Analysis of Common Syntactic Errors in Spoken English of Chinese College Students

Abstract

This research focuses on syntactic errors in the English production of Chinese college students. First, it stratifies participants by their level of English proficiency, administers tests with unified standardized oral English tasks, and transcribes the recorded speech into textual corpora to systematically identify and classify different types of syntactic errors. Based on Error Analysis Theory, the study investigates the root causes of these errors, supplemented by student interviews to identify both subjective and objective factors of influence. The results show that such errors are basically divided into five categories: misuse of tense time, disagreement between subject and phrase, incorrect placement of articles and sentences, incomplete or mixed sentence structures, and misuse of non-finite verbs. Significant differences are also observed in error types and frequencies among students at different levels of learning. The results can provide empirical evidence for stratified oral English teaching, facilitating coordinated improvements in the accuracy and fluency of students' English conversation.