A Study Of Fossilization In English Compositions Of Senior High School Students

Interlanguage(IL) Fossilization refers to stagnating phases an IL may reach,typically resulting in detained progress toward target language and stubborn learner errors. Over decades of development, IL fossilization theories have been broadened,mainly by overseas scholars, and integrated with a wide variety of SLA theories. In recent years, the majority of domestic studies of IL fossilization focus on empirical study targeted at college students. This thesis looks at high school students, a less popular segment of learners for IL fossilization studies and analyzes the phenomenon of learner error fossilization phenomenon reflected in English compositions.From the perspective of theoretical foundation, this thesis firstly reviews the development of IL fossilization and related SLA theories and established a theoretical framework applicable to the study of stubborn errors on the part of high school English learners. This framework is structured across three aspects: IL, fossilization and error analysis.On this theoretical basis, by using quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis,this thesis implements an empirical study on the basis of 300 sample compositions and 300 questionnaires and interviews collected from three high schools in Luoyang.Quantitative analysis in this empirical study investigates and compares the typical learner errors on the part of grade 1 and grade 3 high school English learners and obtains the conclusion that while students’ language competence is improving, a variety of stubborn errors are liable to stick in their interlanguage. Furthermore, the questionnaire based empirical research facilitates the analysis of the causal factors of error fossilization and the recommendation of valuable countermeasures.