English Modifiers and their performance by Iraqi students

The study is mainly concerned with English modifiers as one of the common and essential process in the English derivation at one hand, and a problematic area for English foreign Language students in the other. The study aims at (1) investigating the ability for Iraqi university students to recognize and use modifiers and (2) Identifying the types of errors which are committed by student in using modifiers. To achieve these goals mentioned above study hypothesis that i. Most of Iraqi university students may not have a full mastery of distinguishing modifiers and their different types. ii. Such students encounter difficulties in using these modifiers due to various factors. The first factor includes the difficulties which are due to the nature of the English modifiers at the levels of phonology, morphology and syntax. The second factor relates to the process of interferences (or transfer) from the first language to the target language and over generalization of the second language forms. iii. The students' performance at the recognition level is expected to be better than their achievement at the production one.