this system with a name “interlanguage”. He clearly defines that term
interlanguage refers to “the intermediate state or interim grammars of a learner’s language as it moves toward the target L2”. To clarify this system, its location is
also supported by a schema below:
Adopted from Saville-Troike 2006: 42
When the learners are in interlanguage system, the cross-linguistic influence or transfer of the first language and second language is inevitable. According to
Saville-Troike 2006, transfer is one of the processes that occurs in the interlanguage development. There are two major types of transfer; they are
positive and negative transfer. Positive transfer means a first language L1 structure which is applied in second language L2 utterances or sentences and the
use is appropriate in the second language. For example, a foreign language learner from Indonesia makes a sentence: “Saya pergi ke sekolah”, then the learner makes
an English version: “I go to school”. This structure has been applied correctly and
it includes positive transfer. On the other hand, negative transfer or it is often called interference occurs when L1 structure is used in L2 sentences and the use is
incorrect in the second language and considered as an “error” Saville-Troike, 2006. For instance, he an Indonesian learner produces: “Saya sakit kepala”,
then he transfers in to English: “I sick head”. This sentence should be “I have got a
headache”. The erroneous example that is committed by the learner is the results of the influence of the first language on the second language learning process.
2.2.3 Definition of Error
When the interference of the first language cannot be avoided, the errors will be committed in producing a second language. Error itself was defined by
Dulay, Burt and Krashen 1982: 138 as “the flawed side of learner speech or
L1 ___ | .................... | ___ L2 Interlanguage
writing which deviates from some selected norm of mature language performance
”. Then, another expert, Corder adds that errors are “the results of the interference in the learning of a second language from the habits of the first
language” 1981: 5. Errors that occur are distinguished based on the several factors. First, errors are caused fatigue and inattention that Chomsky in Dulay et
al. , 1982 called it performance factors and errors resulted from lack of
knowledge of the rules of the language called competence. After the causal factors of making errors are shown, the distinction of errors
and mistakes has to offer since they are quite different. As Ellis 1997: 17 said that “errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner
does not know what is correct”. On the contrary, mistakes happen when the
learner is unable to produce what he or she knows. They are usually caused by slip of the tongue, mental condition, high emotion eager, too happy, uncontrolled
condition, etc. It can be concluded that the differences between mistakes and errors are
when the mistakes are the deficiencies of learners and naturally occurs on human being. They sometimes make wrong utterances and sometimes produce the right
form. For example: learner makes “he must go” and the other side he produces “he must to go”. Then, errors are noticeable as a deviation of the grammar
knowledge. It may happen because of the interference of the tradition of the first language and the inadequacy of the target language. Errors are also signed by the
consistent wrong sentence or utterance committed by the learner, for instance, a learner produced a paragraph that consisted of seven sentences and fifteen verbs.
He consistently applied verb base for the third person singular as a subject in simple present tense so that he already made errors.
2.2.4 Error Analysis
