Syntactic and morphological errors analysis in spoken English of micro teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011 - USD Repository
SYNTACTIC AND MORPHOLOGICAL ERRORS ANALYSIS
IN SPOKEN ENGLISH OF MICRO TEACHING STUDENTS
OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2010/2011
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fufillment of the Requirementsto Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By Fransiska Novi Kartikasari
Student Number : 071214035
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION
FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATIONSANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2012
ABSTRACT
Kartikasari, Fransiska Novi (2012). Syntactic and Morphological Errors Analysis in Spoken English of Micro Teaching Students of the Academic Year 2010/2011. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.
One aspect to show quality in the mastery of English is grammar accuracy. As mentioned in Write Well, Improving Writing Skills, Bram (1995) mentions that English Department students must follow the rules of English standard and avoid making any grammatical errors whenever they speak or write (p. 54). However, in the learning development itself, ELESP students as members of English department often produce ungrammatical utterances. Contrastively, as English teachers, they are supposed to grasp the knowledge of English grammar and to be models of responsible English users; that is to use it accurately, appropriately, and meaningfully. Therefore, it is essential to find out some types of errors they produce as well as the possible sources of errors.
There were two research questions presented in this research, namely (1) what are the types of syntactic and morphological errors produced by Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011? and (2) what are the possible causes of errors made by Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011?
In order to answer those two questions, the researcher conducted document analysis to find out the errors made by the respondents. The documents were the 19 respondents’ teaching transcripts. The errors found were then classified into several categories based on the linguistic category taxonomy, where the errors were classified according to the language components, and then check-listed into the four classifications of sources of errors proposed by Richards (1977),which are overgeneralization, incomplete application or rules, ignorance of rules restriction, and false hypothesized concept.
From the data gathered the biggest share went for word formation and consecutively followed by the auxiliary system, English sentence structure, prepositions, transformations, conjunctions, passive sentences, dan gerund and infinitive. The checklist revealed that a major cause of errors belonged to incomplete application of rules, where most of the errors were due to the missing of language elements belonging to both lexical categories and functional categories. This fact showed that the syntactic and morphological errors which the respondents produced were in a positive learning; according to Richards (1974), errors belonging to this category represent the degree of their learning to produce grammatical constructions. After finding out the errors and the possible sources of errors, the researcher proposed some recommendations to lecturers, students, and further researchers who are interested in this topic.
Keywords: errors, spoken English, Micro Teaching
ABSTRAK
Kartikasari, Fransiska Novi (2012). Syntactic and Morphological Errors Analysis in Spoken English of Micro Teaching Students of the Academic Year 2010/2011. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.
Kualitas penguasaan Bahasa Inggris salah satunya ditentukan oleh ketepatan
pengunaan grammar. Seperti yang tertulis dalam buku Write Well, Improving
Writing Skills, Bram (1995) menyatakan bahwa siswa jurusan Bahasa Inggris
harus menggunakan Bahasa Inggris sesuai aturan standar serta menghindari
membuat kesalahan gramatikal ketika berbicara maupun menulis. Seiring dengan
perkembangan pembelajarannya, mahasiswa Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris (PBI)
sebagai anggota dari jurusan bahasa sering memproduksi pola ucapan yang tidak
gramatikal. Padahal, sebagai guru Bahasa Inggris, mereka diharapkan mampu
untuk menjadi model pengguna Bahasa Inggris yang bertanggung jawab, yakni
dengan menggunakan Bahasa Inggris secara tepat, akurat, dan bermakna. Oleh
karena itu, beberapa tipe kesalahan yang muncul berikut penyebabnya menjadi
penting untuk dipelajari.Ada dua pertanyaan dalam penelitian ini, yakni (1) Tipe-tipe kesalahan
dalam sintak dan morfologi apa saja yang muncul saat siswa melakukan praktek
mengajar mikro? dan (2) Apa penyebab terbesar kesalahan grammatical yang
muncul saat siswa melakukan praktek mengajar mikro?Untuk menjawab kedua pertanyaan tersebut, peneliti melakukan analisa
dokumen. Hal ini bertujuan untuk mencari tahu kesalahan yang dibuat oleh
responden. Dokumen tersebut berupa transkrip rekaman praktek mengajar dari
19 mahasiswa. Kesalahan yang ditemukan kemudian dikategorikan berdasarkan
linguistic category taxonomy, dimana peneliti dapat mengklasifikasikan
kesalahan berdasarkan komponen-komponen bahasa, dan jga dikategorikan
kemudian berdasarkan keempat klasifikasi penyebab kesalahan oleh Richards
(1977).Berdasarkan data yang diperoleh, kesalahan terbesar masuk dalam kategori
word formation, dan secara berurutan diikuti oleh auxiliary system, English
sentence structure, prepositions, transformations, conjunctions, passive sentences, dan gerund and infinitive. Hasil dari checklist menunjukkan bahwa penyebab
kesalahan terbesar adalah incomplete application of rules, yakni hilangnya salah
satu elemen bahasa yang masuk dalam kategori leksikal and fungsional.
Kenyataan ini menunjukkan bahwa kesalahan responden merupakan suatu wujud
pembelajaran positif. Menurut Richards (1974), keberadaan ini mengindikasikan
suatu peningkatan pembelajaran untuk dapat menghasilkan pola ucapan yang
gramatikal. Setelah mengetahui kesalahan yang muncul berikut penyebabnya,
peneliti mengajukan beberapa rekomendasi bagi pengajar, mahasiswa, serta
peneliti lain yang tertarik pada bidang ini.Kata kunci: errors, spoken English, Micro Teaching
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My endless gratefulness and never-ending gratitude goes to Jesus Christ and Mother Mary for endowing me with splendid blessings and love. Their blessings were never apart from me in my thesis accomplishment.
I would like to express my deepest and sincere appreciation to my sponsor,
Christina Kristiyani, S.Pd, M.Pd. Her guidance, suggestions, feedback,
attention, and motivation have given influential contributions for the accomplishment of this thesis. I also thank Drs. Barli Bram, M.Ed., Ph.D.,
Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd., and Sr. Margareth, FCJ for the valuable
guidance.I am greatly thankful to all PBI lecturers who have guided me during my studying in Sanata Dharma University. I will never forget their contribution in guiding me to be a mature person. I send my thankfulness to all of the Micro Teaching class students for the valuable research samples for my thesis and not to forget Mbak Dani, Mbak Tari, and all library staff for the assistance during my study.
My greatest gratitude is directed to my parents: Ignatius Sumarno and
Pariyah Florentina, my sisters Crissensia Hartanti and Maria Septi
Nugraheni, and my just born little nephew Nicolas Naraharyya Putra Kusuma
for their support and motivation, unconditional love, encouragement, and prayers for my study accomplishment. I would never have finished my study without all of their care and attention. I also thank my extended families for giving me still spirit during my difficulties.
I express my sincere attitude to all of my friends of PBI’ 07 particularly
Merici, Shanti, Calvin, Rudi, Peni, Deny and Hedwig and for the togetherness
we have gone through during my study; to my friends in my former boarding house, Kos Idjoe: Ita, Dwi, Hita, Ussi, Mitha, Ria, Dio, Mbak Meta, Mbak
Tutik for the nights and days; and to my all friends in OMK St. Petrus Tegalsari
particulary to Aji, Nico, Mas Toto, Mas Endro, Mas Hery, Gandi, Udhew and
The Tomcats who often reminded me to finish my thesis and awaken my spirit
when I got bored; to my KKN friends, Khenil, Andrea, Lita, Wene, Danang, and to Nathan for the golden advice for me to fight for life.
Finally, I would like to thank all people who have given me support, love, guidance, and prayers whose names cannot be mentioned one by one.
Fransiska Novi Kartikasari
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page TITLE PAGE ........................................................................................................... i APPROVAL PAGES .............................................................................................. ii DEDICATION PAGE ............................................................................................ iv STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ........................................................ v
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ....................................................... vi
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... vii
ABSTRAK ............................................................................................................ viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................... xiv LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................... xv LIST OF APPENDICES ...................................................................................... xvi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background .............................................................................. 1
1.2 Research Problems .................................................................................. 4
1.3 Problem Limitation .................................................................................. 4
1.4 Research Objectives ................................................................................ 5
1.5 Research Benefits .................................................................................... 5
1.6 Definition of Terms ................................................................................. 6
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Theoretical Description ........................................................................... 9
2.1.1 Theory of Error ............................................................................. 9
2.1.1.1 Different Types of Error ................................................... 9
2.1.1.2 Linguistic Category Taxonomy ...................................... 10
2.1.1.3 Sources of Errors ............................................................. 11
2.1.2 Dimensions of Grammar ............................................................. 12
2.1.4 Syntactic Theories ....................................................................... 16
2.1.4.1 Word-level Categories ................................................. 16
2.1.4.2 Phrase Structure ........................................................... 22
2.1.4.3 Sentence Structures...................................................... 22
2.1.4.4 Complement Options ................................................... 23
2.1.4.5 Transformations ........................................................... 24
2.1.4.6 Coordination Structures ............................................... 26
2.1.4.7 Relative Clauses .......................................................... 27
2.1.4.8 Passive Structures ........................................................ 27
2.1.4.9 Tag Questions .............................................................. 28
2.1.4.10 Prepositions ................................................................. 29
2.1.4.11 Expletive There ........................................................... 29
2.2 Theoretical Framework.......................................................................... 29
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Methodology .......................................................................... 32
3.2 Research Setting .................................................................................... 33
3.3 Research Participants ............................................................................. 33
3.4 Instruments and Data Gathering technique ........................................... 34
3.5 Data Analysis Technique ....................................................................... 35
3.6 Research Procedure ............................................................................... 41
CHAPTER IV RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Types of Errors ...................................................................................... 43
4.1.1 Data Presentation ....................................................................... 43
4.1.2 Discussion ......................................................................................... 49
4.1.2.1 Word Formation ............................................................... 49
4.1.2.2 The Auxiliary System ...................................................... 56
4.1.2.3 Preposition ........................................................................ 59
4.1.2.4 English Sentence Structure ............................................. 61
4.1.2.5 Transformations ............................................................... 62
4.1.2.6 Conjunctions ..................................................................... 66
4.1.2.7 Passive Sentences ............................................................. 67
5.1 Conclusions ............................................................................................... 79
5.2.3 For Future Researchers ........................................................................
81
5.2.2 For Lecturers .........................................................................................
80
5.2.1 For Students ...........................................................................................
5.2 Recommendations ..................................................................................... 80
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
4.1.2.8 Gerund and Infinitives ..................................................... 69
4.2.1.3 False Hypothesized Concept ...................................... 75
4.2.1.2 Overgeneralization ...................................................... 73
4.2.1.1 Incomplete Application of Rules ................................. 71
4.2.1 Data Presentation and Discussion .............................................. 71
4.2. Possible Sources of Errors ........................................................................ 71
4.1.2.9 Multiple Errors ................................................................ 69
81 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 83
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
2.1 A Sample Linguistic Category Taxonomy from Dulay et al. (1982) ........... 11
3.1 The Classification of Errors and the Examples ............................................ 36
3.2 Sources of Errors Checklist .......................................................................... 37
3.3 The Frequency Distribution of the Sources of Errors .................................. 39
3.4 The Percentage Rank from High to Low ...................................................... 40
4.1 The Classification of Errors and Their Examples ........................................ 44
4.2 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Structure of Plural Noun .............................. 50
4.3 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Structure of Past Participle ........................... 51
4.4 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Verb after Third Person Singular ................. 52
4.5 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Use of Indefinite Article ............................... 53
4.6 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Use of Definite Article ................................. 54
4.7 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Structure of Simple Past ............................... 54
4.8 Other Errors within Word Formation ........................................................... 55
4.9 Errors on Auxiliary System .......................................................................... 56
4.10 Errors on the Use of Be and Have ................................................................ 57
4.11 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Use of Preposition ........................................ 59
4.12 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Structures of English Sentence ..................... 61
4.13 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Transformation ............................................. 62
4.14 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Use of Conjunctions ..................................... 66
4.15 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Construction of Passives .............................. 67
4.16 Errors Belonging to Incorrect Selection of Gerund and/or Infinitive ........... 69
4.17 Multiple errors ............................................................................................... 70
4.18 Errors Belonging to Incomplete Application of Rules .................................. 71
4.19 Errors Belonging to Overgeneralization ....................................................... 73
4.20 Errors Belonging to False Hypothesized Concept ........................................ 75
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
2.1 The Three Dimensions of Grammar ................................................................ 13
2.2 The Surface Structure for Which car should the man repair? ....................... 25
2.3 The Surface Structure for Do those birds sing? .............................................. 26
4.1 The Transformation of When will the party be held? .................................... 63
4.2 The Transformation of What have we learnt? ................................................ 63
4.3 The Transformation of the Embedded Clause of What appointment is .......... 65
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page
A The Classification of Errors and Their Examples ............................................. 85 B Sources of Errors .............................................................................................. 104 C The Respondents’ Teaching Transcripts .......................................................... 119
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter consists of research background, research problems, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and definition of terms.
1.1 Research Background
English Language Education Study Program, further being referred to as ELESP, is a study program under the faculty of teachers training and education.
As written in Panduan Akademik (2007), one of the goals to achieve is to generate scholars with the competences of being professional, which is having a wide and deep mastery on English subject (p. 2). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1983) put her insights on the skills or competencies that professional English teachers are ideally expected to have as follows.
The first competence is to have a good grasp of English subject matter, including grammar (p. 1). Basically, grammar becomes the basis for each language. A responsible English learner, either speaker or writer, must be aware of the grammatical knowledge and follow the Standard English grammar. As what was stated by Leech and Svartvik, grammatical knowledge helps English learners to have proper use of language, which is the criterion of being a responsible English learner. “Learners have to know the grammatical structures and their meaning in order to use a language properly” (Leech & Svartvik, 1979, p. 21). For ELESP students, grammar functions not only as an aid to help communicate, yet it
becomes a subject to teach to the next youth. Therefore, a great comprehension of grammar is highly required to have by ELESP students.
The second competence is to give a good linguistic model. She/he should seemingly be a native or near-native speaker of English. Expectedly, she/he is able to be an excellent model for the students by demonstrating good and fluent control of English (p. 1). This is expected to occur both in written English and Spoken English. As written in the book of Write Well, Improving Writing Skills (1995) written by Bram, English Department obliges its students to also follow the rules of standard English grammar and/or avoid making any of the grammar errors whenever they speak or write English (p. 54). In this book, there are points of grammar to be fulfilled during speaking which are referred to as minimum requirements; they include concord, finite verb, tenses, verb group, and articles (pp. 55-56). As stated in this book, these minimum requirements are minimum criteria to qualify themselves to be members of English department.
Principally, grammatical errors in spoken English are more permissible than in written English. In spoken English, the speakers have less time to think to organize the structure. Instead, they have no time to revise the errors they produce while speaking compared to in written English. For those reasons, errors in spoken English are common to occur often. However, Micro Teaching students as professional trained teachers are expected not to make errors repeatedly. In the educational area, they should perform good English by the use of correct grammar in speaking or writing. The main reasons are that they must be good models for their students later on and that making repeated errors is not highly tolerated
primarily for teacher candidates. The errors in spoken English vary; they can be errors in the area of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantic. This research is going to focus on morphology and syntax.
As a matter of fact, EFL learners whose mother tongue is Indonesian often find it difficult to learn English. English provides language systems which are obviously more complex by the use of tenses, singular and plural form, masculine and feminism use of pronoun, dissimilar to Indonesian. The considerable distinction on its system brings grammatical system to be problematic to EFL learners. This was proven by the observable finding of frequent basic grammatical errors produced by Micro Teaching students when conducting micro teaching in lower semester classes in ELESP. The examples of the errors found are *Are you
feel okay? and *Do you know what is the meaning of plaid? Half of the errors in
fact deviate from the obligation of English Department mentioned previously by Bram in his book Write Well, Improving Writing Skills (1995). From the errors observed, the researcher found it worthwhile to conduct a research on grammar.
In addition, one research which analyzed problematic grammar features is a research conducted by Rusi Yanny (2007) entitled An Analysis on Grammatical
Errors in the Spoken Language Made by Students of Business
Communication Class at Wisma Bahasa Yogyakarta. This research reported
that students of Business Communication Class had difficulty with tenses. Besides, almost all of the errors made by the learners happened because they paid less attention to the rule restriction. Any other researches on grammar similar to a research conducted by Rusi Yanny are still crucial. Unlike the research conducted
by a senior whose research subjects are students of Business Communication at
Wisma Bahasa , this research is intended to figure out the types of morphological
and syntactic errors in spoken English by Micro Teaching students of English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.
1.2 Research Problems
There are problems stated in this research that are formulated in two questions.
1. What are the types of syntactic and morphological errors produced by Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011?
2. What are the possible sources of errors made by Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011?
1.3 Problem Limitation
This research focuses on two points: (1) the types of syntactic and morphological errors which are produced by Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011; and (2) the possible sources of errors which are produced by Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011. Due to the extent of grammar, the researcher limits the analysis only in the field of both word formation and the construction of utterances. It excludes words selection and some other types of grammar, such as how constructions derive meaning and how to pronounce words.
1.4 Research Objectives
Since this research has two research problems, this research has two research objectives as well. The first is to figure out the types of syntactic and morphological errors produced by the Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011. The second objective is to figure out the possible sources or errors produced by the Micro Teaching students of the academic year 2010/2011.
1.5 Research Benefits
This research brings benefits for both the respondents and the English lecturers. For the respondents, this research helps the respondents to become aware of the errors so that they make greater effort to have self error correction of their errors for the betterment. It is expected that they regard grammar as one important element in speaking as well as in writing. Since ELESP students are candidates of English teachers, they must be able to speak fluently by using correct grammar in order to be good models for the students. Through analyzing the errors, they are expected not to make the same errors again.
Apart from that, this study is beneficial for the English lecturers related to speaking classes whether it is Interactional Speech I-II, Transactional Speech, or Public Speaking I-II and of grammar which are Structure I-IV. From the result of the research, it is expected that the lecturers of Structure subject are aware of the ELESP students’ difficulties on the particular types of grammatical errors and so the lecturers will put some strategies in place to overcome the problems. By their
awareness, it is expected that the lecturers will give possible recommendation or create a strategy to overcome the problems.
1.6 Definition of Terms Some terms below need to be defined in order to avoid misunderstanding.
The terms are as follows.
1. Morphology Morphology is defined by O’Grady (1997) as “the system of categories and rules involved in word formation and interpretation” (p. 132). Morphology is the area of study which guides the language learners to produce standardized English words. There are many morphological phenomena; however, the researcher defines the area of morphological phenomena in the field of affixation English inflectional affixation and English derivational affixation, internal change, and compounding. In this research, the utterances produced by Micro Teaching students which deviate from the rule of morphological formation are regarded as morphological errors, while the other errors related with phrasal, clausal and sentential construction, belong to syntactic errors.
2. Syntax Miller (2002) mentions that syntax has to do with “how words are put together to build phrases, with how phrases are put together to build clauses or bigger phrases, and with how clauses are put together to build sentences” (p. xii). He adds that studying syntax enables language learners to compose complex sentences (p. xii). In this research, utterances produced by Micro Teaching
students which do not follow the rules of syntax of Standard English are regarded as syntactic errors. Syntactic errors include incorrect use of preposition, incorrectness on auxiliary systems, incorrect transformation, incorrect structure of English sentence, incorrect passive sentences, incorrect construction of English, incorrect application of gerund and infinitives, and incorrect use of conjunctions.
3. Error An error as stated by Norrish (1983) is “a ‘consistent deviation’ because the learner has not learnt something so that he consistently ‘gets it wrong’” (p. 7). An error is different from a mistake. It can be called an error if learners make deviancy because they have not learnt the correct form, while it is a mistake if learners are actually conscious that ‘it is wrong’ because they have acquired the information. In this research, all utterances which deviate from the rules of morphology and syntax are regarded as errors. This judgment is without any efforts from the researcher to investigate whether or not they have acknowledged the information. The errors analyzed are the nonstandard English morphological formations and nonstandard English syntactic constructions. The errors, indeed, include the ungrammatical utterances because of the incorrectly pronounced words. Nonetheless, this research does not analyze the errors from the phonological aspect.
4. Micro Teaching Micro Teaching is a compulsory course (KPE 361) in English Language
Education Study Program (ELESP) which aimed at helping the students “to understand the concepts and procedure of English language teaching and are able
to apply them in a real classroom teaching situation and to evaluate their teaching performance” (Panduan Akademik, 2007, p. 90). This is a course to prepare students before carrying out a real teaching practice in Senior High School or Junior High School through Program Pengalaman Lapangan (PPL). It is the first formal teaching practices in ELESP that its students must confront. In this research, Micro Teaching students are ELESP students who are conducting teaching practices in Micro Teaching class.
5. Spoken English The term spoken English should be taken to mean “the variety of English which is generally used by educated people in the course of ordinary conversation or when writing letters to intimate friends” (Palmer & Blandford, 1955, p. xxxiii). In this research, spoken English is the use of English in speaking when the respondents were conducting Micro Teaching. The utterances analyzed are those produced by the respondents only when becoming the simulated teacher. The researcher ignored those utterances which are produced by the respondents when acting as the simulated teacher’s students.
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE This chapter discusses the related literature which serves as the basis to
answer the research questions. There are two major parts in this chapter, namely theoretical description and theoretical framework.
2.1 Theoretical Description
This part provides four major underlying theories for the research, namely theory of errors, dimensions of grammar, morphological phenomena, and syntactic theories.
2.1.1 Theory of Error
As this research deals with errors analysis, it is significant to provide some theories regarding errors. They are different types of error, linguistic category taxonomy, and sources of errors.
2.1.1.1 Different Types of Error
Norrish (1983) has distinguished different types of anomalous language behavior: the error, the mistake, and the lapse (p.7-9). Norrish (1983) defines
error as a consistent deviation because the learner of English as a second or
foreign language has not learnt the correct form (p. 7).Norrish (1983) defines the second type of anomalous language behavior,
mistake as an inconsistent deviation because the learner of English as a second or
foreign language has noticed or been taught and sometimes uses the wrong form, for example the English verb ’must’ does not follow the same pattern as some of the other modal verbs (p. 8). There is time when he uses he must go and *he must
to go. He calls a mistake if sometimes the learner makes a mistake and uses the
wrong form, yet sometimes he uses the correct form (p. 8).The last type is lapse. It is “due to lack of concentration, shortness of memory, fatigue, etc” (Norrish, 1983, p. 9). He further states that “a lapse bears a little relation to whether or not a given form in the language has been learnt, has not been learnt or in the process of being learnt” (p. 9).
2.1.1.2 Linguistic Category Taxonomy
Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982) state that “linguistic category taxonomies classify errors according to either or both the language component or the particular linguistic constituent the error effect” (p. 146). Language components include phonology (pronunciation), syntax and morphology (grammar), semantics and lexicon meaning and vocabulary, and discourse (style). Constituents include the elements that comprise each language components (Dulay et al., 1982, p. 147).
Dulay et al. (1982) mention an example of errors classification based on linguistic category taxonomy; within syntax, there is an error in the main subordinate clause and within the subordinate clause, there is an errors on the constituent that is effected, such as the noun phrase, the auxiliary, the verb phrase, the preposition, the adverb, the adjective, and so forth (p. 147).
The example of this type of error classification and the examples of English learners’ errors are seen in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 A Sample Linguistic Category Taxonomy from Dulay et al. (1982)Linguistic Category Error Example of Learner Error Type
1. Morphology
A. Indefinite article incorrect *A ant
B. Past participle incorrect
- *He was call
2. Syntax
A. Word order (i) Repetition of the object *The bird (object) he was gonna shoot it
B. Transformation
a. There transformation
(i) Omission of there *Is one bird
b. Question transformation
(i) Omission of auxiliary *How the story helps?
2.1.1.3 Sources of Errors
Richards (1977b) distinguishes sources of errors into three different categories (as cited in Ellis, 1994, p. 58). They are as follows.
2.1.1.3.1. Interference errors
They occur because of “the use of elements from one language while speaking another” (p. 58). One example is *I go not.
2.1.1.3.2. Intralingual errors
They “reflect the general characteristics of rule learning such as faulty generalization, incomplete application of rules and failure to learn conditions under which rules may apply” (Richards, 1974, pp. 174-177). They are as follows.
2.1.1.3.2.1.
Overgeneralization
It includes “where the learner creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in the target language” (p. 174). One example is
- *He can sings instead of He can sing.
2.1.1.3.2.2.
Ignorance of rule restriction
It is a “failure to observe the restriction of existing structures” (p. 175). An example is *He made me to rest.
2.1.1.3.2.3.
Incomplete application of rules
It is “the occurrence of structures whose deviancy represents the degree of development of the rules required to produce acceptable utterances” (p. 177). One example is *You like to sing? 2.1.1.3.3.
Developmental errors
They “illustrate the learners attempting to build up hypotheses about the English language from his limited experience of it in the classroom or textbook” (p.174). Next it was called as false hypothesized concepts. It is a “faulty comprehension of distinctions in the target language” (p. 178). An example is the use of ‘was’ as a marker of past tense in *One day it was happened.
2.1.2 Dimensions of Grammar
Radford (1997a) mentions grammar as “the study of the principle which govern the formation and interpretation of words, phrases and sentence” (p.
Related with its function, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) add that “the recognition of grammar is not merely a collection of forms but rather involves the
three dimen t nsion of wh hat linguists refer to as s (morpho)s syntax, sema antics, and pragmatics” p (p. 4). The e three dime ensions are as form, m meaning, and d use. The t three dimens sions are see en in Figure 2.1.
Mea aning What doe es it mea an? ulness) (Meaningfu Use When/Why it
is used? (App popriateness) Form m med? How is it form (Acc curacy)
Figur re 2.1 The th hree dimensio ons of gramm mar
One e of three di imensions is s morpholog gy and synta ax, which be ecomes the underlying t u theory of the e research. W Warriner (19 982) mentio ns that bein ng aware of the basic pa t atterns of En nglish senten nces will hel lp learners to o develop a varied and interesting s i tyle (p. 3).
2.1.3 2 hological Ph henomena Morph
O’Gra ady (1997) mentions d ifferent typ es of morp phological p phenomena, n namely affi fixation, inte ernal chang ge, suppleti ion, stress and tone placement, r reduplication n, and comp pounding (pp p. 29-143).
2 2.1.3.1. ffixation A
There are two type es of affixati ion, which a are English d derivational affixes and E English in nflectional affixes. A According t to Radford d (1997b), , relevant
morphological evidence comes from the inflectional and derivational properties of words. Inflectional deals with different forms of the same (e.g. the plural form of a noun like cat is formed by adding the plural inflection -s to give the form cats), while derivational deals with the processes where a word can be used to form a different kind of word by adding another morpheme ((e.g. by adding the suffix – ness to the adjective sad we can form the noun sadness) (p. 29).
Aronoff (1985) mentions “Inflectional is generally viewed as encompassing the ‘purely grammatical’ markers, those for tense, aspect, person, number, gender, case, etc” (p. 2). The few inflections are signaled by a comparatively small number of regular morphemes:
Verb inflections (i). Past tense: ed (attack + ed) (ii). Past participle: ed (attack + ed) (iii). Present participle: ing (attack + ing) (iv). 3 rd person singular present tense: s (attack + s)
Noun infections (v). Plural: s (dog + s) (vi). Possessive: ‘s, s’ (dog + ‘s, dog + s’) Adjective/adverb inflections (vii). Comparative: er (large + er) (viii). Superlative: est (large + est)
According to Radford (1997b), there are three complications which should be pointed out:
1. The existence of irregular nouns like sheep, which are invariable and hence have a common singular/plural form (cf. one sheep, two sheep) (p. 30)
2. Some nouns have no plural by virtue of their meaning: only those nouns (generally called count noun) which denote entities which can be counted have plural form (e.g. chair – cf. one chair, two chairs); some nouns denote
an uncountable mass and for this reason are called mass noun or noncount noun, and so cannot be pluralized, *two furnitures) (p. 30).
3. Noun expression which contain more than one noun; only the head noun in such expressions can be pluralized, not any preceding noun used as a dependent or modifier of the head noun: thus, in expressions such as car
doors, policy decisions, skate boards,… the second noun is the head noun and
can be pluralized, whereas the first noun is a nonhead … and cannot be pluralized (p. 30).
O’Grady (1997) mentions that derivation is “an affixational process that forms a word with a meaning and/or category distinct from that of its base (p.
122). He further states “derivational affixes characteristically change the category and/or the type of meaning of the form to which they apply” (p. 132). The examples of English derivational affixation is modern (Adj) + -ize (affix) becomes modernize (V).
2.1.3.2. Internal change
It is “a process that substitutes one non-morphemic segment for another” (O’Grady, 1997, p. 141). For example drive to be drove.
2.1.3.3. Suppletion
It is “a morphological process whereby a root morpheme is replaced by a phonological unrelated form in order to indicate a grammatical contrast” (O’Grady, 1997, p. 142). For example to have becomes had.