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When The Agent Goes Missing: SiSwati L1 Learners’ Struggles with English Passives

Published
Pages 203-216
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Authors

  • Phindile A. Dlamini University of Eswatini Author

DOI

https://doi.org/10.55640/ijssll-06-04-08 ↗

Abstract

This study examined how siSwati L1 speakers acquire and produce English passive constructions, focusing on the promotion of the agent in the nominative case to the subject position. It explored how structural differences between siSwati and English influence learners’ use of the passive voice. The study contrasted passive constructions in the two languages, identified areas of structural non-correspondence that predict syntactic transfer, and analysed learners’ written passives to determine sources of error. Data were drawn from a passive construction task administered to second- and third-year university students majoring in English. Using contrastive analysis, the findings revealed significant non-correspondence effects, particularly in agent promotion and tense–participle formation. Although learners demonstrated general awareness of passive morphology, many produced errors linked to interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, and peripheral normativity. The study concludes that these difficulties reflect both L1 interference and incomplete L2 syntactic development, highlighting the need for targeted pedagogical support in teaching English passives in siSwati-dominant contexts.

Keywords

passive , interlanguage , second language acquisition , error analysis , siSwati , learners

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