LEXICAL CHOICE: TOWARDS WRITING
PROBLEMATIC WORD LISTS
Contents
1. Objectives and Methodology
2. Findings
3. Categories of Lexical Errors
4. 1. Assumed Synonymity
5. 2. Literal Translation
6. 3. Derivativeness
7. 4. Collocation
8. 5. Similar Forms
9. 6. Message Translation: Jordanian English
10. 7. Idiomacity
11. 8. Influence of Arabic Style
12. 9. Paraphrase or Circumlocution
13. 10. Verbosity
14. 11. Analogy
15. 12. Confusion of Binary Terms
16. 13. Overuse of Some Terms
17. Bibliography
18. APPENDIX WORD LIST
In an article on English as an international language, Larik (1983) gives the following
examples of what he called "the merciless and indiscriminate fracturing, bruising and
mutiliation" of English.
-- On the elevator door in a Romania hotel, there was a note, 'The lift is being fixed for
the next days. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable'.
-- An Italian doctor's sign read, 'Specialist in Women and Other Diseases.'
-- A happy man in Pakistan may say, 'My heart is garden-garden.'
-- A busy teacher may reproach his pupil, 'Don't you know I am not vacant? Come behind,
when I am empty.'
These are just a few of the countless examples of where wrong lexical choice would not
only sound odd but would lead to the production of "funny" utterances not easily
comprehensible.
The study of lexical choice, an area that may be classified under interlanguage semantics
has not received as much emphasis as the other two components of interlanguage, namely,
phonology and syntax in language learning/teaching research. Lack of research in this
area has been attributed to several factors. Ramsey (1981) suggests that the lack of
research is due to the fact that teachers and syllabus makers have been under the
influence of the tenets of audiolingualism where lexis is relegated to secondary status in
comparison to phonology and syntax. Ramsey (1981) quotes Fries (Fries, 1945) who
claims that "a person has learned a foreign language when he has first within a limited
vocabulary, mastered the sound system and has, second, made the structural devices
matters of automatic habit." Twaddell (1973) views the "downgrading of vocabulary by
teachers and theoreticians alike" as a "reaction against the naive learners' overexaggeration of vocabulary learning" and as a result of the consequent teachers'
enthusiasm for stressing the structural facts about language. Ramsey's and Twaddell's
claims are well substantiated. A cursory examination of textbook series will always show
a tendency to organize learning/teaching materials around structural topics where
vocabulary is used as a vehicle for illustrating phonological and syntactic patterns. One
other major reason for the lack of research on lexis is the fact that it is an inherently
complex and difficult area which does not lend itself as easily as phonology and syntax to
quantification and scientific analysis.
One aspect of the lexis that has been well researched is that of frequency counts. The
development of such counts was at its inception in the work of Fries and Traver (1940)
intended to provide the "limited" vocabulary for the learner to "master the sound system
and make the structural devices matters of automatic habit." Several other word lists
based on frequency counts have been drawn for English (Thorndike and Lorge, 1944;
West, 1959; Francis, 1966; Kucera and Francis, 1967; Carroll et al 1972). But as
Twaddell (1973) points out, the interest of teachers and curriculum developers has
invariably been directed toward the upper end of these frequency lists to the neglect of
the lower end which is as vital for the development of communicative competence. The
idea of frequency distribution mistakenly creates the notion of a bell-shaped normal
distribution for words in English, i.e., a few very high frequency words, a large number
of medium frequency words, and a few low frequency words. The curve, as Twaddell
(1973) points out, is actually different: a few high frequency words, a small number of
medium frequency words, and a very large number of very low frequency words. What is
really important for massive vocabulary acquisition is the low end of the scale.
Examining the "Brown" corpus (Kucera and Francis 1967) where the, the most frequent
word, has a frequency of 69,970 and occurs once every fifteen words of text; the tenth
word be occurs once every 106 words; the 1,000th word reach occurs once every 9,568,
and the 2000th word guess occurs once every 18,111 words, Twaddell concludes that it is
just impossible, based on this quantitative approach, to provide the learner with what he
needs for communication. Lott (1959-60, as quoted by Celce-Murcia and Rosenweig,
1979) expressed his conviction that the limitation or simplification of vocabulary does
not materially facilitate production or comprehension because the overuse of these
procedures complicates syntax to a point where the learner may use more words to
express the same concept. Celce-Murcia and Rosenweig (1979) support this conclusion
and firmly argue that a non-native speaker with a good amount of vocabulary and
minimum structure is more efficient at reading comprehension than one with near perfect
structure and an impoverished vocabulary. They quote Yoshida (1977) who concluded
that the subject of his study, a Japanese boy named Miki, was able to communicate
effectively with his peers after he acquired the productive use of 264 words in seven
major semantic categories (food and drink, animals, toys and playthings, vehicles,
outdoor objects, people and clothes) with non-existent knowledge of English syntax.
Interlanguage analysis studies have been conducted on learners of English from various
language backgrounds, but the overwhelming majority of these studies treated phonology
and/or syntax to the neglect of the lexicon. In her classic study, Duskova (1969)
maintained that lexical errors form less homogeneous material for study than errors in
grammar and established a typology of lexical errors deriving from formal similarity,
relatedness of meaning, assumed equivalence, and distortions. Duskova's limited
taxonomy has been adopted on a narrower scale in several subsequent research studies on
students from other language backgrounds as those of Ghadessy (1976) on Persian
students, and Al-ani (1979) on Arab students. More recently, Arabski (1979) attempted a
quantitative and qualitative analysis of lexical errors occurring in his corpus as
indications of the development of interlanguage. Arabski (1979) attributed most of the
errors to transfer from the first language and referred to the Levenston and Blum study
(1976) in which they investigated a suggested set of universal principles of simplification
including the use of superordinate terms, approximation, synonymy, transfer, and
circumlocution or paraphrase and lent further support to their principles by providing
further examples. He concluded by providing a typology of eight error types in lexis,
namely, use of Polish words, morphological similarity, graphic similarity, hyponymy,
primary counterpart coinage, semantic similarity, and others. The quantitative analysis
was more concerned with counts of these error types than with producing a workable
listing of these items.
Objectives and Methodology
The objective of this study is to analyze quantitatively and qualitatively the errors in
lexical choice made by a sample of Arabic speaking learners of English. In the course of
this analysis, a detailed typology of these lexical errors will be established and each error
type is discussed as to its definition, sources, and implications to language
acquisition/learning. It is assumed that such analyses would contribute to a better
understanding of interlanguage and give better insights into the strategies employed by
language learners for lexical choice.
The sample of this study consists of 128 Yarmouk University students enrolled in six
sections of two composition courses in the English department of Yarmouk University,
Jordan; namely, English 202 (paragraph writing) and English 206 (essay writing). In the
first course (English 202), students write sixteen to twenty paragraphs a semester in
addition to going through major remedial work in English which includes the
introduction and/or revision of the topic sentence, paragraph development, and grammar
based on the errors made. In the second course, the emphasis shifts to writing two to three
paragraph essays while remedial work in sentence structure, punctuation, organization,
and development of argument continues. Students usually write ten to fifteen essays a
semester. For the purposes of this research study, three compositions were selected for
each subject for extensive analysis. Each of the compositions was corrected in a mini-
conference with the writer for errors, and lexically deviant sentences were recorded.
Every student was asked to say what he meant, and if unable to convey his message in
English, he was asked to give his explanation in Arabic, the native language. The
researcher taught these sections, corrected the compositions, recorded the errors, and
discussed each of the errors with the individual students who made them.
The topics of the compositions varied across courses and across sections. They included
Jordanian TV programs, problems in registration, automobile accidents, my favorite
teacher or course, coeducation, a typical day, my house, why learn a second language, the
rising rate of crime, tourism in Jordan, a recipe, a story or a movie I liked, working
women, a person I admire, and my father.
A total of 691 lexically deviant sentences were recorded and analyzed.
Findings
The 691 deviant lexical errors were classified into thirteen error types. Quantification of
errors does not include frequencies of individual lexical items. Each of these error types
will be discussed and illustrated with examples from the data, and a preliminary list of
"problematic lexicon' for the Arabic-speaking learners of English will be shown at the
end of the chapter. It is necessary to point out that the thirteen error categories are by no
means exclusive. In fact, these categories do overlap in a great many instances where
some errors may be classified under 1-5 categories at the same time.
The table below is a summary of the thirteen error types and their frequencies.
Categories of Lexical Errors
Frequency
1. Assumed Synonymity
2. Literal Translation
3. Derivativeness
4. Collocation
5. Similar forms
6. Message Translation
7. Idiomacity
8. Influence of Arabic Style
9. Circumlocutions
10. Verbosity
11. Analogy
12. Binary Terms
13. Overuse of some lexical terms
163
82
68
66
58
53
42
35
31
28
23
23
21
691
% Total
23.5
11.8
9.8
9.5
8.3
7.6
6.0
5.0
4.4
4.0
3.3
3.3
3.0
Approx. 100%
1. Assumed Synonymity
English is said to be very rich in synonyms because of the French, Latin, and Greek
influences on the language and because of the vast number of borrowings from different
languages. However, it has been generally argued in semantis that there are no real
synonyms in language and that no two words or two sentences have exactly the same
meaning. Palmer (1976:60) argues that it seems unlikely that two words with exactly the
same moaning would both survive in a language. Words that are considered synonyms,
especially those "exploited" in dictionaries are in fact different in meaning in some
respect. Nilsen (1975:154-5) suggests the idea of a continuum where a word would be at
one end, its antonym on the other end, and its synonyms would be placed as close as
possible to each other. The argument for a continuum is motivated by the fact stated
earlier; that no two words have exactly the same meaning. The difference in meaning
among these synonyms may be, according to Nilsen (1975:155) a difference in style, in
geographical distribution, in formality, in vulgarity, in attitude of the speaker, in
collocation, in connotation, and possibly some other ways. In a great number of cases
these differences can be specified in terms of features which tend to be more language
specific than universal as a foreign language learner might assume. If we take the words
tall and long, for example, tall might have the feature [+human]. A man can be tall, and a
distance long in English, but both man and distance are tawTl, which encompasses both
long and tall in Arabic. Sometimes these selectional restrictions placed on the choice of
lexical items are so fine to the extent that the distinction between two synonyms becomes
so hard to realize to the foreign learner that he would use the words in the set of
synonyms interchangeably.
The foreign language learner, who is always encouraged to learn synonyms and who is
dependent on the monolingual or bilingual dictionaries tends to assume that a number of
related words are synonymous to the extent where they can be used interchangeably. This
tendency is reinforced by the fact that in a great number of words the difference of
meaning is fine and subtle, or such differentiation is not made by the native language.
This becomes a serious problem in the case of words with what Palmer (1976:62) calls
"loose sense of synonymy."
The largest percentage of error (23.5%) occurred in this category.
Following are some illustrative examples.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
They leave their town in order to obtain a career. (job)
There are not many occupations in the village. (jobs)
When her husband comes from his job she seems unhappy. (work)
There are many works in the city. (jobs)
He offered many aids to the people. (help)
When I finish, I go to the cafeteria to meet my friends and take our breakfast.
Then I have leisure until 12 o'clock. (free time)
7. In winter it is full of white and nice ice. (snow)
8. I am for coeducation because of two reasons, the first is that friendship grows up
among the two races. (sexes)
9. Jordanian TV contains a lot of educational programs. (offers)
10. My father is a long thin man. (tall)
11. Coeducation teaches students to improve their ability to deal with the other kind.
(sex)
12. Most works need English. (jobs)
In sentence 1, career is used instead of job; in 2, occupations is used instead of jobs; in 3
job is used instead of work; and in 4, work is used instead of job. Generally, career,
occupation, job, and work are assumed by learners to be synonymous and can be used
interchangeably. In fact, in an English-Arabic dictionary the four words, career, job,
occupation, and work, have the equivalent 9amal in Arabic. Besides, where there can be
different equivalents in Arabic for job, occupation, work, and career, those equivalents
have to be further explained in the context of other synonyms to clarify the differences in
the shades of meaning. In sentence 6, leisure is confused with free time. Again, in a
bilingual dictionary, both will have the equivalent of faraz and in a monolingual
dictionary, free time is used as a synonym for leisure.
Sentences 7 and 9 are examples of different distribution in the use of lexis in the two
languages. In sentence 7, ice is used for snow and Arabic has two distinct terms for these
two words, thetaalj for snow and jalid for ice; however, the superordinate term snow is
more frequently used than ice. The two terms have different distribution in usage.
Whereas you add ice to your glass of water in English, you add snow (thetaalj) to your
glass of water in Arabic; thus the student assumes that ice and snow can be used
interchangeably. Tall and long in sentence 10 exemplify another case where the two
terms are less differentiated in Arabic than in English. The two terms have one equivalent
in Arabic, the word tawT1; thus in Arabic tawil is used where both long and tall are used
in English. Consequently, the Arab learner assumes that they can be used interchangeably.
The equivalent of high, murtafi9, a related lexical item, is never used with humans while
it may be used with humans in English.
In sentence 8, there is a quite similar case to sentences 1-3. The word races was used
instead of sexes. In fact, race, sex, and kind would be defined in an English-Arabic
dictionary with the Arabic word jins, which can be used for the contexts in which the
three English words are used; however, the differentiation between sex, race, and kind is
more dependent on the context in the case of Arabic than on the use of different lexical
items as in English. For that reason the student assumes that these are similar.
It should be pointed out here that the errors in most of these examples can also be
attributed to the use of bilingual dictionaries. If the student needs a lexical item, he
selects the equivalent for the Arabic word listed in the dictionary; thus ,, if the learner
wants to use the word race he looks under jins and he might pick up the word kind. The
use of short, abridged dictionaries which list loose synonyms without detailed
explanations or examples of the senses in which a word is used is another source for this
kind of error.
Finally, in a number of cases, one may find lexical items that are differentiated in
meaning in one language but have one equivalent in the mother tongue and
differentiation is not felt necessary. A case in point are the words library and bookstore or
bookshop which have the Arabic aquivalent maktabah. The Arabic equivalent covers
both in meaning. Consequently, the Arab learner uses library and bookstore as substitutes
for each other. This may also apply to words like house-home, empty-vacant, mendcorrect, oven-bakery, record-register, refuse-reject, stop-stand, and voice-sound.
2. Literal Translation
This category includes errors where the choice is an equivalent for an Arabic word or an
expression on the literal level, but does not convey the meaning intended in the target
language. Sentences produced with this kind of error sound odd and "funny," and
sometimes such sentences are coined by proficient speakers of English as jokes and puns.
A classic example of this kind of error is the literal translation of the expression juruf
gahirah which means compelling circumstances and is usually rendered into English 'as
Cairo envelopes, where Cairo means compelling and envelopes literally has the meaning
of circumstances in Arabic. In this example both words juruf and gahirah each has two
meanings; a concrete denotation and an abstract one. juruf on the concrete level means
envelopes and on the abstract level means circumstances. gahirah means Cairo, the name
of the city, on the concrete level and compelling on the abstract level. In this error type
the learner chose the two concrete Arabic equivalents Cairo envelopes to convey the
abstract expression compelling circumstances.
Following are further examples from the corpus.
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11. We invited people to eat at our home as our customs and imitations. (traditons)
12. I am going to talk about how to make grape papers. (vine leaves)
13. I go to the oven in the morning to buy bread. (bakery)
14. Anyone who visits Petra will be forced to spend a complete day looking at
Petra traces. (ruins)
15. Coeducation is refused in our society. (rejected)
16. Some TV programs encourage slanting in young people. (delinquency)
17. Mixing itself is very important. (coeducation)
18. Poverty guides persons to do illogical things. (lead, illegal)
19. Good dealing is an adjective which people in Jordan have. (quality)
20. They can also learn some good description like confidence. (quality, property,
trait)
In sentence 14, the choice of traces would look possibly irrelevant to someone who does
not know Arabic. The student in this sentence is formulating his sentences in Arabic and
translating them into English; will be forced in the sentence is another error in lexical
choice. The student actually meant that the visitor will be so taken by the magic of Petra
that he would be tempted to stay. The student did not know the English equivalent for
[athetaar], which may be traces and ruins. The learner either checked a bilingual
dictionary or pluralized the word trace to convey the meaning of ruins.
Sentences 19 and 20 provide interesting illustration for literal translation. The Arabic
word .sifah has the equivalents adjective, and quality, and quite related is description.
Instead of quality the learner used adjective and description in those two sentences.
Similarly, the Arabic word furn has the English equivalents oven and bakery. The learner
chose oven as substitute for bakery. Warag has the English equivalents paper and leaves.
The learner chose paper which is a literal translation of the Arabic expression warag al9inab which is equivalent to grape leaves or vine leaves.
Sentence 16 provides other interesting examples. The student was thinking of the Arabic
Inhiraf which has the equivalents slanting on a literal level and delinquency on a
metaphorical level. The student's choice was slanting which makes the sentence rather
odd.
Literal translation goes beyond the word to include clauses and sentences, a category that
will be dealt with later under Jordanian English.
3. Derivativeness
A peculiar feature of Arabic that has been shown to have a bearing on lexical choice
made by Arabic-speaking learners of English is the derivative nature of Arabic. Whereas
English adjectives may be derived from nouns, adverbs from verbs, derivations in Arabic
take a different direction. From the trilateral root of a word, which is usually considered
to be the perfect or the past tense from, words can be derived from the root and some of
the derivations may seem irrelevant to someone who doesn't know Arabic. If we take the
trilateral root of the verb to write k t b, for example, derived words would include other
forms of the verb, participles and words like maktab (office), kitab (book or letter), katib
(clerk), maktabah (library or bookstore), and many others. The Arab learner of English
hypothesizes that he can apply derivation in the same way it works in Arabic to English.
Derivativeness accounted for 9.8% of the errors. Following are some illustrative
examples from the corpus.
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22. I am proud of this father who has a good way of writing and satisfaction.
(persuasion)
23. I travel to the university by bus. (go)
24. Mansaf is the national cook in Jordan. (dish)
25. I call everyone to visit Jordan. (invite)
26. I prefer learning English because it is easy to educate it. (learn)
27. It is right that all people in the village have their agricultural work to earn
their living. (true)
28. Psychology is my lovely class. (favorite)
29. Women have to stay home to execute many jobs. (do)
30. There is no birth control and if you want to save a good living . . . (secure)
The choice of the word satisfaction in sentence 22 may be puzzling for it seems to a
native speaker to be irrelevant to the general meaning of the sentence. However, choice
of the word is not as haphazard as it may seem to be. The student who wrote this sentence
was looking for the word persuasive to describe his father. He was obviously translating
from English into Arabic and the Arabic word for persuasion is Igna9 which is derived
from the trilaterial root qn9. A frequent item in English is the word satisfy, an equivalent
to the verb qani9a. Assuming that English and Arabic are similar in this aspect, the
student derived satisfaction while in fact meaning to say persuasion.
In sentence 24, the student meant that Mansaf is the national dish in Jordan. Dish can be
either abaq or tabxa in Arabic and either of them would convey the meaning. The second
equivalent is a noun derived from the trilateral root tbx (tabaxa, cooked). The learner,
assuming similarities in derivativeness, thought of the Arabic word tabxa and derived an
equivalent from the English verb he knows, which is cook in this case.
Similar explanations can be offered for the rest of the examples in this section. This
category accounted for 9.5% of the errors and it has been reported as a problem for
learners of English from various backgrounds.
4. Collocation
Firth, the British linguist (Palmer, 1976:94), argued that "You shall know a word by the
company it keeps." He gave the example of the word ass which occurred in a limited set
of contexts ("You silly -----." and "Don't be such an -----.") and with a limited set of
adjectives silly, obstinate, stupid, and awful. It is true that collocation may be viewed as a
part of the meaning of a word and the use of wrong collocation strongly marks the
sentence as "unEnglish." The wrong choice of collocation, however, is directly related to
transfer from the native language. In some of the following examples of collocation,
transfer from Arabic will be pointed out.
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31. English is a famous language.
32. Jordan is full of beautiful nature.
33. He introduces seldom braveness in the battle.
34. Learning a second language is necessary to every one who wants to grow his
knowledge.
35. Life is sweet in the city.
36. The weather is kind in the country.
37. Jordan has striking places.
38. TV programs solve the popular problems.
39. She smelled the new life and felt free.
The choice of the wrong collocation as exemplified in sentences 31-39 can be attributed
to several factors. One important consideration is the lack of extensive reading of
contemporary English prose where the student may acquire and build up competence to
use the lexicon of the language. Translation from the native to the target language, and
the dependence on bilingual dictionaries that offer one word synonyms without
explanations or examples is another factor. If we take sentence 33, for example, the
collocation at the meaning level is correct in both English and Arabic. The student
evidently was thinking in terms of Arabic and translating into English. The learner
obviously meant rare courage, but he used seldom for rare and braveness for courage and
produced the uncommon, possibly unacceptable, collocation of seldom braveness.
Sentences 35 and 36 are clear examples of transfer from Arabic where the learner
hypothesized that a collocation in Arabic is similar to a counterpart in English. hayah
hilwah which has the literal equivalent sweet life in English is an acceptable collocation
and a frequent expression in Arabic while sweet does not collocate with life in English.
taqs latif which has the literal equivalent of kind weather in English is again an
acceptable collocation and a very frequent expression in Arabic; however, it is not
acceptable in English.
In sentence 34, the learner used grow with knowledge. The learner was in fact thinking of
the Arabic Yunammi which has the equivalents develop and grow. The wrong choice of
grow with knowledge sounds odd.
5. Similar Forms
One of the main sources of error in lexical choice which accounted for 8.3% of the total
is similar forms. Duskova (1969) identified this source in her study of Czech learners of
English, and several other studies of students from various language backgrounds
corroborated Duskova's taxonomy. The point here is that the learner chooses a word
similar to that intended. The similarity in this case is graphic and phonetic. Examples of
this error follow.
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40. People are unable to work and earn efficient money.
41. They are reasonable for the lost of our land.
42. This weapes discrimination between the rich and the poor.
43. More facilities are capable in the city.
44. A person who knows a second language can boarden his knowledge.
45. She does not desolve any problem that occurs in her house.
46. Men and women must be equal in education so as to spring up good
generation.
47. Then I dear the floor and organize all the house.
48. My house is situated in a / quite/area of land. It is in the east sight.
49. Sometimes I go to the library, particularly when I want to write a search.
The choice of a term for an intended lexical item is clear in these examples where
efficient was chosen for sufficient, reasonable for responsible, lost for loss, weapes for
wipes out, capable for available, boarden for broaden, spring up for bring up, clear for
clean, quite for quiet, sight for side and search for research paper.
6. Message Translation: Jordanian English
What is meant by this category which accounted for 7.6% of the total number of errors is
that the production of the learner on the sentence level is a word for word translation
from Arabic into English. The translation in this case is systematically based on
colloquial spoken Arabic, the "low" variety, rather than on classical Arabic, the "high"
variety. If translated again into Arabic, the message would represent the learner speaking
his own dialect of Arabic. Examples of this category follow.
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50. The government rules are the reason of the most car accidents in Jordan.
51. I saw the conclusion of study in that class. I was the first.
52. She had a kind of personality which made the people know her talk to her love
her.
53. My room reflects the relax on myself.
54. Anyone who has no emotions and no sight can think of crime.
55. He can know the thing without needing anyone to tell him.
The message intended in sentence 50 is that the traffic regulations are not strict enough to
deter people from committing traffic violations and for that reason many car accidents
take place in Jordan. In sentence 51, the student was talking about his favorite course in
which he worked so hard that he got the highest grade in his class. He ranked first in his
class. In sentence 53, the student was talking about his house. He meant to say that his
room is comfortable and he feels relaxed when he is in it. In sentence 54, the learner
meant to say that no normal human being would think of committing a crime. In sentence
55, the student was describing his father and he meant to say that his father is a
knowledgeable man.
It seems that translation from Arabic to the target language is a strategy of
communication. Learners are usually asked to avoid this strategy at the sentence level and
to "think in English" when producing English. This strategy tends to persist and only
through intensive correction and explanation would learners minimize the use of this
strategy.
7. Idiomacity
Related to translation is idiomacity which accounted for 6% of the total number of errors.
The learner, unaware of the idiomatic expression in the target language, tries to come up
with an equivalent to the expression in his native language. Examples of this error follow.
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56. I sleep at 11 o'clock. (go to bed)
57. I slept there two days. (stayed)
58. When I get up I change my clothes. (change)
59. I usually shave my face in the morning. (shave [my beard])
60. I get up early to repeat my lessons. (recite, read)
61. I hear the music in my free time. (listen to)
62. I start strolling with my friends around campus. (take a walk)
In sentence 56, the student meant go to bed which is usually expressed in Arabic by sleep.
In sentence 57, the student meant stayed, but usually the Arabic bitna, meaning slept, is
used to mean stayed. In sentence 58, change my clothes is an approximation of get
dressed. In sentence 59 shave my face is a translation from Arabic and the student meant
shave or shave my beard. In sentence 59, repeat is used for recite. In sentence 61, the
student meant listen to music while in sentence 62, the student meant take a walk.
Sentences 56-62 may be easily understood by a native speaker of English, but they are
obviously deviant. The student failed to use the idiomatic expression normally used in
English to convey these ideas.
8. Influence of Arabic Style
There is a tendency to use oppositive synonyms in written Arabic conjoined by the article
aw, which means or, and/or wa which means and. This particular feature of written
Arabic is transferred to English. From examination of the data, it can be generalized that
whenever such an oppositive synonym is used, the choice of either items is wrong. This
category accounted for 7.6% of the total number of errors.
Following are examples of this category.
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63. Good behavior and good breeding are suitable for children to learn.
64. My house is placed or situated in a beautiful area.
66. We haven't the time to share and play in the relaxation.
67. We still don't find the ideal solution to solve or decrease the problem of crime.
Examining these sentences, we notice that good breeding (63), works (64), placed 65,
share (66), and decrease (67) do not fit in these contexts and were needlessly inserted.
9. Paraphrase or Circumlocution
When the learner cannot think of the proper word to use in a certain context, he may
provide a parahrase that would convey the intended meaning. Paraphrase as used here
differs from frequently used types of lexical paraphrase as those of lexical corporation or
decomposition (Nilsen, 1975) (e.g., covered with cement -- cemented, learn -- become
knowledgeable) normally used in English in that paraphrase as used by Arab learners of
this sample is generally of the decomposition type but not normally allowed in English. It
strikes the native speaker as "unEnglish." 4,4% of the errors in the data are of this type.
Following are some examples.
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68. Smoking cigarettes has a bad effect especially on a lady who is carrying an
infant.
69. They always visit doctors to make check on their bodies.
70. They (children) are suffering endlessly from the poorness of food.
71. It means that if rain not drop, people will suffer.
72. My house consists of five rooms three of them are for sleeping.
73. There is a clothes cupboard in my room.
The underlined parts of sentences 68-73 are paraphrases for the intended words pregnant,
checkup, malnutrition, rainfall, bedroom and closet respectively. While those sentences
may be understood by the native speaker, the paraphrase in each example is not normally
used in English.
10. Verbosity
This category which accounted for 4% of the total number of errors, stems from the
tendency on the part of students to incorporate long, big sounding words into their
compositions, being under the influence of the myth that the inclusion of such words
makes a piece of writing more impressive and literary like. Consequently, archaic, strictly
formal, and less familiar terms are used instead of a more appropriate vocabulary.
Moreover, some learners employ figures of speech in English transferred from their
native language. While the employment of such figures of speech can be considered as an
indication of the creative use of language, the average native speaker of English will find
difficulties understanding the message. Examples of this category follow.
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74. Everyone of the participants vanished. (left)
75. The main problem facing Yarmouk University students is dwelling. (housing)
76. The abundance of the facilities in the city make people move from the village.
(availability)
77. Al-Kassam tried to conjugate all the fighters. (unite)
78. The fact that we are vanguished people insists on us to think of the present
situation. (defeated)
79. He (Taha Hussein, an Arab man of letters) wrote researches which were gems
in the Arabic literature. (essays)
In sentence 74, left could have been a better choice; in sentence 75, the writer meant
housing rather than dwelling; in 76, availability rather than abundance; and in 77, he
meant united. Sentence 79 is a good example of translating a figure of speech from
Arabic to English, Gems in the Arabic Literature. The student also replaced the frequent
word piece or book by what he thought to be a more impressive choice, researches.
11. Analogy
In the choice of lexical items, a strategy used by learners from different language
backgrounds is analogy. The learner coins new verbs, nouns, adjectives, and other parts
of speech along the lines of existing paradigms. Analogy sometimes goes beyond the
word to the phrase level as will be shown. Examples of analogy follow.
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80. There are many places for parking and spending their vacation.
81. There are responsibles in the society.
82. Everyone has special distingushers from others.
83. I still in my house all the day.
84. At half past seven I supper and then I begin to prepare my lessons.
85. The circulation of watchers depends on the kInd of program.
A look at sentence 80 shows the choice of parking is out of place. It would also be
interesting to see how such a sentence would be interpreted by different speakers of
English. For a native speaker, parking can only mean a place to park your car. The
student who produced this sentence, however, had something different in mind. In fact,
he meant going to parks, and parking was produced analogically to such words as
picnicking and fishing. In sentence 81, responsibles was coined in analogy with such
words as notables and portables Still and supper are used as verbs in 83-84 in analogy to
sets of other verbs in the language.
Sentence 85 shows analogy beyond the word level. The learner meant the number of
viewers, but when asked why he chose circulation of watchers, his response was that he
read about circulation of newspapers and he thought he could use the same phrase for TV
viewers.
The use of terms in analogy to others can be a good indication of the creative use of
language. It may also show the active involvement of the learner in the process of
learning the language. He is, in fact, formulating and applying hypotheses about the
structure of the target language. The problem with that, however, is the fact that the
production of the learner is deviant from the norms of the target language and,
consequently, it is not understood in the actual business of communication. That is
possibly why such structures may be classified as "deviant."
12. Confusion of Binary Terms
In English, as in any other language, there are lexical items which are usually categorized
as "relational opposites" (Palmer, 1967). These words generally exhibit the reversal of a
relationship between items rather than "oppositeness in meaning". Erdmenger (1985),
based on the work of Stachowiak (1979) and Stachowiak and Bierwisch (1980), includes
under binary opposites such relationships as antonomy as in thick-thin, complementary
relations as female-male, converse relations as in doctor-patient and directional relations
as in come-go. Such words tend to be confused and used as substitutes for each other.
Examples from the data follow.
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86. It learns them independence.
87. I returned the books I lent from the library.
88. Coeducation learns the student how to communicate with one another.
89. The instructor who took me psychology is very good.
90. These consist my typical day.
As shown in these examples, learn is used as substitue for teach in sentences 86 and 88,
lent for borrowed in 87, took for gave in 89, and consist for make up in 90.
13. Overuse of Some Terms
A major source of wrong lexical choice reported by other studies on EFL/ESL learners
and evident in the data is the overuse of the four particular lexical superordinate items
good, bad, big, and small. The range given to these four words in the compositions under
study is far larger than what they really cover. The use of good typically substitutes for
all the terms reflecting any intended positive quality, leading to the production of such
combinations as good knowledge, good meaning, good stay, good rules, good civilization,
good nationality, and good language. Some of these combinations may be acceptable in
English, but the overuse of good reduces variety of usage; bad covers the other end of the
spectrum.
Small covers the areas of little, a little, few, a few in addition to its feature; thus, such
combinations as small time, small money, small brother, small sister, small knowledge,
and smaller friend were produced. Big covers the meanings of much and many. Related
to this category is the repetition of some lexical items, particularly very, many, big, and
small to express intensification of adjectives or to convey specific meanings in relation to
volume and quantities, especially the extreme ends of the scale. Channel (1981) talks
about the overuse of a few general items as a source of error in lexical choice and
describes the production of the learner as characterized by "flat, uninteresting style, and a
failure to express the variety of ideas he wants to communicate."
Arabski (1979) states in his analysis of the lexical errors made by Polish learners of
English that "the most obvious influence of L1 is seen in the use of L1 lexical items," a
phenomenon often referred to as "lexical shift." In this study, there was a complete
absence of lexical shift; not one single example occurred. This may be attributed to what
Kellerman (1977) and Ringbom (1982) refer to as "perceived language distance" where
some European languages may be perceived closer to English than non-European
languages which are usually perceived as distant in relation to English.
The results of this study show that first language interference is a major variable in
lexical choice. Interference is not in lexical shift form, but it takes the forms of assumed
synonymity, derivativeness, literal translation, and idiomaticity. The most obvious form
of mother tongue interference is assumed synonymity where the learner assumes that a
lexical item in English has the same reference sense, connotation, and register as its
translation equivalent in Arabic. In collocational errors, mother tongue interference is at
play where the learner assumes that the English word collocates in the same manner as its
translation equivalent in Arabic. Other forms of interference are influence of Arabic style
and literal translation.
A large number of those lexical errors may be predicted by contrastive analysis; however,
an error analysis approach is more realistic, because not all predicted errors occur and
because the sampling in a contrastive analysis approach would prove to be difficult in an
area like lexis. Moreover, collocational, derivative, similar form paraphrase, verbosity,
and analogy errors would be difficult to analyze outside the framework of an error
analysis approach.
A major implication of the findings of this study is that problematic word lists, as the
preliminary list in the appendix of this paper, would prove practical, and indeed helpful
for foreign language learner. Such lists would help the learner adopt practical strategies
for improving his/her semantic competence.
Another implication of the findings of this study is that developments in the field of
theoretical semantics can be successfully exploited in the classroom. Particular reference
can be made here to semantic field theory and componential analysis and the techniques
suggested by Channel (1981), Ramsey (1981), Stieglitz (1983) and Erdmenger (1985) for
applying theoretical semantics in the classroom.
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APPENDIX WORD LIST
Sample Problematic Word List for Arabic Speaking Learners of English
abundance - availability
accomplish - perform - execute
according to - as for
adjective - description - quality
admire - like - love
affect - effect
affection - sympathy - compassion - pity
after - afterwards
agree - accept - admit
aid - help
also - too
analyze - examine - explore
announcement - advertisement - commercial
capture - controle - hold
career - job - occupation - work
ceiling - roof
center - position
civilized - cultured - developed - progress - advance
chain - series
chance - opportunity
character - characteristic - quality
choose - prefer
choices - possibilities - chances
clean - pure - clear
clear - clean
close - putt off - turn off
clock - watch - hour
climate - weather
common - general
communicate - related to
communication - transportation
comprise - consist of - contain - include
conclusion - result
connect - contact
connected - related - associated
consist - has - make up - comprise
contain - include
cook - dish
correct - right - true
correct - mend
cultivation - agriculture
cultured - educated
cut - collect (harvest)
cut - divide
date - appointment - promise
decrease - lack - shortage
deep - serious
develop - invent- discover
dinner - supper - lunch
discover - invent - explore
discrimination - differentiation - distinction
distributed - divided
do - make
down - downstairs
dress - wear - put on - change
drown - sink
dwelling - housing
each - everybody
educate - learn - teach
effect - influence
empty - vacant - free - blank
engage - busy
expand - enlarge
experience - experiment
fingers - toes
folks - people
foot - leg
friend - comrade - colleague
games - match - play - toy
generate - produce - make
girl - woman - lady
go to bed - sleep
grave - tomb
grow - develop - increase
grow - raise - bring up - rear
guide - lead
guy - fellow - friend - colleague
happen - take place - occur
hand - arm - palm - elbow
hard - difficult - severe - tough
hardness - cruelty
hear - listen to
heroes - champions
home - house
homework - duty - assignment
ice - snow
illegal - illegitimate - illogical
infancy - childhood
introduce - acquaint - show
involvement - interaction
join - gather - unite
kind - nice-mild- gentle
kind - sex - race
lack - decrease - reduce
learn - teach
leave - quit
leisure - free time
lend - borrow
less - few
level - standard
lie - lay
life - living
like - resemble - same
lovely - favorite
marks - features
mend- correct
mixing - coeducation
mountain - hill
murder - kill
negatives - disadvantages
noise - sound - voice
object - subject
observe - watch - notice
open - turn on - put on
operation - process
organize - arrange - plan
oven - bakery
papers - leaves - sheets -pages
participate - share
people - population
placed - located
pond - pool - lake - swamp
popular - common - general
preserve - conserve - keep
prevent - forbid
price - cost
procedures - methods
quality - characteristic
quite - quiet
race - competition
reach - arrive
reason - cause
recently - shortly - lately
recite - repeat - memorize
recommend - demand - require
record - register
refuse - reject
remainings - memories - memoirs
remarkable - wonderful
remember - remind
renew - refresh
repair - correct - mend - correct
resemble - like - similar
reservation - conservation
resolve - solve
responsible - in charge of
return - due to
right - true - correct
rise - raise river - stream - creek - valley
rob - steal
role - turn
rules - laws - regulations
say - speak - tell
save - secure
second - next
see - look at - meet
seldom - rare
send - take
sentimental - sympathetic
sewing - tailoring
share - participate
shut - closed
since - for - ago - before
situation- location
slanting - delinquent
sleep - stay
sleep - go to bed
small - little - young
smooth - soft
soft - smooth - gentle - delicate
spectators - viewers - audience - watchers
speed - increase
spend - pass - waste -kill (time)
stand after - stand behind
still - continue
stop - stand - park
strange - quaint
strangers - foreigners
stand - lie - situate
strike - hit
supply - provide
surprise - amaze - astonish - shock
take - drink
talk - speak
tall - long - high
tell - inform- say
traces - antiquities - ruins
travel - go
treat - deal
trick - deceive - deceit
vacant - empty - free
voice - sound
whole - all
~~~~~~~~
By Muhammad Raji Zughail, English Department, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
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