This is a linguistic study of the active - passive transformational problems of selected Bura

learners of English by means of Contrastive and Error Analyses. The main aim of this

research is to investigate the extent to which ingrained mother tongue habits interfere with the

learning of English active - passive transformation by Bura learners of English. The

objectives of the study are: to highlight the basic structural differences between English and

Bura active-passive transformations; to provide adequate analysis and interpretation of the

relationship between English and Bura active-passive transformation; and to identify

measures which may help Bura native speakers overcome some grammatical errors relating

to active - passive transformation. The study involves a detailed consideration of the

grammatical errors of three hundred (300) randomly sampled SS111 Bura students in six

selected private and public secondary schools in Biu and Hawul Local Government Areas of

Borno State. An eclectic analytical procedure is adopted. First, Chomsky's (1957)

supposition that: if S is a grammatical sentence of the form NP1 + AUX + be + NP2, then the

corresponding NP2 + AUX + be + V + by + NP2 is also grammatical. Secondly, Adeyanju's

(1978) CA analytical procedure of description of the two languages contrasted; selection of

elements to be contrasted; the contrast and prediction of areas of interference; then the

validation of the predictions through fieldwork such as error analysis. Also, Corder's (1965)

Error Analysis (EA) model which involves four interdependent stages, namely: Recognition,

Description, Explanation and Correction of errors. The findings from this study have brought

to fore some important linguistic points which include the following: The passive exist in

Bura but there is a significant difference between English and Bura passives; these

differences in themselves hamper effective transformation of the English active voice into the

passive voice; there is the persistence of the following category of grammatical errors

namely: tense, concord, formal errors of lexis, morph-syntactic, punctuation and omission

errors. Most of the errors (78%) are due to developmental stage. Only (22%) of the errors

could be attributed to mother tongue interference. Most sentences also were discovered to

exhibit more than one (compound) error as there could be phonological miscues, concord or

morph-syntactic causes; both groups of Bura students in SS111 private and public secondary

schools were seen to have difficulties in transforming active into passive and they produce

similar grammatical errors. This implies that being in a private or public secondary school

had not significantly improved the students' performance in active - passive transformation.

With these hard data at his disposal, the researcher was able to conclude that the

developmental stage of the learners and mother tongue interference are major sources of

errors for Bura students learning English active - passive transformations. Some active -

passive transformation forms that are completely non-existent in Bura but present in English

language were found to have posed some problems to the students