According to James, as citated by Sakoda, errors are categorized into omission, over-inclusion, miselection, misorder, and blend:
a. Omission, where some element of a word is omitted which should be present.
b. Over Inclusion, where some element is present which should not be there.
c. Miselection, where the wrong item has been chosen in place of the right one.
d. Misorder, where the elements presented are correct but wrongly sequenced
e. Blend, where there is not just one well defined target, but two.
7
Based on The classifications above, it can be inferred that errors can be classified into error of omission for the absence of some item, error of addition for
some item that should not be there, Misformation for form of morpheme or structure that are wrongly used, Miselection for some item that wrongly selected,
Misordering for the elements of utterance that are incorrectly sequenced, and blends for using two forms because of uncertainty in deciding which one is
required.
3. Source of Error
According to Cowan there are four causes of grammatical errors, they are: a.
Performance error: an error made by language learner indicate a process in the act of speaking or writing, and not because the learner ignores the
grammatical rules. b.
Imperfect learning: it means that a rule or the restriction that apply to that rule has not internalized by the learner.
c. Overgeneralization: it occurs when a grammar rule is applied to forms that
do not take it. d.
Influence of the native language: it occurs when language learners produce language from transferring of grammar rules from their native language.
8
7
James, op. cit., pp 41-54.
8
Ron Cowan, The Teacher’s Grammar of English: a Course Book and reference Guide,
New York; Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 42-45.
Meanwhile, Brown stated that causes of error are: a.
Interlingual transfer Interlingual transfer is the interference of native language in learning
second language. Before the system of second language is familiar, the native language is the only previous linguistic system upon which the
learner can draw. b.
Intralingual transfer Intralingual transfer is manifested when learners have begun to acquire
parts of the new system. it makes students starts to generalized a rule within the target language.
c. Context of learning
Students often make errors because of the explanation that mislead them. This misleading could be given by teacher, faulty presentation of a
structure or word in a textbook, or even because of a pattern that was rotely memorized in a drill but improperly contextualized.
d. Communication strategies
Communication strategies were related to learners’ learning styles. The
strategies are produced by the learners become source of error.
9
According to explanation above, the sources of error are interlingual transfer that is the influence of the native language in learning second language,
intralingual transfer that is imperfectness in learning second language and causes overgeneralization, context of learning that is misleading from learning sources,
and communication strategy that is the learning styles of a learner that leads to error.
4. Error Analysis
As what have been discussed in previous sub subchapter, error is concluded as a systematic deviation in language performance. Meanwhile, the term of error
analysis is described in vary explanations. James describes an error analysis is
9
Brown, op. cit., pp. 263-266.
process of determining the incidence, nature, causes and consequences of unsuccessful language.
10
Meanwhile, Ellis states that “Error Analysis consists of a set of procedures for
identifying, describing, and explaining learner errors. ”
11
Brown states that “The fact that learners do make errors, and that these errors
can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to a surge of study of learner’s errors, called error
analysis. ”
12
The writer concludes that an error analysis is a procedural method that can be
applied in determining the deviation in language performance.
5. The Steps of Error Analysis
There are five steps in conducting an error analysis, they are: a.
Collection of a sample of learner language Researcher can collect the sample in two ways: researcher can specify the
research question they intend to collect or make it broad sample by collecting different learners, different types of language and different
conditions of production. b.
Identification of error The basic procedure in identifying errors is as follows: first, prepare a
reconstruction of the sample as this would have been produced by learner’s native speaker counterpart. Then, compare every
utterancesentence produced
by learner
with well-formed
utterancesentence constructed by the native speaker. Finally, identify which parts of learner’s utterancesentence differs from the native one.
10
James, op. cit., p. 1.
11
Rod Ellis, Gary Barkhuzein, Analysing Learner Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press,2005, p. 51.
12
Brown, op. cit., p. 259.
