ASSESSMENT OF MORPHOLOGICAL ERRORS AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN PANKSHIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background to the Study

Grammar is divided in two aspects called morphology and syntax. As stated by Ramada (2015), grammar has traditionally been discussed in terms of morphology and syntax, the former handling word structure, the  latter handling structures ‘larger’ than the word. So, these two aspects have different functions and need different comprehension.

The English language has four language skills. These skills include listening, speaking, reading and writing. To Brown (2000) in order to master English language, the learners have to be exposed to all the four basic skills. When learners try to practice the last skill which is writing they face many difficulties. In fact, writing is the most complex and difficult of the four skills and it requires proper mastery.

In talking about writing, morphology should be known by learners because it is the base or foundation of writing.. There are number of definitions of morphology proposed by many experts. Payne (2006) stated that morphology is simply the study of forms. Morphology in linguistics has to do with how words are formed, and how the forms of words may be systematically adjusted in order to accomplish communicative tasks. People can also think of morphology as the study of how meaningful units are combined to form words. Furthermore, according to Ramadan (2015) morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest significant units of grammar. There are two types of morphemes – free and bound. A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning, whereas the bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning – it is always attached to one or more morphemes to form a word. The bound morphemes are also of two types. The inflectional morphemes and the derivational ones. Inflectional morphemes come as suffixes only; they do not change the word class; and they end the words. But the derivational morphemes come as prefixes and suffixes; they change the word class; and they do not necessarily end the words. Prefixes are always considered derivational morphemes although many of them do not change the word class because the meanings of their bases are changed. Lieber (2009) saw morphology as the study of word formation, including the ways new words are combined in a language, and the way forms of words are varied depending on how they are used in sentences. Based on explanation above, the researcher assumes that morphology is a branch of linguistic that study about words or study of morpheme, how to combine morphemes to become words and studying the internal structure of English words. Second language learners are bound to make errors while constructing words, especially when their L1 has different linguistic rules from their L2.

            Corder (1971) in Poret (2019) identifies errors as a lack of linguistic knowledge. If the learners fail unintentionally to self-correct the mistake then it is a problem of competence. However, if the learner arrives to intentionally rectify what he/she produced as a mistake then it is not about performance only. For instance, teached could be uttered instead of the correct form taught if it is rectified by the learner it means that it is only ‘a slip of tongue’ or ‘a slip of brain’. According to Corder Learners’ errors provide evidence of the language system used. In other words, errors are assumed to reflect the level of competence achieved by learners.

One of the causes of learners’ error is their first language that usually called interference. Language interference is a nature phenomenon that occurs in bilingual or multilingual country. On the other hand, some mistakes are made when the students do not understand morphology of the language they are learning. Some of them commonly make mistakes in their learning especially in writing and when this mistakes are persistent, they become errors. If they are able to correct a fault in their writing, it is assumed that the fault is a mistake but if they are unable to make a correction in their writing, it is called error. Dulay and Burt (1972) in Ramadan (2015) propose that the second language developed during childhood involved acquiring a specific innate mental organization which make use of restricted classes of developmental strategies in order to produce an utterance in a language. The second phase is when second language learners practise the processing strategy in a linguistic rule and modify the language as the learners hear more of it. This process is steered in first language acquisition by a particular form and this process is similar when acquiring the second language. The errors children make are generally recognised through the intervention from the mother tongue. The mother tongue can assist the learning of the second language, but in other cases it interferes with the acquisition of the second language. When the process of acquiring is interrupted, errors and mistakes are bound to happen. Errors and mistakes are inevitable and to be expected especially among L2 learners of English. Through errors and mistakes learners are able to build their comprehension of the rules and amend the errors or mistakes during this process. Thus, it is vital to identify errors as it aids learners in learning.

• Statement of the Problem

Grammar exists in every language including English. All languages have grammar, and each language has its own grammar but grammar of English is more complex and difficult because it is the composition of many languages such as French, Latin, Greek, etc. Most research analysis in writing revealed that most students contribute errors in grammatical aspects in writing than other aspect, such as lexical or discourse. According to Ning, (2012), in making written errors, there are more grammatical errors that are found in students’ composition than other errors, such as lexical error.

From the aspects of grammatical errors (morphology and syntax), morphological errors are the most frequent category that occur in students’ writing. Kovac (2011), in his findings proved that from the total number of 3518 errors recorded,  morphological errors were the most frequent ones,  followed by syntactic and lexical errors which occurred in approximately equal proportion and phonological errors constituted in the error corpus.

Based on researcher’s experience as a teaching practice student, most of the students still have some difficulties in constructing good sentences and paragraphs as a result of the ambiguous words they form during writing process. It is in the light of this that this study seeks to make assessment of morphological errors among senior secondary school students in Pankshin Local Government Area of Plateau State.

• Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to carry out an assessment of morphological errors among senior secondary schools students in Pankshin Local Government Area of Plateau State. Other specific objectives of the study are:

1. To examine the categories of morphological errors found in students’ writing.
2. To determine the dominant type of morphological error in students’ writing.
3. To find out how these morphological errors affect students’ written works.
   • Research Questions

The following research questions were raised to guide the study:

1. What are the categories of morphological errors found in students’ writing?
2. What is the dominant type of morphological error in students’ writing?
3. How do these morphological errors affect students’ written works?

1.5. Significance of the Study

The findings of the study shall be beneficial to the students, teachers, curriculum planners and government as well.

To the students, the results of the research are expected to help them in achieving information and more understanding and to be aware of morphological errors especially inflection and derivation. It is expected that they will reduce the same errors in their future writing.

The results of the research are expected to help the teachers to know the ability of their students about morphology in recognizing the learners’ errors in writing, so they will be concerned about the errors made by learners and the causes of the errors in their writing. Therefore, the teachers will be encouraged to give more effective explanation or change their teaching method to reduce learners’ errors.

The results of this research are expected to give information and can be a source of reference for future researchers who will want to carry out research in the same field.

1.6. Scope of the Study

            The study covers assessment of morphological errors among senior secondary school students. It is restricted to five selected secondary schools in Pankshin and only SS 2 classes in the selected schools will be used as respondents. It is pertinent to note, however, that despite the fact that the study is restricted to the selected schools and local government area, its findings will be generalised to other parts of the state and country at large.

1.7. Operational Definition of Terms

            The following terms are defined as used in this study:

Assessment: This is an evaluation to determine the extent to which something occurs.

Morphology: It has to do with how words are formed, and how the forms of words may be systematically adjusted in order to accomplish communicative tasks. Morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest significant units of grammar.

Errors: It is a deviation from the norm or rules governing grammar.

Morphological Errors: It is a deviation from the rules of word formation process.