Overgeneralisation of derivational rules by ESL secondary school students: The case of one high school in Maseru district, Lesotho

Abstract

This qualitative case study investigated overgeneralisation of derivational rules among English as a Second Language (ESL) secondary school students in a high school in the Maseru district, Lesotho. Using focus groups discussions, interviews and student compositions as data collection methods, the study examined a corpus of utterances by 100 students (40 Form B, 30 Form C, 30 Form E) and nine English teachers based on the works of Aronoff and colleagues, who hold similar perspectives on word formation phenomenon. The findings revealed that students frequently overgeneralised the derivational prefixes un-, in-, and dis-, as well as the suffixes -ness, -tion, -ment, -ful, -able -ify and -ise. These errors were attributed to a lack of understanding of derivational rules and their restrictions by both ESL teachers and learners as well as the students’ limited exposure to English vocabulary due to a weak reading culture. The study concludes that these overgeneralisations negatively impact students’ language proficiency, making it essential to address these critical errors in ESL education.