Error Analysis in Language

Error Analysis in Language

Written by Ari Julianto





Making errors is the most natural thing in the world and it is evidently attached to the human being. children leaming their first language, adult native speakers, second language leamers; they all make errors which have a different ñame according to the group committing the error.

Error analysis enables teachers to find out the sources of errors and take pedagogical precautions towards them. Thus, the analysis of learner language has become an essential need to overcome some questions and propose solutions regarding different aspects.

I. Definitions
According to Lennon (1991) an error is "a linguistic form or combination of forms which in the same context and under similar conditions of production would, in all likelihood, not be produced by the speakers' native speakers counterparts". Meanwhile Crystal, D. (1999) defines error analysis in language teaching and learning is the study of the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a language, especially a foreign language.

II. Error Vs Mistake
Mistakes can be self-corrected when attention is called. Whereas, an error is the use of linguistic item in a way that a fluent or native speaker of the language regards it as showing faulty or incomplete learning. In other words, it occurs because the learner does not know what is correct,and thus it cannot be self-corrected.

To distinguish between an error and mistake, Ellis (1997) suggests two ways.
1. to check the consistency of learner’s performance. If he sometimes uses the correct form and sometimes the wrong one, it is a mistake. However, if he always uses it incorrectly, it is then an error.
2. to ask learner to try to correct his own deviant utterance. Where he is unable to, the deviations are errors; where he is successful, they are mistakes.

There are those so-called “errors” or “mistakes” that are more correctly described as lapses. A mistake refers to a performance error, it is a failure to make use of a known system. Everybody makes mistakes in both native and second language situations. Brown (1987) describes that normally native speakers are able to recognise and correct such “lapses” or “mistakes” which are not the result of a deficiency in competence, but the result of imperfection in the process of producing speech.

Errors are deviances that are due to deficient competence(i-e “knowledge” of the language, which may or may not be conscious). As they are due to deficient competence they tend to be systematic and not self correctable.

Whereas “mistakes” or “lapses” that are due to performance deficiencies  and arise from lack of attention, slips of memory, anxiety possibly caused by  pressure of time etc.They are not systematic and readily identifiable and self correctable as Corder (1987) states.

III. The Purposes
Sercombe (2000) explains that error analysis serves 3 purposes,
1.to find out the level of language proficiency the learner has reached.
2.to obtain information about common difficulties in language learning.
3.to find out how people learn a language.

IV. Error Categories
Brown (1987) mentions a major distinction between “overt” and “covert” errors.
- Overtly erroneous utterances are completely ungrammatical at the sentence level.
- Covertly erroneous utterances are grammatically well-formed at the sentence level, but are not interpretable within the context.

Meanwhile, Corder (1973) classifies the errors in terms of the difference between the learners utterance and the reconstructed version. He describes that there are four categories:
1. omission of some required element;
Morphological omission *A strange thing happen to me yesterday.
Syntactical omission * Must say also the names?

2. addition of some unnecessary or incorrect element;
In morphology * The books is here.
In syntax * The London
In lexicon * I stayed there during five years ago.

3. selection of an incorrect element; and
In morphology * My friend is oldest than me.
In syntax * I want that he comes here

4 misordering of the elements
In pronunciation * fignisicant for ‘significant’; *prulal for ‘plural’
In morphology * get upping for ‘getting up’
In syntax * He is a dear to me friend.
In lexicon * key car for ‘car key’

Richards (1974) identifies the causes of competence errors he came up with three types of errors:
1. Interference errors, which reflect the use of elements from one language to the other,
2. Intralingual errors, subdivided into
    - errors due to overgeneralization, or to ignorance of rules restriction, which is incomplete application of
       the rules,    
    - errors due to the false concept hypothesis, which demónstrate the general characteristics of rule leaming
3. Developmental errors when the leamer builds hypothesis about the target language based on limited experience.

According to Corder (1987), the system used for the description of learner’s errors must be one having two essential characteristics:
1) the system must be well-developed and highly elaborated, since many errors made by even beginners are remarkably complex.
2) The system should be as simple, self-explanatory and easily learnable as possible.


Reference

Brown. 1987. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Prentice Hall Regents.
Corder, S.P. .1973. Introducing Applied Linguistics. Middlesex, Penguin.
Corder, S.P. 1987. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Cristal, D. 1999. The Penguin Dictionary of Language (2nd ed.). Penguin.

Ellis, R. 1997. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Lennon, P.. 1991. Error: Some Problems of Definition and Identification, in Applied
Linguistic, vol. 12, num. 2, Oxford, pp. 180-195.
Richards, J.C. 1974. Error Analysis. Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. London: Longman.
 Secrombe, P.G. 2000. Learner Language and Consideration of idiosyncrasies by students of English as a second or foreign  language in the context of Brunei Darulsalam. In: Strategies teaching and learning in the 21st century. In A.M. Nooret (Eds.), Proceedings of European Journal of Social Sciences. Vol. 8, November 03 .

Hopefully today's posting will eb useful for all of us. Amien.