Errors Committed by the Doteli Speakers in English Subject Verb Agreement

Abstract

The present dissertation entitled "Errors Committed by the DoteliSpeakers in English Subject-Verb Agreement" aims at finding out thesimilarities and differences between the Doteli dialect of the Nepali andthe English languages on Subject-Verb Agreement and the errorscommitted by the Doteli speaking students of grade IX and X. Forcontrastive analysis fifty Doteli speakers were chosen as samplepopulation for collecting data and one hundred students of Grade IX andX of the two schools of Dadeldhura district were taken as samplepopulation for error analysis. Two types of questionnaires wereconducted upon the sample population to collect data. After collectingdata, they were analyzed systematically for contrastive and error analysis. The researcher found that theDoteli dialect has the distinct rulesof Subject-Verb Agreement compared to the English language.DoteliSubject-VerbAgreement is determined with the agreement of person,number, gender and degree of honorificity whereas English is determinedwith person and number only. Furthermore, due to distinct rules ofSubject-VerbAgreement inthe Doteli dialect of Nepali and English languages, the students werelikely to commit more errors in Subject-VerbAgreement. The students ofgrade X werefoundmore proficient than those of grade IX since lessnumber of errors were committed by them in Subject-VerbAgreement. This study has been divided into four chapters: [Introduction,Methodology, Analysis and Interpretation and Findings and Recommendations.]Symbols and alphabets are adopted from Turner’s(1980) except the gliding vowels (IPA). The first chapter deals with a brief introductory survey of therelated area of the study including its objectives and significance. Thesecond chapter includes the methodology adopted during the study. Tocarry out the research fifty Doteli native speakers of Dadeldhura districtwere randomly selected as the primary source of data. The data is analyzed to identity Doteli Subject-Verb Agreement. Likewise, onehundred Doteli speaking students of grade IX and X, selecting fiftystudents from each classwere taken for error analysis.Interview scheduleand written test were primary tools used for data collection. The thirdchapter sheds light onthe analysis and interpretation of data in detail. Thelast chapter comprises of findings and recommendations ofthe study.