Perception of definite article use by the learners whose L1 is Serbian

Abstract

This paper deals with the perception of definite article use by the learners of ESL, whose L1 is Serbian. The focus of the authors is the semantics of articles in English language, i.e. various ways in which definite descriptions relate to their antecedents and/or to the context. The methodological approach of the research is error analysis, and the research was conducted with the sample of 80 learners with different level of ESL proficiency. The results show that the use of the definite article for the specific situation use was the most difficult one for the prticipants to grasp, although not the only problematic use. Research results indicate that the learners of ESL make most mistakes when the “rules“ that they learn in school interfere with the semantics of definite article. Furthermore, L1 interference is one of the main sources for their mistakes.