A STUDY OF PREPOSITION ERRORS IN THE WRITTEN ENGLISH OF SENIOR SECONDARY YORUBA-ENGLISH BILINGUALS IN SELECTED LAGOS SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT

The acquisition and learning of a language involves understanding and mastery of what constitutes its grammar. The research analyzes the uses of prepositions in two selected Lagos schools, Eva Adelaja Senior Girls Grammar School and Eben Noble College. The sample of the study consisted of 40 students. The data elicitation instrument was a writing task in which students were asked to write an argumentative essay. The quantitative findings showed 12 prepositions (to, on, about, in, of, out, for, between, with, by, during, into) were found to be wrongly used in a total of 36 errors of prepositions identified. It was found that the most common error was the misuse of prepositions which was present 19 different times, while the omission of prepositions appeared 2 different times and the addition of prepositions occurred 15 different times. The researcher suggested recommendations on the ways to overcome these challenges. It is hoped that the findings of this survey and the suggested recommendations will assist teachers in their classroom teachings of English prepositions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       PAGES1.0 INTRODUCTION 11.1 Background to the Study 1              

1.2 Statement of the Problem 4          

1.3 Research Objectives 5                    

  1.4 Plan of the Study 6                    

  1.5 Scope of the Study                             6                     

 1.6 Significance of the Study 7                      

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW                           9                      

2.1 Empirical Review of Previous Works 9                    

  2.2 Bilingualism 14                   

 2.3 Language Contact 18                    

2.4 Prepositions in English  21                  

 2.5 Classification of Prepositions 25                    

2.5.1 Simple/One word Prepositions 25                    

2.5.2 Compound Preposition 25                    

2.5.3 Disguised Prepositions 25                    

2.6   Types of Prepositions 26                    

2.6.1 Prepositions of Place. 26                   

 2.6.2   Prepositions of Time. 26                    

2.6.3   Prepositions of Directions. 27                    

2.7 Preposition Errors. 28                    

2.7.1 Misuse                              28                    

2.7.2 Omission.                         28                    

2.7.3   Addition. 29                  

  3.0 METHODOLOGY                  

 3.1 Theoretical Framework 303.1.1 Collection of a Sample of Learner Language. 39

3.1.2 Identification of Errors. 403.1.3 Description of Errors 413.1.4 Explanation of Errors. 41

3.2 Sources of Errors. 423.2.1 Interlingual Errors 433.2.2 Intralingual Errors 44                   

 3.3 Research Design 48                   

 3.4 Participants 48                    

3.5   Sample and Procedure of Data Collection 49

3.6   Data Collection Instrument 50    

4.0 DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS 52                   

 4.1   Data Presentation 52                    

4.2   Data Analysis 53                   

 4.2.1   Identifying Preposition Errors in the Written English of the Subjects 544.2.2   Classifying the Identified Errors into Types 54                  

  4.2.3    Accounting for these Errors Linguistically 55

4.2.4    Frequency of Occurrence and the Distribution of Each Error Type 56

4.2.5   Comparing Preposition Errors between the students' of Eva Adelaja Senior   Girls' Grammar School and Eben Noble College 56                    

4.2.6 Suggesting ways of Minimizing the errors 57                    

5.0 FINDINGS 58                   

 5.1 Summary of Findings 58                    

5.2 Conclusion 58                   

 5.3 Recommendations 60                    

REFERENCES