THE INTERLINGUAL ERRORS OF ARAB STUDENTS IN THE USE OF ENGLISH BINOMIALS

Abstract

This study focuses on the interlingual errors made by adult Arab learners in the use of the English binomials. Thus, it adds one more area to those where language transfer has been reported. A total of 73 binomials were collected from the oral and written presentation of the second year university students majoring in English. The incorrect binomials (85%) could all be attributed to negative transfer from Arabic. These were grouped and analyzed under three main categories: grammatical errors, lexical errors, and Arabic specific binomials. The findings of this study need to be confirmed by further investigation. The study concludes with pedagogical recommendations that need to be empirically verified.