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described as errors of addition, omission, substitution, and ordering, following standard mathematical categories.
In English : a “do” auxiliary might be added.
For example : Does can he hinge? Addition. A definite article omitted.
For example : I went to movie Omission. An item substituted.
For example : I lost my road Substitution Misformation. Or word order confused .
For example : I to the store went - Misordering. But such categories are clearly very generalized. Within each category,
levels of language can be considered: phonology or orthography, lexicon, grammar, and discourse.
Finally, based on the statement above, the writer could summarized that errors are part of the systematic study of the learners’ language which
they can not correct themselves which therefore need explanation.
2. Differences Between Error and Mistake
In English learning process, the students often made errors and mistakes. Both of them discussed among the linguist and the teacher for a
long time. There are some definitions from linguist about errors and mistakes.
Based on Fisiaks’ statement, “Mistakes are deviations due to performance factor such as memory limitations mistakes in the sequence
of tenses and agreement in long sentences, spelling pronunciations, fatigue, emotional strain, etc. Errors are systematic, consistent deviances
characteristic of the learner’s linguistics system at a given stage of
learning.”
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It means that the factors of mistake are memory limitation, spelling pronunciation, fatigue, emotional strain, etc. whereas, error is caused by
characteristic of the learner’s linguistic system at a given stage of learning.
4
Jacek Fisiak. Contrastive Lingusitics and the Language Teacher England: Pergamon Press Ltd 1981, p.224.
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Another definition, Hubbard was explained the differences of error and
mistake, “Error caused by lack of knowledge about the target language English or by incorrect hypotheses about it and unfortunate
mistake caused by temporary lapses of memory, confusion, slip of the tongue and so on”.
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The causes of error and mistake have different of definition. Error is caused by lack of knowledge and mistake is caused by
temporary lapses of memory. Based on the opinion above, the writer sum up that errors are
systematic consistent deviances characteristic of the learner’s linguistic caused by lack of knowledge about the target language and mistake are
deviations due to performance factor such as temporary lapses of memory, confusion, slip of the tongue and so on.
3. Types of Error
This taxonomy concentrates on the ways in which surface structures are altered. Using this taxonomy Dulay et al. divided errors into the
following categories : 1 omission, 2 additions, 3 misformation, and 4 misordering. Omission is typical for the early stages of L2 acquisition,
whereas in the intermediate stages misformation, misordering, or overuse are much more common.
a. Omission means that an item which must be present in a well-formed
utterance is absent. There is an evidence that grammatical morphemes noun and verb inflections, articles, prepositions are omitted more
often b.
Additions are the second category of Surface strategy taxonomy and
also the opposite of omission. The presence of an extra item which mustnt be present in a well formed utterance is characteristic for
additions Dulay divided them into three categories: a double markings, as in Did you went there?, b regularization, e.g. sheeps,
cutted, and c simple addition, which contains the rest of additions.
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Petter Hubbard. A Training Course for TEFL Oxford: Oxford University Press 1983, p.134.
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c. Misformation refers to “the use of the wrong form of the morpheme or
structure”. There are three types as well: a In regularizations an irregular marker is replaced by a regular one, as in sheeps for sheep.
b Archi-forms refer to the use of one member of a class of forms instead of using all the members, e.g. using this in the situations when
either this or these should be used. c Alternating forms are repr
esented by “free alternation of various members of a class with each other”, as in those dog and this cat used by the same learner.
The following examples of misformation are taken from my own data collection:
Do all the childs go through all the stages? GR regularization I have take one packet of tissue. FR archi-form and omission
d. We talk about misordering when we come across an utterance where a
morpheme or a group of them is incorrectly placed, as in I get up at 6 oclock always, where always is misordered.
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And based on Richard, he was divided types of errors into three types :
a. Omission
Omission error could be happened when the students or the learners omitted a necessary element of a word.
For example : Swim
– Swiming F –Swimming T
b. Addition
Addition could be happened when the students or the learners presented an unnecessary element to the sentence.
For example : Leave
– Leaveing F –Leaving T Write
– Writeing F –Writing T Live
– Liveing F – Living T Smoke
– Smokeing F – Smoking T
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is.muni.czth180075ff_bThesis_2nd_draft.doc Dulay, Heidi C., Burt, Marina K., and Krashen, Stephen D., Language Two, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982 , p. .
