which error types detract most from a learner’s ability to communicate effectively 1982: 138. The identification of errors holds a significant step in this research that it
will involve a comparison between what the learners have produced and what a native speaker will produce in the same context Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005: 58. By
identifying and analyzing the factors of errors, it is hoped that the development of second language teaching will be better in the future.
a. Types of Errors
There are four types of errors that can be observed in learning a language: 1 omission; 2 addition; 3 misformation; and 4 misordering Dulay, Burt, Krashen,
1982: 154. The explanation of the types of errors can be seen from the table below,
Table 2.8 The Explanation of Types of Errors
Omission Meaning
The absence of an item that must appear in the correct form of utterance Dulay, Burt, Krashen, 1982: 154.
Examples She beautiful, The cake eaten by dad.
Addition Meaning
The presence of an item which must not appear in the correct form of utterance Dulay, Burt, Krashen, 1982:
156.
Examples He
doesn’t knows my name,
Eated for past tense of eat Misformation
Meaning
The wrong form of the morpheme or structure Dulay, Burt, Krashen, 1982: 158.
Examples runned for run or gooses for geese, it to replace the dogs.
Misordering Meaning
The incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance Dulay, Burt, Krashen,
1982: 162.
Examples He is all the time late, I don’t know what is that.
b. Causes of Errors
Error analysis consists of the procedures to identify, describe, and explain the learners’ errors Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005: 51. The four types of errors that have
been explained before have different sources. Some universal sources are omission, overgeneralization, and trasfer errors Ellis 2003: 19. Omission is the way that
learners leave out some important elements in the correct form utterance Ellis 2003: 19. Learners also overgeneralize rules and meaning in a structure of language to
make it easy to be processed Ellis 2003: 19. Last, trasfer errors are the errors that cause the learners to shape and create their own rules of a language Ellis 2003: 19.
Transfer errors usually reflect the structure of learners’ first language. In the error analysis of second language learners, it is common to observe that
the mistakes done by the speaker or the writer are because of their adaptation of their mother tongue language into second language. For instance, ‘She beautiful’ is derived
from the Indonesian language ‘Dia cantik’. The non-existence of be ‘is’ in the Indonesian language then is adapted into English which results error in the language.
This sort of error is called interlanguage errors that are errors caused by the interference of the learner’s mother tongue Richards, 1979: 173. Some linguists call
this error as interlingual Dulay, Burt, Krashen 1982: 108; Brown, 1987: 102. Brown explains interlingual errors as follows,
Comprehension of a second language is more difficult to study since it is not directly observable and must be inferred by overt verbal and nonverbal
responses, by artificial instrument, or by intuition of the teacher or researcher. It follows that the study of the speech and writing of learners is largely the
study of the errors of the learners 1987: 169.
Talking about interlingual errors means talking about second language acquistion which is the way in which people learn another language besides their
mother tongue language Ellis, 2003: 3. There are internal and external factors that cause the way second language learners acquire the second language acquisition. The
internal factors are: first, the learners’ cognitive mechanism to extract information about second language structure and grammar; and second, learners’ language
aptitude Ellis, 2003: 5. The external factors include the social conditions and the input that the learners receive Ellis, 2003: 4.
Another error is called intralingual and developmental errors which are the errors that reflect the learner’s competence at a particular stage, and illustrate some of
the general characteristics of language acquisition Richards, 1979: 173. Intralingual errors are the errors that commonly happen in the progress of second language
learning. These errors include the mistakes in syntax and word formation such as the overgeneralization of past simple form of
–ed in go which becomes goed, are for be following will, etc Brown, 1987: 178.
C. Theoretical Framework
The theories explained above will be used to support the writer’s analysis in the research. The comprehension of grammar will be the basic knowledge for the
writer to construct the question for the respondents, which will be explained in the next chapter, and to analyze the material dealing with the sentence construction in the
answer. The theories about causative in English and causative in Indonesian are needed in this research for sure as the principle for supporting the research topic.
Later, the theory of active and passive voice as well as active and passive causative will be used for the considered component to measure the mastery of make,
have, and get causatives. These theories are related to the finding for the first problem formulation, whether the error can occur in the grammar construction, the
understanding of causative meaning, or the construction of active and passive causative.
The last, the theory of errors including its types and its causes is going to be the supportive element to analyze the data and also to answer the second problem.
The respondent’s data then will be measured and analyzed by theory of quantitative method which will be explained in the next chapter.
