Inter Language Fossilization in the Usage of Grammar in Writing Composition of Students at UG Level

Abstract

Inter language Fossilization in linguistics is an inevitable phenomenon which is widely seen in second language acquisition. It is a mixed method study in which both Quantitative and qualitative methods were used. Quantitative method is used to know the categories of errors, total number of errors made, the number of fossilized error categories and the qualitative method is used to know whether students written output attributed to the phenomenon of fossilization. The study aimed to discover the inter language fossilization errors, in the written output of 5 Engineering college students studying in Lords Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad by purposive sampling technique. The study highlights that the errors related to the use of verbs, the errors in the use of concord, the errors in the use of prepositions and articles are fossilized as they were again seen in phase II, while the other types of  errors diminished within a short period of time i.e in phase II there were no such errors.  Analysis shows that there is difficulty in learning and remembering and misuse of grammatical rules due to over generalization of and simplification of the rules and the negative language transfer of L1 of the learners which makes them create their own language system and neglect the basic rules of grammar of foreign language. However by repetition and extensive practice of language items, vocabulary memorization and continuous training of self- monitoring ability of the learners and the effective language learning strategies can help overcome the interlanguage fossilization and make significant improvement in their English language proficiency.