The Definition of Error Analysis
8
nouns whether they are singular or plural, and not the uncountable ones. In Indonesian, the noun „money‟ is almost always considered plural, without
concerning its quantity, contradictory with that in English, which is always considered singular since it is an uncountable noun. Another example of the
interlingual error is the words „each‟ and „every‟. These two determiners are
usually translat ed into Indonesian as „setiap‟, such as „setiap siswa‟ each student
or every student . In Indonesian, the word „setiap‟ usually refers to all members of
a group or all parts of something. In fact, it is always considered singular or refers to personal in English language structure.
b. Intra-lingual Transfer Interferences for the students‟ own language is not the only reason for
committing errors. As Ellis states, “some errors seem to be universal, reflecting
learners‟ attempts to make the task of learning and using the target language simpler.
”
14
The u se of past tense suffix „-ed‟ for all verbs is an example of
simplifications and over-generalization. “Intra-lingual errors result from faulty or partial learning of the target
language rather than language transfer. They may be caused by the influence of one target language item upon another. For example, learners attempt to use two
tense markers at the same time in one sentence since they have not mastered the language yet.
”
15
Norrish classifies the causes of error into three types, they are carelessness, first language interference, and translation.
16
The three types of causes of error will be stated briefly below.
a. Carelessness
Carelessness is often closely related to lack of motivation. Many teachers will ad
mit that it is not always the student‟s fault if he loses interest, perhaps the materials andor style of presentation do not suit
him.
14
Ellis, op.cit. , p.266
15
Vacide Erdogan, p.266
16
Norrish, J., Language Learning and Their Errors, 1983, London: Macmillan Publisher Ltd, p.21-26
9
b. First language
Norrish states that learning a language a mother tongue or a foreign language is a matter of habit formation. When someone tries to learn
new habits, the old ones will interfere the one ones. These causes of error is called first language interference.
c. Translation
Translation is one of the causes of error. This happens because a student translates his first language sentence or idiomatic expression in
to the target language word by word. This is probably the most common cause of error.
17
Another expert who discusses the sources of error is Richards in Schumann and Stenson
in his article “Error Analysis and Second Language Strategies”. He classifies sources of errors into:
1 interference that is an error resulting from the transfer of grammatical andor stylistic elements from the source language to the target
language; 2 overgeneralization, that is an error caused by extension of target
language rules to areas where they do not apply; 3 performance error, that is unsystematic error that occurs as the result
of such thing as memory lapses, fatigue, confusion, or strong emotion; 4 markers of transitional competence, that is an error that results from a
natural and perhaps inevitable development sequence in the second language learning process by analogy with first language
acquisition; 5 strategy of communication and assimilation that is an error resulting
from the attempt to communicate in the target language without having completely acquired the grammatical form necessary to do so;
and 6 teacher-induced error, that is an error resulting from pedagogical
procedures contained in the text or employed by the teacher.
18
Another cause of errors is what is called the context of learning, which is cited by Brown. Context of learning here, means a classroom situation which can
be either the teachers or the materials or both that leads to errors made by the learners.
Context refers, for example, to the classroom with its teacher and its materials in the case of school learning or the social situation in the case of
untutored second language learning. In a classroom context, the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make faulty hypotheses about the
17
Ellis, R., 1994, The Study of Second Language Acquisition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.20
18
Schumann, J.H. and Nancy Stenson, Error analysis and Second Language Strategies,1978, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, p.32
10
language. Students often make errors because of a misleading explanation from the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or word in a textbook,
or even because of a pattern that was rote memorized in a drill but improperly contextualized.
19
It means that either the teachers or the textbook or both, can be the causes of the students‟ errors in term of the context of learning. The teachers‟
explanation might also push the learners to make the errors for sometimes the teachers provide incorrect information by way of misleading definition, word, or
grammatical generalization. As there are several kinds of causes or error mentioned above, the writer
adopts mainly 3 three kinds of them, i.e. the inter-lingual transfer, intra-lingual transfer, and context of learning, that are relevant to the object of the research.