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Bahasa Indonesia there is no need to move the operator or auxiliary when a statement is inversed into question. This rule can possibly affect Indonesian
students as English foreign language learners when constructing English interrogative word questions. Referring to the fourth 4 interrogative word
question example, the samples of research were recognized having strong tendency to use the rule of interrogative word question constructions in Bahasa
Indonesia, such as avoiding the auxiliary movement, when constructing English interrogative word questions.
2. Lack Understanding of Target Language
Another source of errors, which affected the construction of English interrogative word questions made by students of PMat 2010, was lack
understanding of target language. When the language learners tended to make errors because of lack understanding of the target language, they might create
errors such as simplification, overgeneralization, and incomplete rule application. As a matter of fact, understanding the target language is very necessary. If
language learners understand the target language seriously, they will be able to use the target language properly.
However, the result of the test showed that the samples of research lacked understanding of the target language. They missed the important knowledge about
how to construct interrogative word questions properly and correctly in English, even though they had been taught about it in the English course. The condition
showing the samples’ lack understanding of the target language can be found in
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the patterns they used when constructing interrogative word questions. The example is
“Who have can help me cuts this paper?” That example of interrogative word question was constructed by error
makers, who seemingly did not understand the target language well. After that interrogative word question was analyzed, there were four types of error found.
The first error was overgeneralization of auxiliary in a question with modal, the second error was addition of present tense marker, the third error was omission of
infinitive marker, and the fourth error was partial mistranslation. If the test takers knew the target language well, those kinds of error could be avoided.
Furthermore, the samples of research also made another fatal error involving the incorrect use of interrogative word in interrogative word question,
for example, “Where are you going to wear in the prom party?” Based on that
interrogative word question, it can be seen that the error makers misunderstood the meaning of the rest interrogative word question clause which lead them to
pick the wrong interrogative word wh-word. If the error makers noticed that the sentence aimed to question about
something to wear in the prom party, then they would not use “where” as the
interrogative word. However, since they misunderstood the meaning and had lack understanding of the target language, they tended to use a wrong wh-word, such
as “where”, to complete the question. The misused of interrogative words as seen in the example shows that the samples of research had lack understanding of
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target language in which they could not understand the purpose or the meaning containing in the questions and also the use of each interrogative word properly.
Moreover, the samples also made errors by omitting andor misforming the auxiliary as a result of lack understanding of the target language. The example
is “Where they come from?” That interrogative word question showed that the
error makers did not notice about the existence of tense-carrying element “do”
which is required when there is no auxiliary available in the statement in present tense containing plural subject Dulay, Burt, Krashen, 1982. It refers to the
condition in which the samples did not understand how English interrogative word questions need auxiliary placed after the wh-word except in the question
asking about subject. The correct interrogative word question should be “Where do they come from?”
Another example of errors because of lack understanding of the target language is “What were Budi carrying when you met him in the airport this
morning?” From that example, it can be seen that the error makers did not have sufficient knowledge about how to use the auxiliary properly. The grammatical
rule shows that a singular subject must be followed by certain auxiliary, such as “is, was, has, and does”. In that example of interrogative word question, the
correct auxiliary used must be “was” not “were”. Thus, the correct interrogative
word question must be “What was Budi carrying when you met him in the airport this morning?”
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3. Communication Strategy
