Mother Tongue Interference in Written Compositions of Students and Instructors’ Perceptions towards it Lexical Transfers from Amharic to English

Abstract

The research aimed at exploring the lexical interference of Amharic in the written compositions of university students. Accordingly, the study attempted to see the types and predictability of lexical interference in the compositions of students, and teachers‟ perceptions towards it. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers collected and analyzed 25 compositions of students and data from open-ended questions filled out by 25 university instructors who had ever offered Basic Writing Skills courses. As the study focused on Amharic interference, it involved only Amharic natives as subjects at Jimma University; hence, the sampling technique employed was purposive sampling to handpick appropriate participants. The data were analyzed qualitatively. The study showed that students committed errors related to Amharic interference, and more than half of the instructors involved in the study were found to give less emphasis to mother tongue interference when they correct the compositions of their students. The interference errors are two types: semantic interference and collocation interference. It was also seen that instructors were not specific enough in indicating interference errors on the compositions of students; therefore, it is the case that students are not in a position to know about the error that they continue to commit. It is, therefore, recommended for the instructors to make interference errors explicit enough for the students, so that they will have information and may strive for improvement, and, people responsible for the preparation of the English language curriculum need to reconsider errors related to mother tongue interference.