Problems in the Acquisition of English Nouns by Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to analyze the problems faced by undergraduate students in the acquisition of English nouns. The Classification of English nouns is as diverse and varied as English Grammar. The researcher in the present study examines how nouns are a source of confusion for students of English as second language learners. This study investigates the errors and also classifies the types of errors made by second language learners. A proficiency test was designed for data collection. The data was collected from a sample of 136 undergraduate students studying in 5th, 6th and 7th semesters from English as well as other departments of Hazara University, Mansehra. The results were statistically analyzed and the problems in the form of errors were pointed out. The results show that grammatical category of gender was less problematic than number and case. The undergraduate students faced problems in learning English nouns mainly due to the students’ lack of knowledge. The problems in the correct use of syntactic plural, gender pronoun and the special case of she, constant polarity tags, collective nouns, semantic anomaly and imperative interrogative tags were most prominent in the data.