Confusing Nouns in English: An Error Analysis

Abstract

   The present study is an attempt to identify the errors made by Iraqi EFL learners in the Department of English / College of Basic Education, University of Babylon in using confusing nouns .The Classification of English Nouns is as diverse and varied as English Grammar. The researcher in the paper under review has sought to examine in details how nouns are a source of confusion for EFL learners.

      This study aims at (1) investigating the difficulties faced Iraqi EFL university learners in using confusing nouns and (2) identifying the errors made by EFL learners in using confusing nouns .

    To achieve the two goals mentioned above, the study hypothesizes that Iraqi EFL University Learners committed errors in using confusing nouns because of their intralingual transference. The Hypothesis has been verified through adopted a diagnostic test of two questions .The test has been applied to a sample of 100 Iraqi EFL university learners at their fourth year from Department of English, College of Basic Education, University of Babylon during the academic year 2014-2015.  

          Errors have been pointed and results have been analyzed statistically. The analysis gives the following results: (1) EFL University learners face difficulties in recognizing and producing confusing nouns . This is indicated by their low performance in the test as the, rate. of their correct responses (782, 39.1%) is lower significantly than that of their incorrect ones (1218, 60.9 %). (2) The subjects' performance in the test has also revealed that EFL university learners encounter more difficulties in using confusing nouns at the production level than at the recognition one. This is due to the fact that the total number and the percentage of the correct responses at the production level (349, 34.9 %) is lower than the total the total number and the percentage of the correct responses at the recognition level which are equal (433, 43.3 %) and (3) Some of errors are due to the student's lack knowledge of the English confusing nouns since they are not aware of their different types.