3. Causes of Error
Error happened because of some causes. One of obvious cause is interference from the native language. One of the strategies to prevent students
from making the same errors is by looking at causes of errors itself. H. Douglas Brown classified causes of error into four categories,
interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, context learning, and communication strategy.
9
a. Inter-lingual Transfers
Inter-lingual errors happened because the interference of a mother tongues into a target language.
“In this early stage, before the system of the second language is familiar, the native language is the only linguistic system in
previous experience upon which the learner can draw. ”
10
b. Intra-lingual Transfers
The early stage of language learning is characterized by a predominance of inter-lingual transfer, but once the learner has begun to acquire part of the new
system, more and more interlingual generalization within the target language manifested, his previous language itself experience begin to include structure
within the target.
11
c. Context of Learning
Context refers to the classroom with its teacher and its materials in the case of school learning.
12
In a classroom context the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make faulty hypotheses about a language. Students often
make errors because of misleading explanation from the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or word in a textbook.
9
H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, USA: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1980, p. 173.
10
Ibid., p. 177.
11
Ibid., p. 178.
12
Ibid., p. 179.
d. Communication Strategies
Communication strategies were defined and related to learning style.
13
Learners obviously use production strategies in order to enhance getting their message across but at times, these techniques can themselves become a source
of error. Whereas,
sources of error based on James’ theory, he exposed three main diagnosis-based categories of error:
14
a. Interlingual
Interlingual transfer can be called mother tongue interference because interlingual
errors happen when the mother tongue “contaminates” the foreign language. It has a great deal in learning target language directly. Interlingual
errors are similar in structure to an equivalent phrase or sentence in the learners’ native language. So, interlingual transfer is cause of error from transferring
knowledge of native language into the target language. It also be said that thi
s error occurs because the learners’ native language does not have the same rules of the target language has, but the learner applies the
rules of their native language into target language.
15
It can be concluded that interlingual transfer happens because of students’ misconception in writing and
speaking while they learnt target language.
b. Intralingual
Errors results from the faulty or partial learning. It occurs as a result of learner’s attempt to build up concepts about the target language from the limited
experience with it, so it corresponds neither to the mother tongue nor to the target language.
13
Ibid., p. 180.
14
Carl James, Error in Language Learning and Use, New York: Longman, 1998, p. 179.
15
Heidi Dullay, Marina Burt and Stephen Krashen, Language Two, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 171.
It also said that intralingual refers to errors caused by the lack competence of the language being learnt, so the students will produce incomplete rule
application. Then, there are items produced by the learner that does not reflect the structure of the mother tongue, but generalizations based on partial exposure to
the target language.
c. Induced Errors
It refers to learner’s error that result more from the classroom situation. Therefore, this error seems natural. It means that this error is the result more from
the classroom condition than from either the students’ incomplete competence in
English or first language interference. Learners often make error because of misleading explanation from the
teacher, faulty presentation of a structure, exercise induced, or word in a textbook or even a pattern that was rotely memorized in a drill but improperly
contextualized.
16
Look- up induced caused by the learner’s incorrect
understanding or inferences or by his misuse of the reference aids like the dictionary, thesaurus, etc. may also the reason in this term.
In this research, the writer uses three causes of error which has taken from James’ theory of error analysis. They are interlingual transfer, intralingual
transfer, and induced error.
4. Classifications of Error
According to Betty Azar classification, the errors in writing is classified into 13 errors, there are:
1. Singular-Plural
Example: He have been here for six
month He has been here for six
months. 2.
Word Form Example:
I saw a beauty picture. I saw a beautiful picture.
3. Word Choice
Example: She got on the taxi.
She got into the taxi. 4.
Verb Tenses Example:
He is here since June.
16
Brown, op. cit., p. 266.
He has been here since June. 5.
+ Add a Word Example:
I want Λ go to the zoo. I want to go to the zoo.
- Omit a Word
Example: She entered to the university.
She entered the university. 6.
Word Order Example:
I saw five times that movie. I saw that movie five times.
7. Incomplete Sentence Example:
I went to bed. Because I was tired.
I went to bed because I was tired.
8. Spelling
Example: An accident occured.
An accident occurred. 9.
Punctuation Example:
What did he say What did he say?
10. Capitalization
Example: I am studying english.
I am studying English. 11.
Article Example:
I had a accident. I had an accident.
12. Meaning Not Clear
Example: He borrowed some smoke.
????? 13.
Run-On Sentence Example:
My roommate was sleeping, we didn’t want to wake up
her. My roommate was sleeping.
We didn’t want to wake up her.
17
In this classification of errors, it shows that Betty Azar emphasized on grammatical and structure errors; such as singular-plural, word form, word choice,
verb tenses, addition or omission a word, word order, incomplete sentence, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, article, meaning not clear, and run-on
sentence.
5. Differences between Errors and Mistakes
Error and mistake are not the same; it is crucial to make distinction between error and mistake and most of people still misunderstand about the
definition of both. To be more classified between error and mistake, Jeremy
17
Betty Schramfer Azar, Understanding and Using English Grammar, Prentice-Hall inc. 1989, pp. A29
—A30.
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