Analysis of the Errors in Armenian Speakers’ English Writings: The Role of the Negative L1 Transfer

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the most common grammatical errors in the writing performance of Armenian learners of English.Errors were studied in order toinvestigate the impact of the Armenian language on the written production in English, particularly the use of Armenian grammatical rules.The analysis showed that the four most common errors were in article use, word order, subject-verb agreement, and purpose infinitive.The contrastive analysis between Armenian and English on these patterns revealed that about 30 % of the totalnumber of errors (n=427) was caused by adirect transfer from the Armenian language. It was also observed that with increasing proficiency,the likelihood of L1 negative transfer decreases. Finally, the results indicated that transfer is a reality and an important determinant in the writing performance of Armenian learners of English.Learners need to understand the differences in the twolanguages and use appropriatelinguistic features to produce good and acceptable sentences in English. It should be mentioned that not all the errors were caused due to the influence of Armenian. Some of the errors reflected the complexities of the English language and common learning strategies employed by the learners.