PREPOSITIONAL VERB ERRORS IN ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING ASSIGNMENTS A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
PREPOSITIONAL VERB ERRORS
IN ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING ASSIGNMENTS A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
By Kanina Pramesi
Student Number: 051214043
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today….
Where there is a will, there is a way….
Not all that glitters is gold….
This thesis is dedicated to my beloved father, Mr. Adi Nugroho
in heaven, for his love and encouragement that keep me
struggling and being tough….
ABSTRACT
Pramesi, Kanina. (2010). Prepositional Verb Errors in Academic Essay Writing Assignments . Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.
Prepositional verbs are parts of English grammatical elements which could reflect the accuracy of English learners’ productions, especially in writing. These would contribute to the quality of the writing itself. Besides, writing is also a part of communication in which misunderstanding is avoided. Since prepositional verb errors often occur in English learners’ writing, they might create misunderstanding. It is because when the preposition in a prepositional verb is omitted or replaced by another preposition, the meaning would change or it would be meaningless. Consequently, prepositional verb errors are problematic for English learners, particularly for ELESP students, who are prepared to be English teachers. As English teachers, they would be role models for their students. This means that their prepositional verb errors could be imitated by the students. As a result, the problems would be wider if they were not well handled. For that reason, it would be beneficial to find out the prepositional verb errors produced by English learners and the suggested solutions to minimize the learners’ prepositional verbs errors.
This research aimed at answering two research questions: (1) What prepositional verb errors are found in students’ Academic Essay Writing course assignments? and (2) what efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verb errors in their writing? The participants of this research were divided into two groups. The first group consisted of ELESP students who were taking Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010. They were the participants of the first research question. The writer chose them as the participants of this research because they were assumed to have acquired advanced writing skill and English grammar. The second group consisted of ELESP lecturers who were teaching Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010. They were the participants of the second research question. The writer chose them to be interviewed because they had experienced in teaching fifth semester students taking Academic Essay Writing class. Therefore, the lecturers knew the characteristics of the students, the students’ problems, and the proper solutions to minimize the problems.
To answer the first research question, the writer conducted document analysis. The data taken to be analyzed were writing assignments composed by Academic Essay Writing students of 2007/2008 academic year. Then, the errors found in the assignments were classified into several categories based on surface structure taxonomy. To answer the second research question, the writer carried out an interview. The respondents of the interview were ELESP lecturers who taught Academic Essay Writing course in the academic year 2009/2010.
Based on the gathered data, the writer found that the errors were classified into: Omission (68%), Addition (30%), and Misinformation (2%). Then, based on the verb errors were addressed to English teachers and learners. For English teachers, they should not be ignorant about the students’ errors, be careful about using prepositional verbs in teaching, practice and re-memorize prepositional verbs, and read a lot of texts to find the examples of prepositional verbs. In addition, in facing their students’ errors, they needed to give spoken and written feedback, keep reminding the students about their errors, assemble group discussions, provide prepositional verb practices for students, and provide authentic reading texts for students. For English learners, they should consult dictionaries and grammar books, memorize the prepositional verbs, and practice the prepositional verbs. Especially for ELESP students, prepositional verbs should be introduced in early semesters and taught integratedly in other classes.
As the final remark, the writer hoped that this thesis would be useful for English teachers, students, and the readers of this thesis in general. Besides, the writer also proposed suggestions for other researchers who want to follow up this thesis.
Keywords: errors, prepositional verbs, Academic Essay Writing
ABSTRAK
Pramesi, Kanina. (2010). Prepositional Verb Errors in Academic Essay Writing Assignments . Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma. Kata kerja berpreposisi adalah bagian elemen gramatikal Bahasa Inggris yang dapat merefleksikan keakuratan siswa Bahasa Inggris dalam memproduksi bahasa tersebut, khususnya dalam bentuk karya tulis. Hal ini juga menentukan kualitas karya tulis tersebut. Di samping itu, karya tulis merupakan bagian dari komunikasi, di mana kesalahpahaman dalam mengartikan ide dalam karya tulis tersebut sebisa mungkin dihindari. Karena kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi sering muncul dalam karya tulis siswa, kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi menimbulkan masalah. Hal ini dikarenakan ketika preposisi pada sebuah kata kerja berpreposisi dihilangkan atau diganti dengan preposisi lain, arti dari kata kerja berpreposisi tersebut akan berubah atau akan kehilangan artinya. Maka dari itu, kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi menjadi masalah khususnya bagi mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris (PBI), yang disiapkan menjadi calon guru Bahasa Inggris. Sebagai guru Bahasa Inggris, mereka akan menjadi teladan bagi murid-murid mereka. Hal ini berarti kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi yang mereka buat dapat ditiru oleh murid-murid mereka. Akibatnya, masalah ini akan menjadi meluas bila tak ditangani dengan baik. Untuk itu, sangatlah penting mengetahui kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi apa saja yang dibuat oleh para siswa and solusi-solusi yang disarankan untuk mengurangi kesalahan-kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi tersebut.
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjawab dua pertanyaan penelitian: (1) Apa saja kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi yang ditemukan dalam tugas karya tulis para siswa mata kuliah Academic Essay Writing? Dan (2) solusi-solusi apa saja yang disarankan untuk mengurangi kesalahan-kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi dalam karya tulis para siswa tersebut? Partisipan penelitian ini dibagi menjadi dua kelompok. Kelompok pertama terdiri dari mahasiswa PBI yang mengambil mata kuliah Academic Essay Writing di tahun akademik 2009/2010. mereka merupakan partisipan dari pertanyaan penelitian yang pertama. Penulis memilih mahasiswa mata kuliah Academic Esaay Writing sebagai partisipan penelitian ini karena mereka adalah mahasiswa semester lima. Dengan demikian, mereka diasumsikan telah memperoleh kemampuan menulis dan tata bahasa Bahasa Inggris tingkat tinggi. Kelompok kedua terdiri dari dosen-dosen yang PBI yang mengajar mata kuliah
Academic Essay Writing di tahun akademik 2009/2010. Mereka merupakan partisipan
dari pertanyaan penelitian yang kedua. Penulis memilih mereka untuk diwawancara karena mereka telah berpengalaman dalam mengajar mahasiswa semester lima yang mengambil mata kuliah Academic Essay Writing. Karena itu, dosen-dosen tersebut mengetahui karakteristik para mahasiswa tersebut, masalah-masalah yang dihadapi para mahasiswa tersebut, dan solusi yang paling tepat untuk mengatasi masalah- masalah tersebut.
Untuk menjawab kedua pertanyaan penelitian tersebut, penulis menjalankan analisa dokumen dan wawancara. Untuk menjawab pertanyaan pertama, penulis mejalankan analisa dokumen. Data yang diambil untuk dianalisa berupa tugas karya tulis mahasiswa Academic Essay Writing angkatan 2007/2008. Kemudian, kesalahan- kesalahan yang ditemukan dalam tugas tersebut diklasifikasikan ke dalam kategori- kategori berdasarkan surface structure taxonomy. Untuk menjawab pertanyaan kedua, penulis menjalankan wawancara. Responden wawancara tersebut adalah para dosen PBI yang mengajar mata kuliah Academic Essay Writing di tahun akademik 2009/2010.
Berdasarkan data yang diperoleh, penulis menemukan bahwa kesalahan- kesalahan yang ditemukan diklasifikasikan ke dalam: Penghilangan (68%),
Penambahan (30%), dan Salah Informasi (2%). Kemudian, berdasarkan wawancara,
penulis menemukan bahwa solusi-solusi yang disarankan untuk mengurangi kesalahan-kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi ditujukan kepada para guru dan siswa Bahasa Inggris. Para guru Bahasa Inggris disarankan untuk tidak mengabaikan kesalahan-kesalahan yang dibuat para siswa, berhati-hati dalam menggunakan kata kerja berpreposisi dalam mengajar, berlatih dan mengingat kembali kata kerja berpreposisi, dan membanca banyak teks Bahasa Inggris untuk menemukan contoh- contoh kata kerja berpreposisi. Di sisi lain, dalam menghadapi kesalahan-kesalahan yang dibuat siswa, para guru perlu untuk memberikan umpan balik secara lisan maupun tulisan, terus mengingatkan para siswa akan kesalahan mereka, membentuk kelompok diskusi, menyediakan latihan kata kerja berpreposisi secara sistematis untuk siswa, dan menyediakam bacaan berbahasa Inggris asli untuk siswa. Para siswa Bahasa Inggris disarankan untuk mengecek kamus dan buku tata bahasa, menghafalkan kata kerja berpreposisi, dan berlatih kata kerja berpreposisi. Khusus untuk mahasiswa PBI, kata kerja berpreposisi sebaiknya diperkenalkan di awal semester dan diajarkan secara integral dalam mata kuliah lainnya.
Sebagai ucapan penutup, penulis berharap skripsis ini dapat bermanfaan bagi para guru Bahasa Inggris, para siswa Bahasa Inggris, dan para pembaca skripsi ini secara umum. Di samping itu, penulis juga mengajukan saran-saran bagi peneliti lain yang ingin melanjutkan skripsi ini.
Kata kunci: kesalahan, kata kerja berpreposisi, Academic Essay Writing
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Initially, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my Lord Jesus Christ for His timeless blessing, guidance, and love so that I could finish this thesis.
I also would like to express my sincere appreciation to Ms. Made Frida
Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd., my sponsor, for her precious time, patience, meticulous
guidance, advice, and encouragement during the research process until the final form of this thesis.
I am also greatly indebted to the lecturers of Academic Essay Writing class,
Ms. Yuseva Iswandari, S.Pd., M.Ed., who has allowed her class’ assignments as
data of the research for this thesis. Also, I am greatly indebted to other lecturers of Academic Essay Writing class, Mr. Nugraha Krisdiyanta, S.Pd., M.Hum. and Mr.
Hanandyo Dardjito, S.Pd., M.Hum., who were willing to be interviewed as the
respondents of this thesis. My gratitude is also addressed to Mr. Fx. Ouda Teda
Ena, S.Pd., M.Pd. and Dr. Retno Muljani, M.Pd., my academic counselors who
guided me during my study in ELESP until I finished this thesis.My sincere thankfulness is also addressed to Academic Essay Writing students of 2007/2008 academic year who have contributed their priceless writing assignments as data of this research.
I present this thesis with my greatest gratitude to my beloved parents: my late father, Bapak Adi Nugroho and my mother, Ibu Sri Murni Mustika Djati for all of for her support and care. I would also like to thank Mrs. Rio Rini Diah Moehkardi, M.A., my aunt, for the sharing and books used as references of this thesis.
My special thanks also go to all my fellows: Mega Wulandari, Monica Ella
Harendita, Ignasius Indra Kristanto, Fransisca Ninditya Kusumaningrum, Ayoe
Risna Hanna Kusuma, Laurensius Verdika, Audhifax Aditya Sulistyanto,
Priyatno Ardhi, and also my friends in PROCESS, PPL 2, KKN, SPD, my
classmates, my seniors, my colleagues, my relatives, and my students who I could not mention one by one.
Finally, my deepest thanks go to everybody who has directly or indirectly supported me in writing this thesis.
Kanina Pramesi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page TITLE PAGE .......................................................................................... i APPROVAL PAGES .............................................................................. ii DEDICATION PAGE............................................................................. iv STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ....................................... v ABSTRACT............................................................................................ vi
ABSTRAK ................................................................................................ viii
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH................................................... x
UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................... xi TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................ xiii LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................. xiv LIST OF APPENDICES ......................................................................... xvii CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION A.
1 Research Background.............................................
B.
6 Problem Formulation .............................................
C.
6 Problem Limitation ................................................
D.
7 Research Objectives...............................................
E.
7 Research Benefits...................................................
F.
8 Definition of Terms................................................
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. Theoretical Description.......................................... 12 1. Error ................................................................. 12 a. The Source of Error.......................................... 13 b. Category of Error ............................................. 15
a.
Category of Error Analysis .............................. 18 b. The Significance of Errors ............................... 19 c. Steps of Error Analysis .................................... 19 3. Collocation ....................................................... 20 a. Category of Collocation ................................... 21 4. Prepositions...................................................... 24 a. Simple Prepositions.......................................... 25 b. Complex Prepositions ...................................... 26 5. Prepositional Verbs ..........................................
27 a. Types of Prepositional Verbs ...........................
28 b. Exceptional Types of Prepositional Verbs.......
30 6. Academic Essay Writing..................................
31 a. The Nature of Writing......................................
31 b. The Significance of Writing.............................
32 c. Academic Writing ............................................
32 d. Essay ................................................................
33 e. Academic Essay Writing..................................
34 B. Theoretical Framework .......................................... 34
CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY A. Research Methods .................................................. 37 B. Research Participants ............................................. 40 C. Research Instruments ............................................. 41 1. Documents ....................................................... 42 2. Interview Guide................................................ 43 3. Human Instrument............................................ 44 D. Data Gathering Technique ..................................... 44 E. Data Analysis Technique ....................................... 45
CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION A. The Prepositional Verb Errors ............................... 48 1. Data Presentation ............................................. 48 2. Discussion ........................................................ 49 B. The Efforts Should be Done to Minimize the Students’ Prepositional Verb Errors.......................................
55 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A.
Conclusions............................................................ 70 B. Suggestions ............................................................ 72 1.
For English Teachers ....................................... 73 2. For Students ..................................................... 74 3. For Other Researchers...................................... 74
REFERENCES ................................................................................... 76
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page 1.1. The Types of Prepositional Verb Errors ..........................................
49
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page A Samples of Students’ Assignments ................................................
79 B Data of Prepositional Verb Errors..................................................
92 C The Interview Blueprint .................................................................
95 D The Interview Guide ......................................................................
97 E The Interview Results ....................................................................
99 F Interview Transcripts ..................................................................... 101
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter consists of research background, problem formulation, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and definition of terms. A. Research Background English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students, as learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), are expected to have good proficiency of English. They need it because they would be English users in professional fields they
enter after graduating from ELESP. As ELESP graduates, their English is expected to be more accurate compared to that of other graduates from other study programs.
They are not only expected to be able to recognize English language, including the patterns, but also to be able to produce the language (Heaton 1979: 6).
Producing language includes speaking and writing skills. Accuracy is needed in both of them. Thornbury (2006: 92) mentioned that in order to acquire English accuracy, learners have to focus on form. In speaking skills, learners have limited attention to focus on form and meaning at the same time. In fact, they are more accurate if they have more time to plan, monitor, and modify their output (Thornbury, 2006: 92). On the other hand, writing provides learners enough time to think how to create accurate language in their writing compositions so that it enables them to
2 initiate their language development (Harmer, 2005: 31). Therefore, accuracy could be evidently detected in written form because writing is considered to be the final product of planning and modifying process, consisting of a lot of drafting.
Besides, language problems could be visibly detected in written form because it is transcendent or permanent. Unlike spoken language which is transient or temporary, written language could be more noticed and read for many times. On the contrary, spoken language tends to be ignored and forgotten (Harmer, 2005: 7). As Harmer (2005: 9) mentioned, two of the most noticeable dissimilarities between speaking and writing are the level of correctness and the issue of well-formedness. Speakers can and do mispronounce and use deviant grammar without anyone objecting or judging the speakers’ level of intelligence and education, but spelling mistakes and grammar ‘awkwardness’, for example, are far more harshly judged. In acquiring the writing skill, ELESP students are given several writing classes, in which they have to complete writing assignments. Through writing, they apply their English mastery that they acquire. The higher semester they belong to, the higher level of accuracy of English mastery they are expected to prove. However, in the process of completing the writing assignments, the students often make grammatical errors which indirectly show their problems in English mastery. Recent study tends to consider that the learners’ habit of making errors could influence their linguistic development (Thornbury, 2006: 113).
One of the errors that are commonly made is related to preposition combinations, the combinations of prepositions with verbs and adjectives in which
3 the prepositions follow the verbs or adjectives (Azar, 1985: 335). In addition, according to Benson (1986) as said by Moehkardi (2002: 54), the prepositions could also follow nouns, except preposition of and by. Actually, preposition combination is a part of collocation. As Baker (1992: 47) said, collocation is defined as a tendency of certain words to co-occur regularly in a given language. Specifically, preposition combination is under grammatical category of collocation, which is drawn from a closed set of obligatory options.
Collocations themselves, according to Prodromou (2004) as stated by Al-
,
Sibai (2007 http:// faculty. ksu. edu. sa/ dinaalsibai/ Research % 20 Papers / 04. % 20 Collocation% 20Review.pdf), “either fixed or more flexible, are the result of many years of habitual use by fluent speakers of the English language.” They have been recognized as one of the ways that differentiate native speakers and foreign language learners. This fact creates a problem for the learners. This problem occurs because the students of EFL realize that learning English prepositions is something difficult since every language has a different way of using prepositions.
The transfer of the L1 prepositions may cause mistakes because of the different concept between the L1 prepositions to the English. For example, the Indonesian expression ‘tertarik dengan’ is literally transferred to English ‘interested with’, whereas ‘interested in’ will be difficult to remember because preposition ‘in’ is equivalent to Indonesian ‘di’. (Moehkardi, 2002: 58)
In addition, the fact that the kinds and functions of English prepositions are more various than those of prepositions in Indonesian language makes prepositions emerge as a serious problem. In fact, English also has preposition combinations which are
4 combinations is not taught in certain classes, ELESP students could gain the knowledge by reading a lot of English texts, in which they could find various preposition combinations. Furthermore, they need to apply the knowledge to their own writing. This learning process would encourage them to use the correct preposition combinations. As a matter of fact, most of EFL students, especially the ELESP students, often produce incorrect preposition combinations. This would become a crucial problem because as ELESP students, their accuracy of English is demanded for their proficiency as English teacher candidates.
As teacher candidates, ELESP students are expected to recognize quality writings as well as to produce English texts. Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 64) mentioned that English teachers are expected to have the same degree of accuracy as native speakers have, both in recognizing and in writing English texts. The preposition combination errors would become a problem for the students, both during their study in ELESP and after they graduate. First, it becomes one obstacle in writing their undergraduate thesis. Mastering preposition combinations would help them produce a quality undergraduate thesis. Besides, it would also help them in writing quality English reports, either during their study in ELESP or in their working world. However, if they are used to the errors, it would be difficult for them to replace the incorrect preposition combinations with the correct ones because the incorrect ones have been fossilized. As Brown (1991: 116) said, this fossilization occurs when an incorrect form of language is embedded in learners’ mind and as a result, it becomes
5 Furthermore, when the ELESP students become English teachers, they would become role models for their students. In this case, they are considered as the masters of English, whose accuracy is highly demanded. They are no longer learners whose errors are tolerable. If they could not write good writings with correct preposition combinations, they would not be able to guide their students to use the correct ones. The students would have the same problem as their teachers have and eventually, this problem would be a vicious circle.
This problem encourages the writer to describe errors in preposition combinations which ELESP students often produce. However, in this research, she focuses on prepositional verbs. They are preposition combinations of verbs and preposition. The reason why this research chooses prepositional verbs is because verbs are obligatory in producing sentences. Nevertheless, in some cases, knowing the verbs must be followed by knowing the prepositions which follow them. Then, she wants to propose the possible solutions.
The writer is interested in selecting ELESP students who are taking Academic Essay Writing class as the participants of this research. Academic Essay Writing class is one of writing classes in ELESP which is taught to ELESP students in the fifth semester. The writer chooses this class with consideration that the fifth semester students have acquired adequate competence in writing since they have taken several writing classes in the previous semesters, but they still have chances to improve their competence to write their undergraduate thesis. In addition, they also have chance to
6 complex English structure, including prepositional verbs, which they could apply in their writings.
B. Problem Formulation Based on the background, there are two problems addressed in this research.
They are:
1. What are prepositional verb errors in students’ Academic Essay Writing class assignments?
2. What efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verb errors in their writing?
C. Problem Limitation
This research is concerned with preposition combination errors made by ELESP students. The types of preposition combinations involve verbs, adjectives, and nouns plus prepositions. Although there are many possibilities of the preposition combination errors, this research would only describe the students’ errors in the combination of verbs and prepositions or prepositional verbs in Academic Essay Writing class assignments. Prepositional verb errors are chosen because verbs are regarded as the mostly used part of speech since every sentence needs a verb.
Therefore, the number of the errors is larger than that of other kinds of preposition combinations, either adjectives plus prepositions or nouns plus prepositions.
7 The Academic Essay Writing class is chosen in this research because it is taught in the fifth semester of ELESP, where the students are assumed to have acquired adequate competence in writing. Knowing their prepositional verb errors would give insight into their English accuracy and help them to produce more accurate writings, especially for their undergraduate thesis later. Then, this research would find the recommended solutions to minimize this problem.
D. Research Objectives
This research is conducted in order to answer the questions stated in the problem formulation. Thus, the objectives of this research are to find out:
1. The prepositional verb errors in the students’ Academic Essay Writing class assignments.
2. The efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verbs errors.
E. Research Benefits
The result of this research is expected to be beneficial for advanced English learners, especially the ELESP students as English teacher candidates, and the readers of this thesis in general. First, the learners would recognize and be careful about prepositional verb errors. Furthermore, they would be aware of the accuracy in writing, especially in applying prepositional verbs. This would help them produce quality writings. Besides, this research is significant for ELESP students, especially
8 readers. As the ELESP graduates, they are assumed to have good proficiency of English. It means that they are considered to be good role models for the readers of their writings. Therefore, if the readers are lower level English users, they might imitate the same errors as what the writer does in producing their own writings. Nevertheless, for the advanced English readers, the errors would disturb and confuse them. As a result, they would doubt the proficiency of the writers. Second, for English teacher candidates, the result of this research would bring awareness of prepositional verb errors in teaching their students so that they could guide their students to produce accurate language. In addition, they could apply recommended solutions presented in this research to the problem of prepositional verb errors that they find in their teaching. Third, the readers of this thesis in general are expected to be more aware of the significance of prepositional verbs in English language.
F. Definition of Terms
There are some terms in this research that need to be defined. The terms which are frequently used in this research are as follows.
1. Errors Based on Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (Quirk, 2001: 462), errors mean “mistakes that cause serious problems.” According to Ellis and
Barkhuizen (2001: 17), “errors are deviations in usage which results from gaps in learners’ knowledge of the target language.” Then, Gass and Selinker (2001: 453)
9 stated that error is the incorrect form of target language produced by learners. Harmer (2007: 96) added that errors are mistakes which students could not correct themselves because they have not mastered the new information that they need deeper explanation. Errors in this research mean the incorrect usage of English prepositional verbs produced by the fifth semester students of ELESP taking Academic Essay class in their writing assignments. The errors appear because of lack of knowledge of prepositional verbs.
2. Prepositional Verbs According to Swan (1982: 492), a prepositional verb is a verb that has two parts: a ‘base’ verb and a preposition. According to Downing and Locke (2002: 334),
“prepositional verbs are combinations of a lexical verb and a preposition which is semantically associated.” It is usually a monotransitive complement verb, in which the component which follows it has a function as a direct object (Aarts and Aarts, 1982: 42). Thus, the noun phrase which follows the preposition is called prepositional object (Oprep).
There are two types of prepositional verbs. They are type I and type II prepositional verbs. Type I includes V + prep + Oprep. Examples of type I prepositional verbs are: insist on, care for, agree with, arrive at, ask for, believe in,
belong to, deal with, depend on, hope for, insist on, laugh at, listen to, look after, look
for, pay for, send for, talk about . Type II includes V + N/NP + prep + Oprep.
10
(something) with, thank (someone) for, protect (someone/something) from, confine
(something) under, ply (someone) with, deprive (someone) of .Therefore, it is obvious that a prepositional verb is a transitive verb plus a preposition which are semantically associated. This research is intended to find out the prepositional verb errors in Academic Essay students’ assignments.
3. Academic Essay Writing According to Oshima and Hogue (1991: 2), academic writing is a type of writing which college or university students are required to compose. Then, an essay, according to Muhyidin (1988: 153-154), is a formal composition which consists of introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs which develop one central idea.
Additionally, Heaton (1979: 127) stated that an essay includes not only the production of grammatically correct sentences within paragraphs, but also originality and creativity of the writer to inform and entertain the readers.
In this research, based on Academic Essay Writing Syllabus (Aji, 2009), Academic Essay Writing is one of the writing classes of ELESP Sanata Dharma University which aims at introducing the students the underlying principles of academic writing. Then, through this class, the students are expected to be able to analyze the characteristics of academic essays and to write good academic essays.
The students’ academic essays in Academic Essay Writing class are implemented in the form of writing assignments. Based on Longman Dictionary of
11 work that is given to someone as part of their job, or that a student is asked to do.” In this research, writing assignments are the writing compositions written by students taking the Academic Essay Writing class, the topic of which are comparison and contrast, cause and effect, argumentation, and book or article review, which are conducted during the semester in order to fulfill the requirements of the Academic Essay Writing class. In this research, the students’ writing assignments are used as data, in which prepositional verb errors are found.
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE This chapter discusses theories which are related to this research. The
discussion is divided into two parts: theoretical description and theoretical framework. The theoretical description explains relevant theories that support this research, consisting of theory of error, error analysis, collocation, preposition, prepositional verb, and academic essay writing. Meanwhile, the theoretical framework elaborates the framework synthesized from the discussed theories in theoretical description.
A. Theoretical Description
This part deals with error, error analysis, collocation, preposition, prepositional verb, and writing and academic essay.
1. Error
According to Gass and Selinker (2001: 453), an error is the incorrect form of a target language produced by learners. However, it is different from mistake. Corder (1974), as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 62), said that errors arise because of gaps in the learners’ knowledge when they make the incorrect forms because they do not know the correct ones. In other words, errors are the results of their ignorance. Mistakes arise because of incomplete knowledge mastery processed by the learners. When the learners recognize them, they could correct them. On the other hand, errors are more systematic. When making errors, learners could repeat the same incorrect forms of language without recognizing the errors.
Nevertheless, Brown (1991: 109) proposed a distinct definition of errors. He classified errors into two types: goofs and mistakes. Goofs are errors made not only by the language learners, but also by the native language users. They are caused by slips of the tongue and are correctable. Meanwhile, mistakes are errors occurring when the learners attempt to produce the language correctly, as a result of the process of second language rules system which is incompletely formed. Hence, Brown’s definition of mistakes is similar to the definition of errors defined by Corder.
a. The Sources of Error
Basically, errors are divided into two types. They are interlingual and intralingual errors.
1) Interlingual Errors or Transfer Errors
They are errors which are connected to the first language. In fact, the influence of the first language to the language being learned could be positive or negative. If the influence does not produce errors, it is called positive transfer. Nevertheless, if it produces errors, it becomes negative transfer or L1 interference (Thornbury, 2006: 114).
Interlingual errors involve cross-linguistic comparisons. For instance, sociolinguistic source could influence the errors because “the learners may sometimes impression they wish to have on their interlocutor” (Rampton (1987) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 62)). Learners do this to show their reluctance to use the L2 because they do not master it.
2) Intralingual Errors or Developmental Errors
They are errors which are because of the language being learned. Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 62) mentioned that psycholinguistic source is a part of this error. It is related to the processing mechanism involved in the use of the language being learned and to the nature of the language knowledge system . This type of error is common to all language learners. Therefore, they become a part of language development (Gass and Selinker, 2001: 80). In this case, the learners experience developmental stages to be nearly the same as the target language. In the developmental stages, learners’ development follows a route, of which the rate is different for every learner. This development process, then, creates a systematicity. In this stage, learner’s first language and target language are parallel (Mitchell and Myles, 2004: 15-16). Therefore, errors are viewed as “indications of a learner’s attempt to figure out some system; that is, to impose regularity on the language learner is exposed to do. As such, they are evidence of an underlying rule-governed system” (Gass and Selinker, 2001: 78).
Furthermore, as Brown (1991: 111-114) stated, there are four main sources of errors: learners’ native language, the second language itself, the context of the learning situation, and the strategies employed by the learners.
1) Learners’ Native Language Learners use their first language as the pattern in learning the new language.
The pattern could be in the form of the first language’s sound system, grammatical system, or vocabulary.
2) The Second Language Itself
Errors are seen as the result of the complexity of the second language. The fact that the second language rule is different from learners’ first language rule makes the learners confused to produce the second language.
3) The Context of the Learning Situation
Learning situation could become the source of errors. The context of learning language in a classroom which becomes the source of errors are: the teacher’s limitation in the language mastery, the confusing method in presenting the knowledge, confusing or misleading textbooks, or influence from other students.
4) The Strategies Employed by the Learners
The learners’ strategy in the process of attempting to make the language their own could cause errors. For instance, learners memorize English expressions to apply them in communication. In fact, those expressions might be inappropriate with the situation of communication.
b. Category of Errors
According to James (1998) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 60), There are two kinds of taxonomy to be used in describing errors. They are linguistic taxonomy and surface structure taxonomy.
1) Linguistic Taxonomy
It is based on categories described from descriptive grammar of the target language. Here, a researcher identifies the errors found in the sample using the category based on the descriptive grammar.
2) Surface Structure Taxonomy
It is based on the ways surface structures are changed in erroneous utterances/sentences. According to Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982:150) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 61), the errors are divided into five types, as follows.
a. omission, the absence of an item which must exist in a correct utterance. For example: omission of to be in the sentence My sisters very pretty.
b. addition, the presence of a form which does not appear in a regular sentence. It is sub-categorized into: i. regularization, for example: eated for ate. ii. double-marking, for example: He didn’t came. iii. simple additions, they involve other cases of addition, excluding regulation and double-marking.
c. misinformation, the use of the incorrect form of the morpheme or structure. It is sub-categorized into: i. regularization, for example: Do they be happy? ii. archi-forms, for example, the learners uses me as both subject and object pronoun. iii. alternating forms, for example: Don’t + V and No + V.
d. misordering, the errors are categorized as the incorrect placement of a morpheme or groups of morpheme in a sentence, as in She fights all the time her brother.
e. blends, the errors which reflect the learners’ uncertainty as to which of two forms is required. For example: The only one thing I want which is a combination of The
only thing I want and The one thing I want.
Thornbury (2006: 114) added that there are three categories of errors based on their occurrence in levels of language: lexical errors, grammar errors, and discourse errors.
1) Lexical Errors
Learners make the errors in choosing the wrong form of words or the meaning of words they want to express. They occur at the word level.
2) Grammar Errors
Learners make the errors related to verb form and tense. They occur at sentence structure level.
3) Discourse Errors
Learners make the errors related to the way sentences are organized and linked in order to make a whole text. They are errors at text level.
2. Error Analysis
Error Analysis is “a set of procedures for identifying, describing and explaining learner errors” (Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005: 51). It is a type of linguistics analysis that focuses on the errors made by learners. It is similar to contrastive analysis, in which the errors are compared to the native language. Conversely, in error analysis, the comparison is between learners’ production of target language and the target language form itself (Gass and Selinker, 2001: 79). Stern (1986: 354) mentioned that according to Selinker (late 1960’s), error analysis is also called interlanguage study because the developing learner language is assumed as a system in its own right. According to Selinker, Swain, and Dumas (1975) as said by Stern (1986: 354), second language speech rarely conforms to what one expects native speakers of the target language to produce, that is not an exact translation of the native language, that it differs from the target language in systematic ways, and that the forms of utterances produced in the second language by a learner are not random. This interlanguage-hypothesis proposes that the relevant data of a theory of second language learning must be the speech forms which result from the attempted expression of meaning in a second language.
a. Category of Error Analysis
According to Corder (1971), as mentioned by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 56), error analysis is categorized as grammaticality and acceptability.
1) Grammaticality Category
An error is defined as a breach of the rule of the code. The error is divided into overt and covert. An error is overt if it could be detected by confirming the sentence/utterance in which it occurs. On the other hand, an error is covert if it only becomes obvious when a larger stretch of the discourse is considered.
2) Acceptability Category
Errors are identified in a situational context in which the utterance might correspond in question.
b. The Significance of Errors
According to Corder (1967) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 51), learner errors are significant to be analyzed in three ways: 1) The errors provide a pedagogic purpose by showing teachers what learners have learned and what they have not mastered.
2) The errors provide a research purpose by presenting evidence about how language is learned.
3) The errors provide a learning purpose by playing a role as a device by which learners could find out the rules of the target language.
c. Steps of Error Analysis
Conducting error analysis, according to Corder (1974), as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 57), consists of several steps: collection of a sample of learner language, identification of errors, description of errors, explanation of errors, and error evaluation.
1) Collection of A Sample of Learner Language
It is the starting point in error analysis, in which the researcher decides the sample of the research and how to collect them.
2) Identification of Errors It is the step in which the definition of errors and the procedure to recognize them must be identified.
2) Description of Errors
In this step, learners’ productions are compared to the reconstruction of the productions in target language.
3) Explanation of Errors