Specifically, the researcher concludes that the interference might come from the syntactic interference.
a. Syntactic Interference
In syntactic interference, the causes of each error vary reflecting on the writer‟s carelessness, and the differences between English language and Bahasa
Indonesia . It was found when the writer directly translates Indonesian words into
English language. It was also common for Indonesian to construct English sentences based on direct translation from Bahasa Indonesia into English
sentences. As a result, this first language L1 syntactic interference reflected common grammatical errors, especially regarding subject-verb agreement. In
fact, subject-verb agreement is not found in Bahasa Indonesia concept, as stated by Krause 2009, English and Bahasa Indonesiahave some differences.
The differences could make the Indonesian people get difficulties in learning English. Krause 2009 explains that Bahasa Indonesiadoes not have
gender malefemaleneuter personal pronoun and Bahasa Indonesiawould not change the verb for singular subject. Meanwhile, English language has gender
such as She for female and he for maleand English language has different spellings for 3
rd
person singular verbs. However, the difference rules of grammar between English language and Bahasa Indonesiamight affect the writer in
producing the subject-verb agreement. In regard to first language L1 syntactic interference, the researcher would
provide some examples to confirm the syntactic errors caused by first language
L1 interference. The examples would be taken from the subject-verb agreement errors in misformation. The examples are presented in table 4.3.
Table 4.3:The Examples of Syntactic Interferences Type of
Error Type
of Data Examples of Errors
Frequency Percentage
Misformat ion
Subject -verb
agreem ent
44a Ngarso Dalem have a royal wedding for his daughter, and so
do the people. 49a The meeting discussed about
tourism cooperation of each country which have temple tours.
17 22
The examples in table 4.3 showed that the writer failed to construct a sentence structure singular subject + singular verb. As a result, the sentence
44a Ngarso Dalem have a royal weddingwas found in the magazines instead of 44a Ngarso Dalem has a royal wedding. Has is used because the subject is
singular Ngarso Dalem, though it consisted of two words but it referred to a name of the highest position or a name for a leader in Keraton Yogyakarta. As
stated by Eastwood 1994, if two things are seen as a thing, then a singular verb is used. In this case, Indonesian does not have a singular verb, if the sentence
was translated into Indonesia language, it would be Ngarso Dalem mempunyaimemiliki.
Indonesia language would not change the verb for singular subject.
Therefore, the errors in subject-verb agreement might occur because of the the writer‟s mother tongue Bahasa Indonesia. According to Selinker 1972,
writer‟s mother tongueinfluences the learning of the target language or second language L2 and it produces the negative transfer. Richards et al.1992
explain that negative transfer or interference is described as the use of a native
pattern or rule which leads to an error or inappropriate fom in the target language p. 205.
D. The Cause of Errors in Passive Voice
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