INVESTIGATING ERRORS OF PUNCTUATION MARKS IN ENGLISH ESSAY WRITING BY UNDERGRADUATE SECOND LANGUAGE (L2) LEARNERS IN DISTRICT CHITRAL

Abstract

In the current study titled “Investigating Errors of Punctuation Marks in English Essay Writing by Second Language (L2) Learners in District Chitral,” the aim is to investigate errors related to the use of punctuation marks by second language (L2) learners and to count the frequencies of these errors in students’ writing. The study employs a descriptive research approach using a survey to uncover both the most and least common punctuation errors. Convenience sampling is used to select individuals for the study. A hundred undergraduate students from three different educational institutes were selected from the Chitral district. Written essays and proficiency tests are utilized as research instruments. The Corder (1975)’s error analysis model is used to identify and describe students’ punctuation errors in essays and proficiency tests. Finally, the frequency and percentage of errors are measured using SPSS software to identify the most and least common punctuation errors, which are the two main objectives of this study. The findings reveal that the most frequent punctuation error in essays is the incorrect use of commas. Commas are the most frequent punctuation errors, with 75% being incorrectly used. While the least frequent punctuations error is using a period. According to the results, the period is the punctuation mark with the lowest error frequency, at 31%. Regarding proficiency tests, the most frequent error is the incorrect use of semicolons, with 68.4% of the students (39 out of 57) using them incorrectly, while the least common error involves the use of apostrophes, with only 10.5% of the students (6 out of 57) omitting them in their sentences