Definition of Error Analysis Definition of Errors and Mistakes

Taken from http:www.englishindo.com2012019-contoh-recount-text pilihan.html . 16

C. ERROR ANALYSIS

1. Definition of Error Analysis

Error analysis is an activity to reveal errors found writing and speaking. Richards et.al 1985:96 state that error analysis is the study of errors made by the second and foreign language learners 17 . Error analysis may be carried out in order to find out how well someone knows a language, to find out how a person learns a language, and obtain information on common difficulties in language learning, as an aid in teaching or in the preparation of teaching materials. Another concept of Error Analysis is given by Brown 1980: 166 18 . He defined error analysis as the process, analyze, and classify the deviations of the rules of the second language and then to reveal the systems operated by learner. It seems this concept is the same as the one proposed by Crystal 1987:112 19 i.e. error analysis is a technique for indentifying, classifying, and systematically interpreting the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign language, using any of the principles and procedures provided by linguistics.

2. Definition of Errors and Mistakes

Corder 1971:152 stated that errors are ‘the result of some failure of performance’. Norrish 1983:7, like Corder, defined ‘an error’ as a systematic deviation that happens when a learner has not learnt something and consistently ‘gets it wrong’ 20 . James 1998:1 also identified a language error as an unsuccessful bit of language. Moreover, he pointed out that error is likewise 16 Era Meiswarawati , 9 Contoh Recount Text Pilihan, 2013, http:www.englishindo.com2012019-contoh-recount-text-pilihan.html, 17 Sunardi hasyim, Error analysis in the Teaching of English, volume 4, number 1, June 2002, p.43 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Anchalee Sattayatham and Pongrat Ratanapinyowong, Analysis of Errors in Paragraph Writing in English, Silpakorn University International Journal, Vol.8 : 17-38, 2008, p.22 unique to humans, and error analysis is the process of determining the incidence, nature, causes and consequences of unsuccessful language. Errors are significant in three different ways. First to the teacher, errors tell him how far the learner has progressed and consequently, what remains for him to learn. Second, errors provide researchers with evidence on how language is learnt or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner are employing in his discovery of the language. Thirdly, errors are indispensable to the learner himself, because errors can be regarded as a device the learner uses in order to learn 21 . And then what is Mistakes, Miller stated 1996 puts it 22 , it would be meaningless to state rule for making mistakes’. It will be useful therefore hereafter to refer to errors of performance as mistakes, reserving the term error to refer to the systematic errors of the language to date. Mistakes are of no significance to the process of language learning. However the problem of determining what a learner’s mistake is and what a learner’s error is one of some difficulty and involves a much more sophisticated study and analysis of errors than is usually accorded them. Conclusion of above, there are various linguistic expert understanding of the error are in fixing in mistake or not. If error the students does not know how to fix their mistake in their performance. So, it must helped by other people or teacher but mistake the student know how to fix their error in their performance. James said that Errors are in three different ways, first teachers can know the students learning progress and they only adds the knowledge that the students do not know. Second, the teacher can find the student’s errors and the student can change the errors himself. Third, an error is necessary for the teachers to support the extent in which students learn serious or not and it very useful to the teacher in his evaluation materials for teaching and learning activities. 21 Ibid. 22 Jack C. Richards and Gloria P. Sampson, Error Analysis Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, London: Longman, 1973, p. 25

3. Differences between Errors and Mistakes