Sentence Construction Errors among Malay Arabic Learners at Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the efficiency of written Arabic counts on the grammatical accuracy. This research investigates the sentence fragment as one of the foremost errors encountered by Malay undergraduate students in their Arabic written composition. It intended to discover fragment, its frequency and the causes of the fragments. The research employed a mixed method approach. The subjects of the research comprised 30 students selected from the final year students of the Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin Terengannu, Malaysia. Achievement Test and Questionnaire were the instruments used to collect the data. Markin software version 4.2.4.1 and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23.0 is used to analyse the data. The result of the study revealed that the students produced a total number of 91 fragments with the frequency in decreasing order as follows, misuse of articles 31(34.0%) instances, omission of verb 19(21.0%) instances, omission of subject 17(19.0%), spelling errors 15(16.0%) instances, omission of object 6(7.0%) omission of both subject and verb 3(3.0%). The main causes of fragments were attributed to intralingual sources and other factors explored are related to teachers and students attitudes towards correction and other issues related to written Arabic.