A LINGUISTIC STUDY OF THE WRONG USAGE OF ADVERBS IN THE WRITTEN ENGLISH OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to determine the major areas of difficulty experienced by the one hundred (100) level students of the Kogi State University. One hundred (150) samples of composition written by the one hundred (100) level students of the Kogi State University were analysed. These samples were selected from the Departments of English Language, Biochemistry and Business Administration. Four questions were raised and the simple percentage formula was used to answer the four questions. The findings show the following grammatical errors as common: omission of the –ly suffixes, wrong syntactic usage, wrong order of adverbs, misuse of preposition of place and time, wrong use of pronouns for adverbs e.t.c. The study suggests that Students should read standard books in the target language after normal classroom teaching in order to improve their writing skills. Teachers should try and use adequate and suitable learning materials. This will help students have a better understanding and good mastery of the language