error and mistake. Julian Edge suggests that mistake can be devided into two broad categories: “slips that is mistakes which students can correct
themselves and which therefore need explanation, and attempts that is when a student tries to say something but does not yet know the correct way to
saying it.”
4
Hubbard et al, said “error caused by lack of knowledge about the target language English or by incorrect hypothesis about it, and
mistakes caused by temporary lapses or memory, confusion, slips, of the tongue and so on.”
5
From explanation above, it can be concluded that error is systematic and the students cannot be self-corrected, because it reflects the
student’s competence in the target language. On the contrary, a mistake is an error that students can be self-corrected,because it is only the result of the
students’ performance.
3. The Types of Error
Error may be viewed as being either global or local error.These errors are divided into two kinds of error:
6
a. Global errors
Global errors are errors that affect overall sentence organization which possibly influence the flow of communication. For example the
wrong or der of major constituents, “English language use many people.”
The sentence should be, “Many people use English language.” b.
Local errors Local errors are errors that affect one element or constituent in a
sentence which usually do not break the flow of communication. These errors include errors in noun and verb inflections, articles, and
auxiliaries. For example, “Why you like him?” The listeners of the utterance will still understand the speaker’s message although the
4
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching 3rd edition, London: Longman,
2001, p. 99.
5
Johanna Klassen, Using Student Error for Teaching, English Teaching Forum, January 1991 Vol. 29, N. 1, p. 10.
6
Ibid, p. 259
.
sentence does not contain auxiliary. In addition, in classifying the student’s errors in writing descriptive paragraph the writer would like to
use Corder theory. He stated five types error which will be explained below. The types of errors are error of omission, error of addition, error
of selection, error of ordering. a.
Error of Ommision Error of omission is the absence of an item that should appear.
“Errors of omission where some element is omitted which should be present.”
7
The learner omits the item that should appear in the good utterance. “Omission has two types of morphemes that are omitted more
than others. They are content morphemes and grammatical morphemes.”
8
Content morphemes are morphemes that have meaning like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Grammatical morphemes are little words that have
minor play in sentences like noun and verb inflections, articles, auxiliaries, and preposition.Example: Angelina is an actress. From the
explanation and example above, the word Angelina and actress are content morphemes because Angelina and actress is noun and has a
mayor meaning. The words is and an are grammatical morphemes because they are verb auxiliaries and article, and they are also play a
minor meaning in that sentence.
“Omit grammatical morphemes are more frequently than content words.”
9
It is caused by the grammatical morphemes are more complex, for example in using tenses, the learner should be aware of the addition
of the ending of the verb -ed,-ing,-s correctly. Omit content morphemes are typically made by the learner in the early stage. It happens because
the learner still has limitation of the vocabulary which is used in the
sentences.
7
Ibid, p. 259.
8
Heidi Dulay, Marina Burt, and Stephen Krashen, Language Two, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 150.
9
Ibid.,p.155.
