This dissertation tackles the ability of Syrian Learners of English to use English discourse Particles. It addresses the use of five discourse Particles by Syrian learners, and these are oh, well, you know , now, and sort of.
No English abstract
References used
Aijmer, K. (2002) English discourse Particles : evidence from a corpus
This paper examines the ability of Syrian learners of English to
use now as a discourse particle. The paper focuses on
determining the extent to which Syrian learners are aware of the
various functions of now.
Our aim in this paper is to strategise on how
conversational courses can help learners to advance towards their
ultimate objective of speaking English fluently. Besides
emphasising the role of the teacher, the learner, the teaching
material, and
the process or context of teaching in enhancing
learner motivation.
The analysis of ergative verbs in English and many other
languages has been receiving much attention in linguistic studies.
Nothing has been mentioned about the existence of ergative verbs in
Arabic and generally it is a neglected topic. The domin
ant claim is that
Arabic, as a highly inflected language, lacks ergative verbs. The aim of
this paper is to show that Arabic, like English and many other languages,
does have ergative verbs. This argument will be supported by providing
many examples and comparing Arabic ergative verbs with their English
counterparts. After careful inspection of the syntactic and semantic
behavior of certain verbs, it revels that Arabic contains ergative verbs and
there are many significant differences between these verbs and
intransitive verbs.
The present study focuses on investigating the problems and
difficulties facing EFL learners regarding English collocations. It
reports the various factors influencing the process of reception and
production of English collocations. To achieve the
purposes of the
study, two tests were given to 25 students majoring in English
Language and Literature at the Department of English at Al-Baath
University: a gap-filling productive test and a multiple-choice
receptive test. There was also a translation productive test (from
Arabic into English), and it was given to 25 students majoring in
translation in the open learning program at the same department.
The three tests were analyzed and then results and findings were
presented. The results showed that the participants had poor
collocational knowledge and their reception and production of
collocations was unsatisfactory, but they performed better in the
receptive test. The study also concluded that they sometimes
resorted to their first language or to paraphrasing the collocational
expression. They made other types of error like general errors
(completely irrelevant answers) and leaving blank answers.
Moreover, it was found that the students majoring in translation
performed slightly better than the students majoring in English
Language and Literature. Finally, the study concluded with
implications for pedagogy.
The study aimed at investigating the English collocational knowledge
of Jordanian graduate students and analyzing quantitatively and
qualitatively the collocational errors they made. The sample of the study
involved thirty M.A graduate students at
the Hashemite university in
Jordan. The researcher adapted a completion test that measured students’
knowledge of four types of lexical collocations: free combination,
restricted collocations, figurative idioms, and pure idioms. The results
showed that free combination created the least amount of difficulty,
whereas pure idioms were the most challenging. Additionally, students
had unsatisfactory performance on restricted and figurative idioms. In
general, the students' deviant answers demonstrated their insufficient
knowledge of English collocations. It is concluded that their errors can
mainly be attributed to negative first language transfer.