LINGUISTIC INTERLINGUAL ERRORS IN WRITING ENGLISH: MOTHER TONGUE INFLUENCE

Abstract

It is commonly believed that the first language influences the second language or foreign language. Identifying the areas of difficulty, this study conducts a thorough examination of the errors made by university students in writing English, focusing on a comparison and description of interlingual errors. It involves senior students majoring in English-related fields at a university in Thailand, with their English-written test papers undergoing evaluation and subsequent comparative and descriptive analysis. The collected data facilitates both statistical and qualitative analyses, as it comprises test papers from 100 students. The analysis reveals a prevalent occurrence of typical interlingual errors in writing across the sampled data. Notably, the study highlights that certain error rates are evident in the essay test papers concerning specific writing skill characteristics. Among these, the ‘transfer of rules’ errors appear with the highest frequency and the most conspicuous findings pertain to ‘redundancy reduction’ and ‘overgeneralization,’ with a moderate occurrence of errors in the selected sample. In conclusion, this study’s findings suggest issues with the English writing proficiency of the selected students, which could stem from challenges related to compatibility with their native language or deficiencies in their previous English instruction.