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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
One of the basic problems for Indonesian learners of English is the use of appropriate articles. Dykes2007 suggests that “the word article comes from the
Latin word articulus meaning a little joint or a bit joined on”. In other words, an article is something which should appear with another language item or it will be
useless. The definition supports its function which is explained explicitly by William 2005:83. He asserts that “an article is used as a determiner of which
function is to signal the presence of certain nouns”. In addition, an article will be meaningful only after it comes up with a noun. Having that kind of functions, an
article appears in almost every English sentence, and it is usually recognized as a, an, or the. Nevertheless, not every noun needs an article. There is also a condition
when a noun does not need any article, symbolized with Ø in Azhar’s grammar book. In addition, an article is simply put before a noun, but what makesit
complicated for learners is the various kinds of nouns following the article. They determined the article used, for example:
1 She killed a man
2 She killed the man
Two examples above explain two different conditions. What makes the article in the first and second example different is whether the listener knows the reference
of the object. In example 1 the listener does not know which man is killed
2 indicated with article a. The word man here functions as an indefinite noun,
defined as a noun of which reference has not been identified yet. On the other hand, in example 2, man has a function as definite noun marked with the. The is
used when the speaker and the listener share the same reference. Azhar, 1993.Further explanation about how to use a, an, the, Ø and about the kinds of
noun would be discussed in chapter two.
Articles surprisingly become a problem for advanced learners of English. An experience of a lecturer in English Education Study Program, whose students are
required to be English teachers, showed that the students still have problems in using the articles. He asked the students to translate gajah punya empat kaki into
English. It is acceptably translated into either an elephant has four legs or elephants have four legs, yet most students answered elephant has four legs,
which is actually wrong. This kind of problem may not really distract communication since it may still be understandable for Indonesian people.
However, the students as teacher candidates need to be a good language model for their future students. They should not produce a sentence that violates grammar
like elephant has four legs. Therefore it is important for them to master the English articles in order to show how to construct correct sentences with
appropriate articles. Therefore the researcher would like to investigate deeper what concepts of articles that those teacher candidates have mastered or how far
those teacher candidates’ mastery toward articles are.
3 Their mastery of articles would be analyzed by identifying errors through a test.
The test result may show errors and mistakes, yet this research focuses on errors showing misconception in the students’ mind. Errors and mistakes are actually
two concepts proposed by Ellis to analyze learners’ language other than their mother tongue. Mistakes are “deviations in usage that reflect learners’ inability to
use what they actually know of the target language.”Ellis, 1997:17. In other words, mistakes are committed by a learner because shehe fails to show what
shehe already understands. Meanwhile, Ellis 1997 described an error as the opposite of a mistake. Errors are “deviations in usage which result from gaps in
learners’ knowledge of the target language.” Errors happen when learners do not master a concept, or misunderstand it.
Ellis 1997 states that to distinguish errors and mistakes, teachers need to check the consistency of the students’ language in their performance. When the deviant
utterances are consistent, it means they are producing errors. If the learners sometimesproduce either the right or the deviant utterances, they are committing
mistakes. Another way to check whether learners are making errors or mistakes is by asking them to correct the deviant utterances. If they are able to correct them,
they are committing mistakes, yet if they are not able to do so, they are making errors.
In conclusion, the problem in using appropriate articles is still a problem among the English advanced learners represented by the students of English Language
4 Education Study Program ELESP. They are expected to master the notions as
they are prepared to be teachers who should not mislead the students. Moreover, the sixth semester students of ELESP are assumed to have passed English
structure classes. To investigate the students’ mastery in English, the researcher would use the theory of errors as the basis in analyzing the data.
B. Problem Limitation
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