53
THE EVALUATION OF ERRORS IN ACQUISITION OF CHINESE
PREPOSITION
“DUÌ (
对
)” BY UZBEK-SPEAKING STUDENTS
Chi Daojia
(迟道加)
Chinese Department, Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies
Introduction
The so-called
“errors analysis” is to systematically analyze the students' errors
in the process of second language acquisition, study its source, reveal the students'
interlanguage system, and understand the process and law of second language
acquisition. (Liu Xun 2000). Coder divided the mistakes of second language learners
into two types: mistakes and errors. The mistakes of the students discussed in this
paper are errors, which is, a regular error caused by the poor grasp of the student's
target language.
Chinese and Uzbek belong to two completely different grammatical systems.
Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and is an isolated language.
Uzbek belongs to the Altai language family and is an adhesive language. The
grammatical structure of the two languages is quite different. There is no
“preposition”
in Uzbek, only some
“affixes” or “auxiliaries” corresponding to Chinese prepositions.
Therefore, many Uzbek students find it difficult to learn Chinese prepositions. In
addition, Chinese prepositions themselves are rich and diverse, and their usage is
changeable. In addition, if the teaching methods used by teachers are not scientific
enough, it will inevitably lead to a large number of errors in the use of Chinese
prepositions by beginners.
At present, there is no analysis of the errors in the acquisition of Chinese
prepositions by Uzbek speakers in China. The research in this paper is still the
first.Due to the rich number of Chinese prepositions and the flexible usage, this article
only selects Chinese preposition
“Duì (to)” to constract and investigate the Uzbek
students, analyze the causes of their errors, and put forward relevant teaching
strategies.
Investigation and analysis
Investigation object, content and relevant description
The object of this study is the students of the second and third grades of the
Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies whose Chinese level is elementary or
intermediate. In order to study the acquisition of Chinese prepositions by Uzbek
students, the author specially designed a questionnaire, which contains six
prepositions commonly used in Chinese-"Z
ài (at)
、
G
ēn/Hé (and/with)
、
D
uì (to)
、
C
óng (from)
、
G
ěi (for)". This paper only analyzes the errors of Prepositions "Duì (to)".
The specific analysis is as follows:
54
Statistics and analysis of the errors of Preposition
“Duì”
Table 1.
Statistics of the errors of Preposition
“Duì”
No.
Investigation points of Preposition
“Duì”
Corresponding test questions
Error rate
1.
Indicates the object of the action
Question 15
21.43%
Question 41
10.71%
Question 63
28.57%
2.
Indicates treatment
Question 16
14.29%
Question 42
25.00%
Question 64
7.14%
3.
"D
uì...láishuō"( For...)
Question 17
14.29%
Question 43
57.14%
Question 65
21.43%
According to the table above, the most common errors of preposition
“Duì (to)”
that produced by students are question 43*
“Duì wǒ xuéxí yīngyǔ bùnán”, the correct
expression is: D
uìwǒláishuō, xuéxí yīngyǔ bùnán (It’s not difficult for me to learn
English)
”, the error rate is 57.14%. There is no fixed sentence pattern “Duì...láishuō”
(For...) in Uzbek, most students can use the preposition
“Duì (to)”, but due to they fail
to fully grasp this usage, they often omit
“láishuō”. Secondly, there are still some
students who are confusing
“Duì...láishuō” (For...) and “cóng…láikàn” (From the point
of view), which leads to missubstitutions, such as
”* Cóng wǒ láishuō
,
xuéxí hěn
kuàilè”, the correct expression is: Duìwǒláishuō,xuéxí hěn kuàilè (For me, learning is
very happy)
”.
In addition, question 63
“Men allaqachon onamga aytdimki, shanba kuni uni
tu
g‘ilgan kun kechasida qatnashaman”. (Chinese: Wǒ yǐjīng duì māmɑ shuōle,
xīngqīliù cānjiā nǐde shēngrì wǎnhuì. English: I’ve told my mother to come to your
birthday party on Saturday). This question is translation, the error rate is 28.57%.
When students learn the Chinese Preposition
“Duì”, due to they not fully grasp the
usage of
“indicates the object of the action”, some students may omit “Duì”, and then
apply the remaining components according to the format of
“subject + Verb + object”
in Chinese, resulting in the following error:
“*Wǒ yǐjīng shuō māma le, xīngqīliù cānjiā
nǐde shēngrì wǎnhuì. “In addition, due to” -ga “in Uzbek language means both
Chinese Preposition
“Duì (to)” and preposition “Gěi (for)”, some students will have
the situation of missubstitutions, for example
” * Wǒ yǐjīng gěi māma shuōle, xīngqīliù
cānjiā nǐde shēngrì wǎnhuì"
According to the test results, students have the best command of the usage of
the preposition
“Duì” to express “treatment”. For example, Question16 “Zhāng lǎoshī
duì wǒmen hěn yán’gé”. The error rate is 14.29%. Question64 “Otam menga juda
qay
g‘uradilar. (Chinese: Bàba duì wǒmen hěn guānxīn. English: Dad is very
concerned about us)
”, the error rate is 7.14%.
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The Causes of Errors
To analyze the causes of the errors in the acquisition of Chinese prepositions
by Uzbek students, it is necessary to understand the similarities and differences
between Chinese prepositions and Uzbek affixes and auxiliary words in terms of
structure and meaning. Uzbek is an adhesive language, and affixes and auxiliary
words are very rich. The affixes are placed after the part of the genre to indicate the
grammatical meaning of the place, time, and object. Chinese is an isolated language,
with prepositions indicating related grammatical meanings, and prepositions are all
placed in front of nouns, forming prepositional phrases with nouns, and the whole
prepositional phrases are mostly adverbial in front of the sentence predicate.
For example, the affix
“-ga” in Uzbek can express the grammatical meaning of
object, treatment, space, direction, etc. It can be translated into nine prepositions in
Chinese:
“Duì (to)
、
G
ěi (for)”
、
W
ǎnɡ (toward)
、
X
iànɡ (toward)
、
C
háo (toward)
、
àn
(according)
、
zhào (according)
、
ànzhào(according to)
、
yīzhào(according to)”. For
example:
1
Chinese
:
B
àbɑ duì wǒmen hěn ɡuānxīn.
Uzbek
:
Otam menga juda qay
g‘uradilar.
English: Dad is very concerned about us.
2
Chinese
:
Z
uótiān bàbɑ ɡěi wǒ jiǎnɡle yíɡè ɡùshi.
Uzbek
:
Kecha otam menga hikoya aytib berdi.
English: Yesterday my father told me a story.
Chinese preposition "omission errors" produced by Uzbek students is a
structural error, which is mainly due to the influence of the grammar system of Uzbek
language. Therefore, when Chinese is expressed, it is often influenced by the mother
tongue to say the root first, and then they will be thought that Chinese prepositions
can not be used behind the root like affixes in Uzbek, so prepositions are not used,
resulting in the omission of prepositions. Such biases are systematic.
The reason why Uzbek students produce the Chinese Preposition
“misaddition
errors
” is that Uzbek is an adhesive language with abundant affixes and auxiliary
words. Influenced by their mother tongue habits, Uzbek students always like to add
a preposition before words related to time, space, object and etc. It is also a
systematic error.
The causes of the preposition
“missubstitution errors” of uzbek students are
not only the negative transfer of mother tongue, but also the negative transfer of
target language knowledge. Most students use prepositions extensively,due to they
don't master Chinese prepositions well. In addition, influenced by their native
language thinking habits, they are prone to misuse the prepositions.
The reason why Uzbek students produced the Chinese preposition
“misordered errors” is also a structural bias. Influenced by Uzbek affixes, students
often put Chinese prepositions behind the roots, resulting in word order errors.
Conclusion
Through the above error study, we find that in the process of acquisition
Chinese preposition
“Duì (to)”, Uzbek students will be affected by the influence of
negative transfer of mother tongue and knowledge of the target language. At the
same time, due to the limitations of the language environment, Uzbek students will
inevitably have some errors in the acquisition of Chinese preposition
“Duì (to)”.
However, these errors will gradually decrease with the improvement of Chinese level.
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When teaching Chinese preposition "D
uì(to)", teachers should pay attention to the
following points:
First, we should emphasize the structural features of Chinese preposition
“Duì
(to)
”, and strengthen the different structural between Chinese preposition “Duì (to)”
with the Uzbek corresponding affixes
“-ga” by Uzbek students.
Second
,
through comparative analysis, teachers can predicted that Uzbek
students may have errors in the acquisition of Chinese preposition
“Duì(to)”, and then
focus on teaching these errors.
Third, when teachers teach prepositions to students with elementary or
intermediate level of Chinese, they can let them do some Uzbek and Chinese
translation exercises. In this way, on the one hand, students can further understand
about the similarities and differences between Chinese preposition
“Duì (to)” with
Uzbek affixe
“-ga”. On the other hand, students can know which errors they will
produce, so as to avoid similar errors in practical applications.
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