Critical reflection on the use of English concord by bilingual students

Abstract

English is a global language used for various functions across the world. However, it poses challenges for non-native English learners, particularly with concord. In light of these challenges, this study examined the use of English concord among final-year English Language and Linguistics bilingual students at a higher learning institution in southern Africa. Using written grammaticality judgment tasks for data collection and analysis, we specifically examined grammatical, notional, and proximity concord among Sesotho-English bilingual students. A close analysis of the written tasks revealed systematically salient features of English concord, reflecting the challenges faced by the bilingual students. While these systematic patterns of concord among the participants may shed light on issues faced by English language practitioners and academics, the phenomenon could also help determine the extent to which it aligns with the dependency grammar theory and the empirical literature underpinning this study. Finally, based on the corpus data, we argue that this phenomenon is one of the grammatical aspects that reportedly pose challenges to the grammatical competence of bilinguals. The study recommends targeted interventions in the foreseeable future to address and mitigate these persistent challenges.