Introduction to the Definite Article
This post talks about the definite article and should serve as an introduction to the topic of definite article errors.
Errors as a result of previous language interruption
I am lawyer - wrong
I am a lawyer - right
According to one poster on Quora, some languages are null article languages (i.e. Russian). According to them, this means that they don’t use definite articles in their language system. It may be that the influence of their native language will contribute to the mistake being made [1]. Native article influence is also found in overuse of articles, as that contributor writes “In some languages, most notably French, there’s
no such thing as the “null article” which is a common feature in English“ [1].
Errors as a result of English article system complexity
One researcher notes that, “to use articles correctly, speakers of English must have knowledge of how various syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic factors affect article usage, and also know an extremely large number of collocations containing articles that are sometimes impervious to the aforementioned constraints” [2]. This is to say that the rule set for article usage is extremely complex. As a result, the author notes that “The article system might be one of the last grammatical features to be mastered by English learners (see Master, 1995)” [2].
Conclusion
The definite article is one of the more difficult grammatical elements to master as an ESL student.
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Reference list