Aspectual Errors in Romanian and Serbian ESP Learners Majoring in Tourism and Hospitality Management

Abstract

This paper examines the interference of the mother tongue, Serbian and Romanian, in the case of students of English for Tourism and Hospitality Purposes (ESP) at the university level in the field of verbal aspect. The first part of the paper focuses on the ways in which the category of aspect is defined and expressed in Serbian and Romanian in comparison to English. It was hypothesised that the native speakers of these three languages may conceptualize verbal aspect rather differently, especially given their inherent relevant linguistic differences, particularly with Serbian having a more complex system of grammaticalized aspectuality than English and Romanian. This paper analyses the difficulties that Serbian and Romanian ESP learners might encounter in attempting to comprehend the features specific to aspect in English and in capturing the different aspectual uses of English verbs. For this analysis, a study was carried out featuring a questionnaire on the specific context of aspectual uses, which was completed by the participating Serbian and Romanian ESP students.