’ attitudes towards learners’errors have been greatly changed.Corder and his colleagues first established Error Analysis in 1960s. As a founderof Error Analysis, Corder (1967) pointed out the studies on errors made by L2learners can give feed-backs on learners’ acquisition to language instructors andprovide L2 learners with evidence of how to efficiently learn it. Linguists who supportthis theory believed that errors are unavoidable in learning the target language anderrors are the essential parts of learning and have a positive effect on languagelearning.In the 1970s, interlanguage theory (Selinker,1972) brought a brand new view tolinguistics, which can be defined as a dynamic linguistic system which has beendeveloped by an L2 learner who has not become fully proficient yet, but isapproximating the target language: preserving some features of their first language, orovergeneralizing target language rules in speaking or writing the target language andcreating self-made forms. Interlanguage theory has a positive view toward errorscommitted by L2 learners as it believes that committing errors and correcting errors will help learners get closer to the target language system by applying the rules of thetarget language when they correct errors.Except helping learners acquire the target language, studying learners’ errors alsohas a great significance on other relevant areas, especially the second languageteaching and the compilation of learner’s dictionaries. Zhao Xueqin (2000) and DengLin (2007) believe that learners’ errors are systematic and predicable. Hence, learners’errors are worth studying and the research achievements could be applied intolearner’s dictionary compilation so that the dictionaries could be a more helpful toolto help learners acquire the target language and avoid committing common errors.In a word, learners’ errors are no longer seen as something undesirable andshould be avoided; instead, they are now regarded as something positive and worthstudying.
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2.2 Causes of Learners’ Errors
Chinese EFL learners meet many kinds of learning problems as they encounter moreand more adjectives common to both written and spoken English. To minimize suchproblems, knowing the causes is a priority.Error analysis studies the causes and types of language errors by the followingfive steps: collecting samples of learner’s language, identifying the errors, describingthe errors, explaining the errors, and evaluating/correcting the errors. Corder (1967)holds that learners’ errors can be attributed to learners’ language competence andperformance.According to the Interlanguage Theory (Selinker,1972), learners’ errors can beattributed to the following:Interlingual interference refers to the errors which are made due to thedifferences between the native language and the target language. Interlingualinterference can be divided into lexical interference, semantic interference, andpragmatic interference, etc.
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CHAPTER THREE COMMON ADJECTIVE ERRORS MADE BY CHINESE EFL LEARNERS..........19
3.1 Corpus Used in the Present Study........19
3.2 Adjective Errors Tagged in the CLEC......... 20
3.3 Classification of Common Errors Committed by Chinese EFL Learners WhenUsing Adjectives......23
3.4 Summary............35
CHAPTER FOUR ANALYSIS OF THE ERROR WARNINGS IN THE CURRENT MAINSTREAMECLDS...........37
4.1 Adjective Error Warnings in OALD8.......... 38
4.2 Adjective Error Warnings in CALD2...........43
4.3 Adjective Error Warnings in LDOCE5........50
CHAPTER FIVE THEORIES GUIDING THE IMPROVEMENTS OF THE ERROR WARNINGS INECLDs........... 55
5.1 User’s Perspective and User-friendliness.....55
5.2 Input Hypothesis........ 56
5.3 Con
