Spelling Errors in English Writing Committed by English-Major Students at BAU

Abstract

Error Analysis is an essential part of linguistic analysis that sheds light on errors committed by second language learners. This study aims at investigating spelling errors committed by English-Major students at BAU. The participants in the present study were 65 students. The participants’ essays in "technical writing" course were used to be the data of the study. Next, data were analyzed based on Cook’s classification of spelling errors. The results of the study show four types of spelling errors, substitution errors, insertion errors, omission errors and transposition errors. In addition, results indicate that the difference between English and Arabic writing system is one of the major causes for students’ errors. Results are hopefully useful information in Error Analysis studies and other related areas.

Keywords: Writing, Omission errors, Substitution errors, Insertion errors, Transposition errors