acquisition, when the learner has already acquired some target language rule. E.g., ―He doesn’t know my name.‖
3 Misformation
This error is characterized by the use of wrong form of the morpheme or structure. In this error the learner supplies something although it is
incorrect. E.g., ―I see a teeth.‖ 4
Misordering The incorrect placement of a morpheme or a group of morpheme in
an utterance is the character of this error. E.g, ―I don’t know what that is.‖ c.
Error based on comparative taxonomy The classification is made based on the comparisons between the
structure of L2 errors and certain other types of construction. To this classification of error, there are four types of error.
1 Development error
Development error is error similar to those made by children learning the target language as their first language. E.g., ―Mary eat
the pineapple.‖
2 Inter lingual error
Inter lingual error is an error similar in structure to a semantically equivalent phras
e or sentence in learner’s native language. 3
Ambiguous error Ambiguous error is error that reflects the learner’s native language
structure. This error could be classified equally as development or inter lingual error. E.g., ―I no go to school.‖
4 Other error
Other error is error that caused by the learner’s native language since the learner used it on their second language form. E.g., ―She do
hungry.‖
d. Error based on communicative effect taxonomy
Instead of focusing on aspect of the error themselves, the communicative effect taxonomy concerned with the error from the perspective
of their effect on the listener or reader. The focuses are on distinguishing errors that seem to cause miscommunication from those that do not. Error
based on communicative effect taxonomy is divided into two parts. 1
Global error Global error hinders communication; it prevents the learners from
comprehending some aspects of messages. For instance, ―we amused that
movie very much.‖ 2
Local error Local error itself does not interfere with understanding of an
utterance, usually because there is only a minor violation of one segment of a sentence. ―I angry‖ will be local error since the meaning is apparent.
According to Ellis in Corder, error fall into four categories, they are omission of some required element; addition of some unnecessary or incorrect
element; selection of an incorrect element, and misordering of the elements. Nevertheless, Corder himself adds that this classification is not enough to describe
errors. That is why includes the linguistics level of errors under the sub-areas of morphology, syntax, and lexicon.
10
Ellis maintains that ―classifying errors in these ways can help us to diagnose learners’ learning problems at any stage of their development and to plot
how changes in error patterns occur overtime.‖ This categorization can be
exemplified as follows:
Omission:
Morphological omission A strange thing happen to me yesterday Syntactical omission
Must say also the names?
Addition:
In morphology The books is here
10
Rod Ellis, Second Language Acquisition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 51.
In syntax The London
In lexicon I stayed there during five years ago
Selection:
In morphology My friend is oldest than me
In syntax I want that he comes here.
Ordering:
In pronunciation fignisicant for ‘significant’;prulal for
‘prular’
In morphology get upping for ‘getting up’
In syntax he is a dear to me friend.
11
As mentioned by some experts above, there are many types of error according to them. The writer decides that the errors generally made by the students based on
Ellis’ classifications which are: omission, addition, selection and misordering.
3. Causes of Error
The types of error into tall four causes, they are: a. Over-generalization
Over generalization is the use of previously learned rules in new situation. Over generalization includes instance where the learner makes a rule on the
basis of his experience of other rule in the target language. For example: Do you go to Bali last Year?
The correct one is: Did you go to Bali last year? b. Ignorance of rule restriction
This type of errors is the result of the failure to observe the restrictions of existing structure, that is, the application rules to context where they do not
apply. For example: The man who I saw him yesterday is my teacher.
The correct one is: The man whom I saw yesterday is my teacher. c. Incomplete application of rules
11
Vecide Erdogan, ―Contribution of Error Analysis to Foreign Language Teaching.‖ Journal of the Faculty of Education in Mercin University, Vol. 1, Issue 2, December 2005, p. 264.
This error is the result of the learner’s high motivation to achieve communicative ability. In achieving this, learner sometimes produces
grammatical incorrect sentence. For example: She go to school every day
The correct one is: She goes to school every day. d. False concept hypothesized
This error is the result of the faulty comprehension of distinction in the foreign language, sometimes this error is because of the poor gradation of
materials of teaching.
12
According to Brown there are four causes of errors, they are: a.
Interlingual Transfer Interlingual transfer occurs because the interference of a mother tongue
into a target language. Interlingual transfer is significant source of error for all learners. The beginning stage of learning a second language is especially
vulnerable to interlingual transfer from the native language. For example:
- I miss he for I miss him b.
Intralingual Transfer Intralingual transfer is a major factor in second language learning.
The early stage of language learning is characterized by a predominance of interference interlingual transfer, but once learners have begun to acquire
part of the new system, more intralingual transfer-generalization within the target language is manifested. Negative intralingual transfer, or
overgeneralization has already been illustrated in such utterances as ―he good.‖
c. Context of Learning
Context refers to the classroom with its teacher and its material in the case of school learning. In a classroom context, the teacher pr the textbook
can lead the learner to make faulty hypotheses about the language. Students
12
Jack C Richards. Error Analysis Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. London: Longman group limited, 1985, pp. 174
– 178.
often make errors because of a misleading from the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or word in textbook.
d. Communication of Strategies
Communication strategies were defined and related to learning style. Learners obviously use production strategies in order to enhance getting
their message across but at times, these techniques can themselves become a source of error. In other hand, Ellis mentions three sources of error which are
known by error of omission, overgeneralization error and transfer error.
13
1 Error of Omission. For example, learners leave out the article ‘a’ and ‘the’
and leave the –s of plural nouns.
2
Overgeneralization Error. Learners overgeneralize forms that they find easy to learn and process. The learner processes new language data in his mind and
procedures rules for its production, based on the evidence. For example, the use of ‘eated’ in place of ‘ate.’
3
Transfer Error; reflect learners’ attempts to make use of their L1 knowledge.
14
While Hubbard proposed slightly different names; a.
A mother-tongue interference
Although young children appear to be able to learn a foreign language quite easily and to reproduce new sound very effectively, older learners
experience considerable difficulty. The sound system phonology and the grammar of the first language impose themselves on the new language and
this lead to ―foreign‖ pronunciation, faulty grammatical patterns and, occasionally, to the wrong choice of vocabulary.
b. Overgeneralization
The mentalist theory claims that errors are inevitably because they reflect various stages in the language development of the learner. It claims that
the learner process new language data in his mind and produces rules for its
13
H.D. Brown, Principle of Language Learning and Teaching, 5
th
Edition New York: Person Education, Inc2007., p. 223
14
Brown, op.cit., 2007., pp. 223 —226.
production, based on the evidence only partial, such us rules may produce incorrect pattern.
c. Errors encouraged by teaching material or method
The teaching material or method can also contribute to the student’s errors. Unfortunately, these errors are much more difficult to classify, as Pit
Corder admits this: ―… it is, however, not easy to identify such errors except in conjunction with a close of the materials and teaching technique to which
the learner has been exposed. This is probably why so little is known about them.‖
15
The writer concludes that there are three sources of error according to Hubbard et.al. They are mother-tongue interference which actually same with
the ―interlingual‖ term from Brown, overgeneralization which caused by the insufficient knowledge of the learners about the rule of their target language,
andthe last source is errors encouraged by teaching material or method which similar with what Brown named ―context of learning.‖
The writer summarizes what some experts have explained above. As a whole, there are three main sources of errors. First, error happens because the
influence of the student’s mother language is called interlingual. Second, error happens because the target language itself is called intralingual. Third, error
happens because the influence of the process in teaching and learning when the teachers explain the language.
4. Differences Between Mistake and Error
Learning a language is fundamentally process that involves making of mistakes or errors. The mistakes include with vocabulary items, grammatical
pattern and sound patterns as well. Based on Corder in Susan and Larry, ―mistakes are akin to slips of the
tongue. That is, they are to recognize it as mistake and correct it if necessary. An error, on the other hand, is systematic. That is, it is likely to occur
15
Peter Hubbard, etal., A Training Course for TEFL,New York: Oxford University press, 1983, pp140
—144.
