Syntactic Categorization as a Predictor of Grammatical Accuracy in Writing

Abstract

The present study aims at predicting students‟ grammatical accuracy in writing on the basis of their syntactic categorization competence. It has been hypothesized that if students are able identify syntactic categories correctly, then they are more likely to write error-free essays. To test this hypothesis a multi-layer analysis has been conducted on 50 second year licence students‟ tests and exam essays in the department of English at Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia University. The multiple-choice test asked students to identify the syntactic structures of different sentences parts. The same syntactic categories were analysed in written language samples to trace out the most common pattern or the series of syntactic errors committed by students. The results obtained from both research instruments showed that students‟ accurate grammatical production is detected based on their successful syntactic categorization. Most students failed at categorizing and producing prepositions, and encountered some problematic areas in trying to identify possessive determiners, cardinal numbers, noun phrases, dependent clauses, sentence types, and compound-complex sentences in particular. Thus, students who faced difficulties in the categorization process were also trapped in the of production process. So, it is highly remarkable that students‟ grammatical accuracy is based on their correct identification of each item in a given sentence separately