A Study of The Lexical and Morpho-Syntactic Errors of Fourah Bay College Students

Abstract

This study investigates the lexical and grammatical errors in the English usage of some Fourah Bay College students at the University of Sierra Leone. Selinker’s Inter-language Theory (1972) and Corder’s Error Analysis Approach (1981) were used as a theoretical framework in examining the learners’ errors. Data were collected by giving the learners a written composition to work on. From the subjects’ essays, lexical and grammatical errors were extracted and categorized. The lexical errors were categorized into first language transfer and learning induced. The grammatical errors were divided into first language transfer, over-generalisation of target language rules, ignorance of target language rules, false concepts hypothesised and universal hierarchy of difficulty. Recommendations were also offered in order to minimize the learners’ errors.