Errors on the Use of Determiner ‘The’ in Education Students’ Compositions Based on Linguistic and Surface Structure Taxonomy

Abstract

The study focused on the analysis of the errors on the use of determiner (DET) ‘the’ found in the compositions of graduating students enrolled in the program Bachelor of Secondary Education of the Mindoro State College of Agriculture and Technology (MinSCAT) Main Campus. The students’ compositions on the topic influence of digital age on the writing style and written output of the students were collected and analyzed for errors. The finding of the study revealed that the errors on the use of DET ‘the’ were found in the noun phrases (NPs) and prepositional phrases (PPs) categorized under linguistic taxonomy while addition and omission were the errors under surface structure taxonomy. Results of the study could help material developers to create the necessary tasks and exercises and teachers to devise the best teaching strategies for improvement of the students’ grammar skills required for a more effective written output.

Keywords: determiner, linguistic taxonomy, surface structure taxonomy, error analysis