Date of Award
8-1-2025
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
First Advisor
Martin, Katherine
Second Advisor
Punske, Jeffrey
Abstract
This study investigates the syntactic errors produced by Turkish EFL high school learners in their written English and explores the potential sources of these errors from both interlingual and intralingual perspectives. Drawing on data from three writing exams administered over the course of a semester, the study employs a descriptive error analysis approach to categorize errors into six major syntactic types: verb-related errors, article errors, preposition errors, pluralization errors, conjunction errors, and word order errors. The findings reveal that verb-related errors were the most frequent, followed by article and preposition errors. The sources of the errors were divided into two types: intralingual errors, which stem from the learners’ internal processing of the target language, and interlingual errors, which result from the influence of the learners’ native language. Although intralingual errors were more prevalent overall, many errors were also found to stem from interlingual transfer, particularly in cases involving articles and prepositions. The study highlights the significant role of syntactic differences between Turkish and English in shaping learners’ grammatical accuracy and highlights the pedagogical value of incorporating error analysis into L2 writing instruction. The results suggest that targeted feedback and contrastive grammar teaching can support learners in overcoming persistent syntactic challenges, thereby contributing to more effective writing instruction in EFL classrooms.Keywords: syntactic error analysis, Turkish EFL learners, interlingual errors, intralingual errors, second language writing, contrastive analysis
Access
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