Significance of the Research

B. Error Analysis 1. Understanding of Error Analysis

There are many understanding of error analysis that is suggested by some experts. According to Gass and Selingker, “Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors learners make.” 21 It means that error analysis is a kind of linguistic analysis that concentrates on the errors made by learners. Brown states that “error analysis is the fact that learners do make errors and that these errors can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to a surge of study of learner’s errors.” 22 It implies that error analysis is a procedure including observing, analyzing and classifying the errors on the second language rules and disclosing systems controlled by the learners. Meanwhile, according to James, “error analysis is the process of determining the incidence, nature, causes and consequences of unsuccessful language.” 23 In other words, error analysis is the procedure to decide the occurrence, nature, reasons and results of failed-learning of a language. Based on some definitions above, it can be concluded that error analysis is a type of analysis which includes the process of observing, analyzing and classifying the errors on the second language rules and disclosing systems controlled by the learners. It also can be said as way to investigate the error made by students to get some important data about students’ difficulty in learning a language. It is believed by knowing more detail about problems faced by the students and solve it, the teacher will improve their teaching to avoid their students in making the same error again.

2. The Procedure of Error Analysis

Ellis states that there are five steps in conducting an error analysis, they are: 1. Collecting of a sample of learner language 21 Gass and Selingker, op.cit., 2008, p. 102. 22 Brown, op.cit., 2007, p. 259. 23 James, op.cit., 1998, p. 1. The type of data collected can have a marked effect on the result of an error analysis, as a result of the different production processes which they typically involve. For example, Logoco found differences in the number and type of errors in samples of learner language collected by means of free composition, translation, and picture composition. 24 2. Identification of Errors The definition of ‘error’ is problematic, as James admits. The difficulty centers on a number of issues. The first is whether grammatically i.e. well- formedness or acceptability should serve as criterion. An utterance may be grammatically correct but pragmatically unacceptable. ‘I want to read tour newspaper’ addressed a complete stranger is grammatical but pragmatically unacceptable. 25 3. Description of Errors The description of errors involves a comparison of the learner’s idiosyncratic utterance with a reconstruction of those utterances in the target language or, more recently, with a baseline corpus of a native-speaker language. 26 Ellis also describes the category of errors as seen in the table below: Table 2.1 The Category of Errors Category Description Example Omission The absence of an item that must appear in a well- formed utterance She sleeping Addition The presence of an item that must not appear in well-formed utterance We didn’t went there Misinformation The use of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure The do dated the chicken 24 Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 46. 25 Ibid.,pp. 47—48. 26 Ibid.