process of learning. In this sense, error analysis is part of the methodology of the psycholinguistic investigation of language learning.
According to definition above the writer conclude that error analysis is an effort to get in information about the students’ difficulty in
learning a language especially to write it.
3. The Types of Error
Theo van Els, et. al., distinguish the type of students’ error as errors of performance and errors of competence.
Error of competence are the result of the application of rules by the L2 learner which do not yet correspond to
the L2 norm; Error of performance are the result of mistakes in language use and manifest themselves as repeats, false
starts, corrections or slips of the tongue.
Error of performance occurs frequently in the speech of both native speakers and L2 learners. They are especially
likely to occur when the speaker suffers from stress, indecision or fatigue. Corder has suggested the following
operational criterion for differentiating between these two types of error: L2 learners can recognize and correct errors of
performance, but not errors of competence.
However, identification of errors of competence will only be possible if we can establish a difference between
actual and intended L2 utterances.
16
Noam Chomsky made a distinction between competence and performance. Competence is knowing what is grammatically correct;
performance is what actually occurs in practice. He regarded performance as a faulty representation of competence, caused by psychological
restrictions, such as memory lapses and limitations, distractions, changes of direction half-way through a sentence, hesitation and so on.
17
16
Els, et. al., Applied Linguistic..., p. 52.
17
Hubbard et. al., A Training..., p. 133.
4. The Sources of Error
The final step in the analysis of erroneous learner production is that of determining the sources of error. By trying to identify sources we can
begin to arrive at an understanding how the learner’s cognitive and affective self relates to the linguistic system and to formulate an integrated
understanding of the process of second language acquisition.
18
Errors-overt manifestation of learner’s system-arise from several possible general sources: inter-lingual errors of interference from the
native language, inter-lingual errors within the target language, the sociolinguistic context of communication, psycholinguistic or cognitive
strategies, and countless affective variables.
19
Pit Corder Hubbard, 1993 claims that there are three major causes of error, which he labels ‘transfer errors’, ‘analogical errors’, and
‘teaching-induced errors’. While Hubbard proposed a slightly different names;
a. Mother-tongue interference
Although young children appear to be able to learn a foreign language quite easily and to reproduce
new sound very effectively, older learners experience considerable difficulty. The sound system phonology
and the grammar of the first language impose themselves on the new language and this lead to a “foreign”
pronunciation,
faulty grammatical
patterns and,
occasionally, to the wrong choice of vocabulary. b.
Overgeneralization The mentalist theory claims that errors are
inevitable because they reflect various stages in the language development of the learner. It claims that the
learner processes new language data in his mind and produces rules for its production, based on the evidence.
Where the data are inadequate, or the evidence only partial, such rules may produce incorrect pattern.
c. Context of learning
A third major source of error, through is overlaps both types of transfer, is the context of learning.
18
Brown, Principle of..., p. 213.
19
Brown, Principle of…, p. 218.
“Context” refers to the classroom with the teacher and the material in the case of school learning or the social
situation. In a classroom context, the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make faulty hypothesis
about the language what Richards called “False concept” and what Stenson termed “Induced errors.” Students
often make errors because of a misleading explanation from the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or
word in the textbook, or even because of a pattern, that was rote memorized in a drill but not properly
contextualized.
20
William T. Littlewood claims that there are four major causes of errors.
a. Overgeneralization
b. Transfer
Transfer and overgeneralization are not distinct processes. Indeed, they represent aspects of the same
underlying learning strategy. Both result from the fact that the learner uses what he already knows about
language, in order to make sense of new experience. In the case of overgeneralization, it s his previous
knowledge of the second language that the learner uses. In the case of transfer, the learner uses his previous
mother-tongue experience as a means of organizing the second language data. It is significant that Barry Taylor
found transfer errors to be more frequent with beginners than with intermediate students. The beginner has less
previous second language to draw on in making hypotheses about rules, and might therefore be expected
to make correspondingly more use of his first language knowledge.
c. Ambiguous source of many errors
d. Simplification by omission.
21
5. Some Errors on Students’ Paragraph Writing
