students are
sometimes given inadequate rules which cause mistakes when they follow them.”
(p.61)

1.4.5 Errors due to carelessness

Carelessness is one of the major causes leading to errors. The carelessness
may result from learners‟ tense, excitement, or lack of motivation. Furthermore, this
is also the consequence of learners‟ failure to follow a known rule. According to

difficult; they interrupt the rhythm of your writing and condense too much
information into a small space.” (par.9) Thus, these three sentence errors mentioned
above are defined through their obstacles to the writing performance. A comma
splice is a sentence with the wrong use of a comma, while a fragment is an
incomplete sentence or only a group of words. A run-on is a sentence with more
than two clauses together with the incorrect use of punctuation.

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Nicolette Amann from the university of Humboldt State University also has
the same ideas about the common types of errors at the sentence level as the above
authors. Here is her definition about fragments: “A sentence fragment is a word, a
phrase, or a dependent clause presented with the capitalization and punctuation
appropriate to a complete sentence. Although sentence fragments are sometimes
acceptable, they should be usually avoided. (par.3). Her definition about a run-on
sentence is a bit different from the one cited above. For them, “A run-on sentence
consists of two independent clauses run together and is punctuated as one
sentence.” (par.5). As for a comma splice, they say that it occurs when only a
comma separates two independent clauses.
The authors of the book, Academic writing English - Level fourth classify
and define the sentence-boundary errors as follows: “A run-on sentence is a
sentence in which two or more independent clauses are written one after another
with no punctuation. The author would like to cite here another opinion about run-
on sentences by (Heffernan & Lincoln, 1986:279). For them, a run-on sentence is
defined as “a sentence which joins two independent clauses or sentences with no
punctuation or conjunction between them.” Together with this, the authors of
the book Academic Writing English, say, “A similar error happens when two
independent clauses are incorrectly joined by a comma without a coordinating
conjunction. This kind of error is called a comma splice.” (p. 184) For them,
sentence fragments are the incomplete sentences or parts of the sentences because a
complete sentence must contain at least one independent clause. For example,

in the area of error analysis in foreign language teaching. The first parts show that
errors and error analysis are of certain significance in foreign language teaching.
The later parts deal with the sources of the errors which are supposed to help
teachers see where their students are. The final part presents us the fact that
sentence errors are of a large number of types and should be paid attention to
because of their obstacles to language proficiency. With the background above, this
research was implemented as in the following chapter.

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CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this part, the information of the subjects would be presented. This consists
of the subjects‟ physical background and their writing levels. After that, the data
and data collection procedure are described.

2.1 Subjects

As for the subjects physical background, the subjects of the present study are
10 non-English major classes of the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of
Vietnam. The total number of the students is 328 students whose ages are around
20. However, the real subjects are only 50 students – 5 from each of 10 classes.
As for the writing levels, the second years students are of different English
levels because a part of them were students who took English as a subject for their
university entrance examination and the other did not. These students also come
from different regions of Vietnam which also contributes to the variety of their
English levels. The students have been working with the same syllabus in their
university time so far. In the first semester, they studied to write sentences. In the
second semester, they were taught to master paragraphs writing skills. In third
semester when this present study was carried out-the second semester of the study
year 2012, they worked with the ways to write academic essays of various types

social contexts, and the author suggested the specific reasons why the students
made the kinds of sentence error. The sub-types of sentence errors were again
examined one by one to see what elements lead them come into existence.

2.3 Report on the results about the kinds of sentence errors

In this part of the thesis, the author would like to present the results that were
found about the kinds of sentence errors the students at DAV made.
In the students‟ writings, there were all kinds of sentence errors which are
reviewed in chapter II. These types of error are run-on sentences, comma splices,
fragments, stringy sentences. There are some sentence errors which cannot be

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classified into the above errors. The author would like to call them as “the sentence
errors of other types.”

2.3.1 Stringy sentences

Of all the stringy sentences found out in the pieces of writing, the writer
again classified them into different types according to their various characteristics.
There are a number of them, which are named as follows.
 Stringy sentences with linking word: „and‟
 Stringy sentences with more than one linking words
 Stringy sentences with „if‟
Stringy sentences with linking word „and‟: In this kind of error, „and‟ is
the main connector used to link all of the other clauses to make the stringy. Here is
an example: „It is clear that in the last 10 years the climate is warmer and El Nino
phenomenon happens unpredictable and it causes a lot of challenges for pp in the
future.‟ Two „ands‟ were used to connect three dependent clauses into one stringy
sentence.

as follows.
- Main verb lacking fragments as questions: These are interrogative
fragments without auxiliary „to be‟. These are some of the errors: „What effects and
causes of inflation in the world?‟, „So, what benefits and effects of globalization?‟,
„Do you know how much your country‟s average life expectancy now and 20 years
ago? In these sentences, the auxiliary of an English question is omitted.
- Main verb lacking fragments as statements: In these sentences, there is a
lack of a main verb which should be „be‟. By looking at the sentences, it is visible
that right after their subjects are the nouns or the adjectives considered as the verbs.
These errors are cited as „Every people want to live as long as they can, but some
dead because of illness.‟ Or „However that culture can‟t instead of our culture.‟
Among these fragments, there is also a type of fragment which lacks the auxiliary
„to be‟ in the present continuous tense. Here it is „Ice melting doing rise level sea,

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so square area decline.‟ This is a mistake because with the students‟ English level,
they at least know how to make a sentence with this tense.
Subject lacking fragments: Here is an example, „Should clearly distinguish
economic globalization with the broader concept of globalization in general.‟ The
subject of this fragment must be in the places around it. The other cases are as
follows: „Conclusion, have some causes and factors make inflation.‟ and „And take
advantage of it‟.
Main clause lacking fragments: For this error, the main clause is the other
sentence which is right next to it. Here is a good example: „Because increase life
expectancy means we have more labor resources‟ or „Such as, import or non-toxic
product‟. This is only an adverbial clause or a complement which should
accompany main clauses to make complete sentences.
Complement lacking fragments: Beside from the fragments the author
mentioned above, the other kind is predicate lacking fragments. This is an example:
„The reasons of this phenomenon are:‟ In the writing paper, there are many

are many national to return to country, they bring many foreign culture,
information and agree with domestic culture.‟ or „Increase life expectation but rate
of born is low can lead old population, there is 1 amount of population is out of
labor.‟. Actually, in the sentences, there are other types of error, however; the fact
that the sentences are the run-on ones is the most visible.

2.3.4 “The sentence errors of other types”

This is a new type of sentence error the author found in the present study. It
contains many small types. They are the new sentence errors which the researcher
could not put into any of the above mentioned sentence structure errors. The author
of the present study would like to call them “the sentence errors of other types.”
However, these ones for us are the important elements among the findings of the
present study. By looking at “the sentence errors of other types” (Appendix 3), we
can see that there are a large number of “sentence errors of other types” which can
be named according to their various characteristics as follows:
 Sentences with the incorrect use of linking words
 Sentence with the incorrect use of relative pronouns

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 Sentences with subject abundance
 Sentences with verb abundance
Sentences with the incorrect use of linking words: This is an example:
„Reducing class size has many positive effects thanks to it help student to develop a
better comprehension and to allow the development of friendship between all
classmates.‟ It could be said that this sentence is neither a fragment, a run-on
sentence nor a stringy one. It is certainly not a fragment because of the presence of
subjects and predicates. Besides, it is not a run-on sentence either as there is only
one independent clause. In addition, it is not a stringy one at all for there is only one
linking word „thanks to‟ to connect the main clause with the dependent clause.


In this part of the study, their frequency of sentence errors by the participants
would be presented basing on the deployment of quantitative analysis.
The total sentences of the 50 pieces of writing are 864 in which there are 129
sentence structure errors. Thus, the average number of sentences in a piece of
writing is 17 sentences. The average number of sentence structure errors in each
writing paper is 3 sentence errors. Among the total number of the errors, the most
problematic sentences are fragments which consist of 40%. The number of
“sentence errors of other types” is a bit lower than the above accounting for 33%.
The remaining problematic sentences are run-on sentences (20%), and stringy
sentences (7%). The frequency of the sentence errors is shown in the table below.

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Table 1. The frequency of the types of sentence structure errors

Sentence errors
Numbers
Average percent
(%)
Rank
Sentence fragments
52/129
40
1
Run-ons
26/129
20
3
Stringy sentences
9/129