Probably, the major cause of grammatical
errors in the selected Nigerian newspaper is due to the inability of the user
of the language to master the rules of English grammar.
According to Gregory, M.C (2000, p.35), error
occurs because the language user has not mastered the operation of the
grammatical structure of the language though, he has the idea.
Such linguistic incompetence is bound to
result in errors in the use of the language.
Another causes of errors is the difference
between the structures of words in English Language and the mother tongue (MT)
of language.
Like Winkins stated: whenever the structure
of the foreign language differ from the mother tongue, we can expect both
difficulties in learning and errors in performance.
This is very obvious in a situation where
learners of language have been exposed to their (MT) for a number of years
because they tend to transfer the linguistic rules of their (MT) to target
language (TL).
Awoniyi supported this idea when he says: There
is the tendency for the child after many years of being exposed to his mother
tongue to carry over his mother tongue spoken and written habit to the
acquisition of new language (11).
Moreover, the expansion of sentences so
that they became very lengthy can also lead to an errors in the use of English Language.
As Awoniyi observed, when student write in
language sentences, they tend to lose direction (22). The sentences make the
choice of the appropriate verb impossible.
Furthermore, the competence of classroom
teacher is a factor in the learning process which cannot be overemphasized.
Many teachers of English language and
other subjects as well commit errors in the use of number in agreements,
preposition, punctuation, spellings and choice of words etc.
These
go a long way to affect the level of competence of their student
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