Errors in Using Chinese Adjectives of “Emotions and Feelings” Made by Third-year Chinese Program Students, Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Rai Rajabhat University

Abstract

This research study aims to investigate errors in using Chinese adjectives of “emotions and feelings” and analyze the causes. The study sample group consisted of 60 third-year Chinese Program students of Chiang Rai Rajabhat University. The research instruments included a questionnaire on the use of adjectives of “emotions and feelings” and a collection of articles written by these students, totaling 150,000 Chinese characters. The research findings reveal that a total of 423 errors in using these kinds of adjectives were made, and the errors were categorized into 6 types of meanings: 1) words expressing happiness, 2) words expressing anger, 3) words expressing sadness, 4) words expressing fear, 5) words expressing calmness, and 6) words expressing excitement. The type that the students made errors most frequently was words expressing happiness, at 207 times (48.93%), whereas errors in using words expressing anger were least frequently found at only 9 times (2.2%). Furthermore, the errors were divided into 2 types: 1) Errors of using words within the same type of meaning and 2) errors of using words with different types of meanings. Also, 5 causes of the errors were analyzed and then classified into 2 main groups, including 1) Chinese language interference (Chinese words with similar meanings, Chinese words with similar meanings but different grammatical structures, and Chinese words with similar meanings but different compound word usage) and 2) Thai language interference (translating word meanings from Thai and difference in meanings between Thai and Chinese words).