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.
4. The Classification of Errors
The writer thinks it is necessary to cite the kinds of errors that the students make during the class, thus to classify them into several points.
Ellis explains that “…..while local errors affect only a single constituent in the sentence for example, the verb, and are, perhaps, less likely to create any
processing problems, global errors violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it difficult to process.”
20
It can be said that something is classified into local errors when the object is a part of a sentence and therefore, it
does not result in misunderstanding significantly, while the global ones happen when someone commit more deviations of the right grammatical structure and
thus makes it confused to get the actual meaning of the sentence. Another classification is given by Corder, which consists of omission of
some required element, addition of unnecessary or incorrect element, selection of an incorrect element and misordering of element.
21
19
H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, fifth edition, New York: Pearson Education, inc, 2007, pp.263-264
20
Ellis, R., 1994, op. cit, p.20
21
Nsakala Lengo, What Is An Error?, English Teaching Forum July, 1995, vol.33, p.22-24
11
a. Addition „Addition‟ means to add element which is not really needed and
thought as an error since it is excessive which does not give any additional meaning, as in:
22
1 The woman does not likes the colour; like 2 The sheeps are on the green meadow; sheep and
3 What you need is already in here without „in‟
b. Omission Certain linguistic forms may be omitted by the learner because of their
complexity in production. Omission also occurs in morphology, where learners often leave out the third person singular morpheme-s, the plural
marker-s and the past tense inflection- „ed‟,
23
as in: 1 Ayunda always come on time; comes
2 He needs a number of paper; papers and 3 The children play in mud on last holiday played
c. Selection Learners commit errors in pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and
vocabulary, due to the selection of the wrong phoneme, structure and vocabulary items,
24
as in:
a. You and me are invited. I;
b. Jupiter is biggest than Venus. bigger c. The gooses are in the lake. geese; and
d. These avocadoes does not taste good. do d. Ordering or Misordering
Misordering can occurs in morphology level. Misordering of bound morpheme in English is perhaps less frequent, given their limited number,
25
as in:
a. She needs really the stuff; really need b. The sky blue overwhelms people; blue sky and
c. With regard kindly kindly regard
22
Ibid
23
ibid
24
ibid
25
Ibid
12
5. The Procedures of Error Analysis
In conducting this research of an error analysis, it is substantial to deal with the steps as what is called the procedure of an error analysis. There are some
procedures in error analysis which is stated by Theo Van Els and friends, as
follows:
a. Identification of Errors b. Description of Errors
c. Explanation of Errors d. Evaluation of Errors; and
e. PreventingCorrection of errors
26
Identification of errors is the first step in the process of error analysis. In this step, teachers identify the students‟ errors from the test given. The second step
is the description of errors which begun when the identification step is already taken. The description of the students‟ errors implies the classification of the
errors committed by the students. The explanation of errors is the third step which attempts to account for
how and why such errors can occur. The fourth step in the process of error analysis is the evaluation where the teachers give tasks or tests to prove such
errors as the incorrect ones. The last step in the procedure of error analysis is the correction of errors in
which the teacher or examiners check the outcomes from the tasks or tests given to the students and thus to give corrections for the errors.
Table 2.1 Example of the Procedure of Error Analysis Identification
of Errors Classification
of Error’s
Description Explanation
Correction Cause
of Error
They not do the task
Omit a word omission
„not‟ should
be preceded by „do‟
They do not do the task
Inter- lingual
transfer
26
Theo Van Els and Friends, Applied Linguistics and the Learning and Teaching of Foreign Languages, London: A Division of Hodder and Stoughton, 1984, p.47
13
She is needs the cash
Add a word addition
„is‟ should
be omitted
She needs the cash
Context of
learning
B. Noun
1. Noun and Its Functions
“A noun is a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance, or quality.
”
27
The writer of this research, Oxford, dictionary, research, coal and beauty thus are all nouns.
As we know that noun is a part of speech in English grammar beside other parts of speech like verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, articles,
auxiliaries, conjunctions and interjections. Frank stated that “the noun is one of
the most important parts of speech. Its arrangement with the verb helps to form the sentence core which is essential to every complete sentence. In addition, it
may function as the chief or „head‟ word in many structures of modification.”
28
In other words, a noun can function as a subject, an object, a complement, and an
object of preposition.
2. Noun Classification
According to Marcella Frank in her book, Modern English: a Practical Reference Guide, nouns are classified into four kinds:
a. Proper Nouns A proper noun begins with a capital letter in writing. It includes a
personal names Mr. Sadiri, Mrs. Sumarni; b names of geographic units such as countries, cities, rivers, etc. Greece, Jakarta, Bengawan Solo; c
names of nationalities and religions Irish, Islam; d names of holidays Idul Fitri, Easter; e names of time units Friday, October; f words
used for personification
– a thing or abstraction treated as a person Nature, Liberty.
27
Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Third Edition. 1998, p.970
28
Marcella Frank. Modern English: A Practical Reference Guide. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc. 1972. p.6
