ABSTRACT:Based on the theoretical support of Error Analysis and sixteen tense system, this paper aims to find how well the students have mastered the knowledge of English tenses by identifying, classifying and analyzing the English tense errors committed in the 70 compositions sampled from non–English majors students in Chongqing University of Science and Technology. In this study, with the help of the author’s classmates and the supervisor, the identification and classification of tense errors occurring in the sampled compositions are conducted by specific manual work. The results show that there are more tense choice errors than tense form errors for the non-English major students of Chongqing University of Science and Technology and the simple past tense, simple present tense and present perfect tense are the most problematic tenses. The simple present tense turns out to be the most problematic tense among the tense form errors and the simple past tense manifests with the most of the tense choice errors. All in all, the simple past tense is the most problematic tense. And further analysis found that those tenses errors are caused due to the poor mastery of the usage of the simple past, the influence of their native language, the neglect of the issue of subject-verb agreement and the principle of tense agreement. It suggests that the knowledge of tense concerning these aspects of non-English majors in this university are insufficient. Therefore, this study suggests that teachers should pay special attention to the teaching of these aspects concerning tense.
Key words: Non–English Majors English Compositions Tense Errors
摘要:本文以错误分析理论为理论基础，按16种时态分类, 以从重庆科技学院非英语专业学生中收集的70篇英语作文为语料，对语料中包含的所有时态错误进行分析，发现英语作文中时态错误的主要类型及分布情况并分析错误原因。本文首先在老师和同学的协助下，对70篇英语作文进行逐句人工分析，对其中的时态错误分类标注归类，然后统计发现主要的错误类型并分析时态错误的分布特点。结果表明时态选择错误明显多于时态形式错误；一般过去时、一般现在时和现在完成时是最容易出错的时态。在时态形式错误中,一般现在时错误最多。时态选择错误中，一般过去时错误最多。总的来说，一般过去时是最容易出错的时态。在进一步的分析中发现，错误主要体现在，对过去式的用法掌握不够牢固，受母语的影响，主谓不一致和主从句时态不一致上。可见该校非英语专业学生在这些方面的知识掌握不足。本文建议该校老师今后应该注重这些方面的教学。
关键词：非英语专业大学生 英语作文 时态错误
