Analysis of Semantic and Syntactic Fossilization Error in English Essay Written by Undergraduate Students of Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University, Quetta, Balochistan.

Abstract

For students, writing in a foreign language proves to be a challenging task due to grammatical errors that hinder their ability to effectively communicate in writing.   The focus of the present study is to explore the fossilized written English language errors of undergraduates.  This study is based on the theoretical framework of Dulay, Burt and Krashen’s (1982) Lexical Category to describe the syntactic and semantic fossilized errors.  The researcher employed a qualitative method research design in order to analyze the semantic and syntactic errors that the undergraduates undertook.  The errors analyzed are from English essays written by students from S.B.K.W.U., Quetta.  The findings showed that the most common errors made by learners involved the use of verb forms and tenses, and the least common errors involved spelling, punctuation, and capitalization within the syntactic category.  Undergraduates also incurred semantic errors in lexical category.