Types of Errors Theory of Error

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a. Types of Errors

In this subchapter, the researcher classifies the errors found in Exploring Jogja Magazine I and II suggested by Dulay et al.1982. Those are linguistic taxonomy and surface strategy taxonomy. 1 A Linguistic Taxonomy Linguistic category taxonomy classifies errors according to both the language component and the linguistic constituents Dulay et al.1982. It is claimed by Dulay et al.1982 that many researchers use the linguistic category taxonomy as a reporting tool that organizes the collected errors. Dulay et al. 1982 give examples about the taxonomy for Morphology and Syntax in Table 2.1. Table 2.1: A Sample Linguistic Category Taxonomy Linguistic Category and Error Type Examples of Learner’s Errors A. Morphology 1. Past participle incorrect  Omission of -ed 3 He was call. B. Syntax 1. Verb Phrase a. Agreement of subject and verb  Disagreement of subject and verb person  Disagreement of subject and number  Disagreement of subject and tense 4 You be friends. 5 The apples was coming down. 6 I didn‟t know what it is. 13 2 Surface Strategy Taxonomy Dulay et al. 1982 state another type of error classification which is named Surface Strategy Taxonomy. This taxonomy focuses on the ways in which surface structures are changed. By using this taxonomy, Dulay et al. 1982 divide errors into some categories: omissions, additions, misformation, and misorderings. Those error classifications would be presented in Table 2.2. Table 2.2: The Classification of Errors No Category Description Examples 1 Omissions The absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance. 7 Mary president new company 2 Additions The presence of an item which must not appear in a well-formed utterance. 8 He is eats fried fries 3 Misformation The wrong form of the morpheme or structure 9 He eated fried fries yesterday 4 Misordering The incorrect placement of a morpheme or a group of morphemes in a utterance. 10 He is all the time late Omission means the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance. For the example is sentence 7, Mary president new company. The words, Mary, president, new and company are the content morphemes that carry the burden of meaning. It would be different when there are words is the of thein the sentence 7, Mary is the president of the new company. The words is, the and of are grammatical morphemes. It emphasizes that those little words have a minor role in conveying the meaning of a sentence. Thus, the omission in a sentence would give a different meaning. Dulay et al. 1982 explain that the 14 omission will be caused by lack of vocabulary and learners usually indicate their awareness of the missing constituent. Addition is the second category of Surface Strategy Taxonomy and also the opposite of omission. Addition is the presence of an item which must not appear in a well-formed utterance. Dulay et al. 1982 divide addition into three categories: double markings, regularization, and simple addition. The sentence 8 He is eats fried fries, shows that there is an addition of linking verb is in the sentence. The correct form is He eats fried fries. Dulay et al. 1982 explain addition error occurs when the learner has already acquired some target language rules. Misformation is the third category of the error. It is explained as the wrong form of the morpheme or structure in a sentence. For the example number 9, He eated fried fries yesterday . As we know that the verb eated means ate in past tense. In this case, the learner produced something though it was incorrect. Thus, the correct form of the sentence is He ate fried fries yesterday. After discussing about three types of errors, it comes to misordering as the fourth type of errors. Misordering is characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance. Sentence number 10 shows the example of misordering. He is all the time late, in this case all the time is misordering error. All the time should be put in the last of sentence. Therefore, the correct form of the example is He is late all the time. 15

b. The Processes of Error