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3. The Sources of Error
In analyzing students’ speech of writing, it is important to know the sources of error. Why are certain errors made? What cognitive strategies and
styles or even personality variables underlie certain error? By trying to identify the sources, it can begin to arrive at an understanding of how the
learners’ cognitive and affective relate to the linguistic system and to formulate an integrated understanding of the process of second language
acquisition. Brown claims that there are four major sources of error. He labels
Interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, context of learning and Communication strategies.
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a. Interlingual Transfer
Interlingual transfer happened because the native language or mother language interference. In these early stages, 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
Intralingual transfer the transfer within the target language itself. Researcher have found that the early stages of language learning are
characterized by a predominance of interference interlingual transfer, but once learner have begun to acquire parts of the new system, more and
more intralingual transfer-generalization within the target language-is manifested. Negative intralingual transfer, or overgeneralization, has
already been. Illustrated in such utterances as “Does john can sing?” other example like “He goed.” And “I don’t know what time is it?
c. Context of Learning
“Context” refers, for example, to the classroom with its teacher and its materials in the case of the school learning or the social situation in case
of untutored second language learning. In a classroom context the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner can make faulty hypotheses about the
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H. Douglas Brown, Principle of Language Learning and Teaching …, p. 213-217
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language. Students often make errors because of a misleading explanation from the 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 properly contextualized.
d. Communication Strategies
Communication strategies were defined and related to learning styles. Learners obviously use production strategies in order to enhance their
message across, but at times these techniques can themselves become a source of error.
Hubbard also says that there are three major causes of error. Those are mother tongue interference, overgeneralizations and errors encouraged by
teaching material or method.
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a. Mother tongue interference
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