The Gender Mixed Use Errors Of English Third Person Singular Pronouns By Chinese EFL Learners

In the system of personal pronouns, there are some semantic category difference, they are person ( the first, second and third person), number (singular and plural), gender (masculine and feminine) and case(nominative case and accusative case. In English, there are masculine (HE/HIM/HIS) and feminine (SHE/HER/HER) personal pronouns. Because of the difference between Chinese and English, and also the effect of transfer, the Chinese EFL learners will misuse HE/SHE, HIM/HER and HIS/HER, no matter the learner is junior or senior. The purpose of this thesis is to study the error patterns for the gender mixed use of the third person singular pronouns in Chinese junior and senior EFL learners'English oral production and to study if the error rate of male pronouns and the error rate of female pronouns have fossilized? At last, the reasons causing the error patterns will also be discussed.Three major conclusions are obtained:First, The error pattern for the gender mixed use of English third person singular pronouns is the same for Chinese junior and senior EFL learners, that is, the error rate of FEMALE pronouns is larger than that of MALE pronouns, that is to say, in most cases, the subjects in both the two groups are more likely to use the male pronouns when the female pronouns should have been used; Second, between the two groups, the error rate of male pronouns has not fossilized, and the error rate of female pronouns has fossilized; at last, there are many factors causing the gender misuse. The mother language transfer is the basic one. Another factor that may be neglected is gender markedness. In English, masculine person pronouns are unmarked, people are more likely to use it when the person's sex is unknown, and this tendency influences the Chinese EFL learners'gender mixed use of English third person singular pronouns.The significance of the study is to arouse the teachers'and students'attention on the gender mixed use when speaking English, and also some tentative suggestions are put forward for English teacher to avoid this problem in class.