A Corpus-assisted Cross-linguistic analysis of prepositions misuse in master dissertations' general conclusion section
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Date
2024
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University of Oum El Bouaghi
Abstract
This study investigates EFL learners’ misuse of prepositions in dissertation writing. Focusing on the "General Conclusions" sections of eighty Dissertations, the study attempts to explore the reasons of prepositional misuse. A corpus consisting of 80 dissertations is compiled. It is divided into two sub-corpora: 40 Didactics dissertations (D-Corpus) and 40 Literature and Civilization dissertations (LC-Corpus) retrieved from the OEB University online repository. Employing a mixed-method approach, the study first utilizes AntConc for quantitative corpus analysis to identify the frequency and types of prepositional errors. Subsequently, a qualitative cross-linguistic analysis is conducted to explore the underlying reasons for the misuses. Results indicate a significant occurrence of prepositional errors in both corpora, with omission, addition, and substitution errors being most prevalent. The analysis reveals that the majority of errors stem from interlingual transfer from Arabic, as well as learner errors in acquiring English prepositional usage. This study sheds light on the challenges faced by Algerian EFL learners in mastering English prepositions and contributes to the understanding of cross-linguistic influences on prepositional usage in academic writing.