A Study of Taiwanese EFL Learners’ Errors in English Verb Complementation

• Main Authors: YANG, WEI-HSUAN, 楊薇瑄
• Other Authors: LAI, CHIU-YUEH
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/qyz4zf

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 外國語文學系 === 106 === The verb is the most difficult and the most important element of a language. The specification of the relations among words in a sentence is achieved through the complementation of the main verb of the sentence. Chinese-speaking EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners have serious problems with English verb complementation and they are often not aware of this. Research on EFL learners’ difficulty in English verb complementation, however, is scanty. This thesis aims to investigate Taiwanese EFL college learners’ verb complementation error patterns and propose possible sources of the errors. A total of 22 first-year English majors participated in the study. Using Lai’s (2016) theory of English verb complementation for EFL pedagogy, this study analyzed the errors in English verb complementation that were collected from the 330 compositions written by the 22 participants for the first-year English composition classes they took in the 2016-2017 academic year. These errors were classified into patterns, and further, possible sources of the errors were inferred. This study has great significance for teaching English verb complementation to EFL learners and for raising EFL learners’ awareness of this specific area of English grammar.