2 Over-generalization is associated with redundancy reduction, for
example the - ed marker, in narrative or in other past context often appears to carry no meaning, on sentence - I buy the book
last week - it as cleared, the word “bought” does not have
meaning anymore because there was phrase „last week’.
c. Error Encouraged by Teaching Material or Method
Error can appear to be induced by teaching process itself and error is an evidence of failure of ineffective teaching or lack control.
If material is well chosen, graded, and presented with meticulous care, there should never be any error.
Corder said “it is however, not easy to identify such error except in conjunction with a close study
of the material and teaching technique to which the learner has been exposed. This is probably why so little is known about them”.
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It is easy to accept this in the early stages of language learning controls applied in the shape of substitution tables, conversation
exercises of mechanical nature and guided sentence patterns, but more difficult at later stages.
Example in regular and irregular verb: - I am going to school every day. Instead of
– I go to school every day.
Meanwhile Brown distinguishes the causes of error into four causes, they are: Interlingual Transfer, Intralingual Transfer, Context of
Learning and Communication Strategies.
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a. Interlingual Transfer
Interlingual errors happened because the interference of a mother tongues into a target language. Interference is transfer of a
native language, which impede the learning of a target language because of differences between both languages.
11
Hubbard et.al., loc.cit.
12
Brown, op.cit., pp. 177-180.
In this early stage, before the system of the second language is familiar, the native language is the only linguistic system in previous
experience upon which the learner can draw.
b. Intralingual Transfer
The early stage of language learning is characterized by a predominance of interlingual transfer, but once the learner has begun
to acquire part of the new system, more and more interlingual generalization within the target language manifested, and his
previous experience begin to include structure within the target language itself.
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 or
the textbook can lead the student to make faulty hypotheses about a language. Students often make errors because of misleading
explanation from the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or word in a textbook.
d. Communication Strategies
Communication strategies actually include processes of interlingual and intralingual transfer and the context of learning as a
learner tries to get a message across to a hearer or reader. Richards divided causes of error into four areas; those are over-
generalization, ignorance of rule restrictions, incomplete application of rules, and false concept hypothesized.
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a. Over-generalization
Over-generalization is the use of previously available strategies in new situation. Over-generalization covers instances where the
learner creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in the target language.
13
Jack C. Richard, Error Analysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, London: Longman Group Ltd., 1980, p. 174.
