An Analysis Of Syntactic Errors In English Writing Of High School Based On Fossilization Theory

The output quality in second language acquisition determines learning achievement and writing is seen as one of the significant output approaches. The hot issues, such as exploring second language writing features, solving the practical writing difficulties for learners, and improving foreign language teaching methods, have long been baffled by researchers in the field of SLA. Although the senior high school writing tasks do not demand too many words, it is enough to reveal the problems the students might encounter and the confusion about how to solve them in the writing process. One of the most prominent problems is syntactic fossilization errors in writing, which include two main categories——the intralingual errors caused by incomplete learning of second language rules and the interlingual errors caused by first language interference. Based on the fossilization theory, this thesis delves into the senior students’ syntactic fossilization performance on English writing with a case study of Z senior high school, applying the quantitative text analysis method and the questionnaire research method, and provides effective teaching strategies in order to reduce the syntactic fossilization errors.This thesis includes four major chapters. Introduction mainly introduces the research background, research question, and research methods, as well as theoretical basis and definitions. Moreover, it outlines the fossilization research achievements at home and abroad from different facets, in which some foreign researchers provide the theoretical bases for the language fossilization, especially for the double effect on foreign language writing, whereas the domestic researchers make a lot of empirical studies that explore the correlation between language fossilization and instruction at different levels. Chapter One mainly records the process of data collection involving the main source of Z senior high school students’ English writing samples and questionnaire of sentence correction designed by the author, and makes two major tables for data analysis. Chapter Two analyzes the research results that make a classification to all the collected statistics, and explains the two categories of students’ fossilization performance and behavioral factors, as well as the syntactic knowledge of higher error rates. Based on the foregoing analysis, Chapter Three puts forward two objective proposals about teaching strategies and classroom activities for high school teachers. On one hand, the English writing teaching approach should be distinguished from the colloquial speech teaching approach because foreign language writing pertains to a formal-like language output and the correct output of language forms should not be overlooked when concerning that of language meaning. Only on the basis of the correct language forms, language meaning will be naturally closer to TL. Thus, the teachers should pay attention to the writing syntactic training to help students overcome recurring fossilization errors, and the students should be guided in a positive manner and learn to introspect and find out their own errors by themselves instead of the teachers’negative attitude and immediate correction. On the other hand, teachers may apply comparative analysis to aid students reduce Chinglish expressions in writing, but it requires teachers themselves to have sufficient expertise and linguistic competence for the purpose of designing accurate teaching programs and classroom activities, otherwise these strategies might increase the students’incorrect cognition only to be just the opposite for their wishes.