towards an analysis of errors made by university students ... - DSpace

122
in some other exponents, as DETERMINED and OLD. Thus, students
would have THAT DETERMINED OLD MAN/ BOUGHT/ A CAR. The same would
S P O
be ; applied to A CAR, to which the following exponents might be
added: A DARK GREY ITALIAN CAR. By doing so, students would be
able to locate the headword if they were to compare
THAT MAN/ BOUGHT/ A CAR
S P 0
THAT DETERMINED OLD MAN/ BOUGHT/ A DARK GREY ITALIAN CAR
S P - 0
Dividing the clause into its structural elements, teachers might
take the first step to avoid wbt and i rg errors.
«
Paraphrasing ngps to cause the underlying relationships
of their structural elements to be expounded, might also be a
useful technique to reinforce the recognition of ngp structural
elements and avoid unnecessary as well as inadequate insertion
of rankshifted groups, without mentioning those errors which we
have described as wbt ones. The examples provided by Widdowson
and Sopher 3 are illustrations of paraphrasing which could be
exploited by teachers. Thus, if students were given the ngps
TISSUE INJURY (T6N) and STEEL WIRES' CT4PJ to be paraphrased,^
either in English or in Portuguese, they would certainly feel
the need to compare the message obtained'from the paraphrased
ngps with the rest of the text, to see whether there had been
any interference with the message conveyed by the whole text.- 11
The recognition of each structural element would possibly follow.
Another type of approach which might be helpful to
draw students' attention to the sequence of English ngp structural
elements is to make students translate ngps expounded by one word