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to + not instead of not + to like in I warned them to not watch late night horror movies. In this error, the students might form the indirect command by translating
it form Indonesian language as “Saya memperingatkan mereka untuk tidak menonton film horror malam hari,” so that they used the wrong form of order
between to and not. Interlingual transfer could also be found in some items, in which some
students did not use the right conjunction. For example in indirect yes-no question, which should use if or whether as the conjunction, the students did not
change the word order. However, they tended to put the auxiliary verb after the reporting clause without using any conjunction. It might be influenced by their
first language, Indonesian language, where there is no need to add any conjunction in changing direct yes-no question into indirect yes-no question. The
example is in “Apakah dia akan menonton sepak bola besok siang?” the reporter just needs to change it as Dia bertanya apakah dia akan menonton sepak bola
besok siang. The students might think that the auxiliary verb means apakah, so that they did not need to add any conjunction.
Another error possibly caused by interlingual transfer was in the use of if as the conjunction in indirect statement. The right conjunction that should be used
in statement is that. The students might use if because they were influenced by their tendency in Indonesian language, in which they usually say “Wendy berkata
kalau ayahnya telah membeli sebuah mobil.” They used the word kalau, so that they translated the conjunction as if.
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2. Intralingual Transfer as the Possible Cause of Errors
The factor influencing intralingual transfer exists within the target language itself. In this context, intralingual transfer means overgeneralization,
which is categorized as negative intralingual transfer Brown, 2000: 224. In this research, the researcher found some errors, which were possibly caused by
overgeneralization of some rules in forming indirect speech. The first kind of error caused by overgeneralization was the students’
tendency to backshift the tenses in all kinds of direct speech, including in direct speech which had present form of reporting clause or direct speech which was
categorized as general truth. It was found that some students changed the tense in those kinds of direct speech. In this case, the students over generalized the rule
that there should be tense backshift in forming indirect speech. One example was in item 11, the students changed “The earth is round,” into My teacher said that
the earth was round. In fact, the tense in this sentence should not be changed into past tense because the reported clause was categorized as general truth.
Another example of error which was possibly caused by rule overgeneralization could be found in the use of backshift indirect commands.
Some students formed indirect command using to, but the to was followed by verb + ed as in to filled. This error might be caused by students’ generalization that the
verb in the reported clause should be back shifted. Therefore, some students changed the infinitive verb into verb + ed without noticing that to could not be
followed by verb + ed. Another form of overgeneralization was found on the use of not which was followed by verb + ed in some negative indirect commands.
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Almost the same as the previous case, the students over generalized the tense backshift of the tense. The overgeneralization of this rule made the students use
not + V
2
instead of not + to + infinitive. Intralingual transfer in the form of generalization could also be found on
the use of if or that as the conjunction in indirect WH-questions. In forming indirect WH-questions, those two conjunctions are not needed. This error might
happen because the students over generalized the rule of the use of conjunction in indirect speech. The use of that was possibly caused by overgeneralization that all
indirect speech could use that as in indirect statement. While, the use of whether as the conjunction in indirect WH-questions indicated that some students over
generalized the rule of using whether in all types of indirect questions, both yes- no questions and WH-questions.
3. Other Sources of Errors
The causes of the students’ tendency not to change the pronoun, adverb, or demonstratives when they were should be changed could not be categorized both
in intralingual transfer and interlingual transfer. From this reason, the researcher tried to analyze the other sources of those errors. The changes in pronouns,
adverbs, and demonstratives in changing direct speech into indirect speech also happen in Indonesian language. The example can be seen in example [30].
[30] Dina berkata, “Teman saya datang ke tempat ini dua hari yang lalu”
Dina berkata bahwa temannya datang ke tempat itu dua hari sebelumnya.
