Essay About Subject Verb Agreement

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Literature review The problems related to subject-verb agreement have been examined by many educators and researchers. For example, one can mention the study carried out by Siti Stapa and Mohd Izahar (2010). In particular, these scholars focus on the errors made by Malaysian ESL learners. Their research indicates that these errors occur primarily due to linguistic differences. One should mention that in some languages, there are no forms that can distinguish the singular and plural forms of the verb. For example, one can speak about such a language as Bahasa Malaysia. Thus, these people can use the singular form of the verb, instead of the plural form. For instance, they can utter the following phrase, “Now, people is not looking for appropriate job but a stable one” (Stapa & Izahar, 2010). These mistakes can significantly impair their written and oral communication. Thus, it is important to consider the differences between two languages. Additionally, there are many students who speak non-standard dialects of English such as Ebonics (Baxter, 2007). Such learners perceive themselves as native speakers; nevertheless, they can also violate the rules of subject-verb agreement. Therefore, their academic writing style can be significantly impaired. Such people need to do corrective exercises in order to overcome this difficulty. This is one of the points that can be made. A researcher notes that the errors related to subject-verb agreement can arise due to some language impairments. For instance, the study by Judith Rispens and Pieter Been (2007) suggests that these errors can occur due to dyslexia. These problems should be mitigated during childhood or adolescence; otherwise, these deficiencies can result in significant challeng... ... middle of paper ... ...the phrase is a pair of glasses, trousers, scissors the number becomes singular. Collective nouns like media, team, can be both plural and singular. Besides, the names of disciplines such as physics or mathematics are singular. The researcher will research how this problem is treated by the speakers and writers who have Arabic languages as their native language. The purpose of this research is to find out what type of difficulties do students in Saudi collages have in the field of subject-verb agreement in their sentences. Besides, the research is designed to identify if being a native speaker of Arabic language and earning English as a foreign language adds some precise details to this subject. Sometimes, some mistakes are more distinctive than others and some problems are related to the way of thinking that Arabic native speakers have due to their native language.

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