It is apparent from Tab. 5.1 that errors of verbs (CW_V) is the most frequent error typecontaining 419 errors, which accounts for 36% among errors of all types. The second mostfrequent one is errors of usage 2 (CW_U2). The proportion and distribution can be noticedmore directly in Fig. 5.1. In this way, “the wrong choice of verbs” and “the combination thatdoes not exist and cannot be correct by exchanging single elements” are the main errors. Thethird most frequent error type is errors of nouns (CW_N), accounting for 12% with 143 errors,followed by errors of verb prepositions (CW_PV), errors of determiners (CW_D), and errorsof numbers (CW_SP). These 3 error types occupy 8%, 6%, and 6% respectively. In addition,errors of usage 1 (CW_U1) and errors of noun prepositions (CW_PN) make up 3% of alltypes of errors respectively. The proportion of errors of structure (CW_S) is only 1% with 16errors. Lastly, students make fewer errors in the wrong syntactic structure.
6 Conclusion
6.1 Major Findings
This study investigates the types and causes of verb-noun collocation errors in Englishcompositions from the perspective of conceptual transfer. The main findings are as follows:
Firstly, there are 9 types of errors including errors of verbs, errors of nouns, errors ofusage 1, errors of usage 2, errors of verb prepositions, errors of noun prepositions, errors ofdeterminers, errors of numbers, and errors of structure. A total number of 1,151 verb-nouncollocation errors are discovered from 1,169 compositions written by 369 non-English majorstudents. Among these 9 types, errors of verbs are the most frequent error type and errors ofusage 2 are the second most frequent one, followed by errors of nouns, errors of verbprepositions, errors of determiners, errors of numbers, errors of noun prepositions, errors ofusage 1 and errors of structure.
Secondly, verb-noun collocation errors are caused by L1-based concepts, sharedconcepts and L2-based concepts of conceptual transfer. Errors take the forms of theword-to-word translation and the ignorance of differences in language forms between Chineseand English. Furthermore, learners lack sufficient understanding of the target language, whichleads them to make wrong judgments and produce wrong verb-noun collocations based onexisting experience.
Lastly, errors of a certain type are caused by one or two certain concepts of conceptualtransfer. Most verb-noun collocation types are affected by L1-based concepts mainly. TheL2-based concepts cover the most of error types. The shared concepts mainly cause themisuse related to the usage of verbs.
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