A HANDOUT

ERROR ANALYSIS

BY
Drs. Purwo Haryono, M. Hum.

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
WIDYA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2007
 THE OUTLINE OF ERROR ANALYSIS ASSIGNMENT
Title Page
Approval Page
Acknowledgement
Table of Content
Abstract

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
B. The Reason for Choosing the Topic
C. The Statement of the Problem
D. The Limitation of the Study
E. The Aims of the Study
F. The Uses of the Study
G. The Clarification of the Key Terms
H. The Organization of the Study

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. A Brief Look at Contrastive Analysis
1. The Concept of Contrastive Analysis
2. The Hypothesis of Contrastive Analysis
B. A Brief Look at Error Analysis
1. The Concept of Error Analysis
2. The Sources of Error
3. The Practical Uses of Error Analysis
4. The Methodology of Error Analysis
C. A Brief Look at . (variable)

CHAPTER III THE METHOD OF THE STUDY

A. The Strategy of the Research
B. The Data and the Sources of Data
C. The Technique of Collecting the Data
D. The Technique of Analyzing the Data
E. The Procedures of Analyzing the Data

CHAPTER IV THE RESULT OF THE STUDY

A. The Data Analysis
B. The Discussion

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion
B. Suggestion

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Notes:
1. The report must be written using scientific writing technique.
2. The draft must be first consulted to the teacher of this lesson.
3. The report must be bound two pieces with blue cover.
4. The report + discette containing the report will be the prerequisite for joining the
Semester Exam of the lesson.
I. GENERAL VIEW OF ERROR ANALYSIS

Contrastive Analysis Teaching and Test

Learning Process

Error Analysis Remedial Teaching

II. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

1. Contrastive analysis is a procedure of comparing the structure of L1 and L2 to find
the similarities and the differences of the two languages for the shake of second or
foreign language learning.
2.
The structure of L1 The structure of L2

Differences Similarities

Learning Learning
Problem facilities

3. Fries (1974:9) in Lado (1967:1) states that the most efficient materials are those
that are based upon a scientific description of the language to be learned, carefully
compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learners.
4. Contrastive analysis hypothesis stressed the interfering effects of the first language
on second language learning, and claimed, in its strong form, that second
language is primarily, if not exclusively, a process of acquiring whatever items are
different from the first language. Such a narror view of interference ignored the
intralingual effects of learning, among other factors.
5. In recent years, researchers and teachers have come more and more to
understand that second language learning is a process of constructing a system in
which the learner is consciously testing hypotheses about the target language
from a number of possible sources of knowledge: limited knowledge of the target
language itself, knowledge about the native language, knowledge about the
communicative function of language, knowledge about language in general, and
knowledge about life, human beings and the universe.
6. The hypotheses of Contrastive Analysis
a. that the prime cause, or even the sole cause, of difficulty and error in foreign
language learning is interference coming from the learners native language;
b. that the difficulties are chiefly, or wholly, due to the differences between the two
languages;
c. that the greater these differences are, the more acute the learning difficulties will
be;
d. that the result of a comparison between the two languages are needed to predict
the difficulties and errors which will occur in learning the foreign language;
e. that what there is to teach can best be found by comparing the two languages
and then subtracting what is common to them, so that what the student has to
learn equals the sum of the differences established by the contrastive analysis.
II. ERROR ANALYSIS
A. The Goal of Error Analysis
1. Determining the sequence of teaching materials, difficult items following the
easier ones.
2. Deciding the relative degree of emphasis, explanation and practice in Target
Language.
3. Planning remedial lessons and exercises.
4. Selecting items for testing the learners proficiency.

B. Error and Mistake

1. A mistake refers to a performance error, that is either a random guess or a slip,
in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly.
 2. An error is a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker,
reflecting the interlanguage competence of the learner.
3. Tarigan differenciates between error and mistake on the following table.
No. Point of View Error Mistake
1. Source Competence Performance
2. Characteristics Systematic Unsystematic
3. Duration Long Short
4. Linguistic system Not mastered yet Mastered
5. Result Deviation Deviation
6. Correction Helped by authority: Students themselves can
through exercise and correct their mistakes
remedial teaching

C. Errors in Error Analysis

1. Error analysis pays too much attention to learners errors.
2. Error analysis overstresses production data.
3. Error analysis fails to account for the strategy of avoidance.

D. The Sources of Error

1. Interlingual Transfer.
The beginning stages of learning a second language are characterized by a good deal
of interlingual transfer (from the native language). 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.

2. Intralingual Transfer
It has been found that the early stages of language learning are characterized by a
predominance of interlingual transfer, but once the learner hac begun to acquire parts
of the new system, more and more intralingual transfer - overgeneralization within the
target language is manifested.
3. Context of Learning
a. A third major source of error, though it overlaps both types of transfer, is the context
of learning. Context refers, for example, to the classroom with its teacher and its
materials in the case of school learning, or the social situation in the case of
untutored second language learning.
b. In a classroom context the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make
faulty hypothesis about the language, what Richards called false concept and
what Stenson termed induced errors.
c. Students often make errors because of 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 not properly contextualized.

4. Communication Strategy
The fourth major source of learner error can be found in different communication
strategies employed by the learner to get a message across to a hearer. There are
some strategy of communication employed by the learner, they are avoidance,
prefabricated pattern, cognitive and personality style, appeal to authority, and
language switch.

a. Avoidance
There are three kinds of avoidance, namely syntactic or lexical avoidance,
phonological avoidance, and topic avoidance.

b. Prefabricated Pattern
Another common communication device is to memorize certain stock phrases or
sentences without internalized knowledge of the components of the phrase. Tourist
survival language is full of prefabricated patterns, most of which can be found in
pocket bilibgual phrase books which list hundreds of stock sentences for various
occasions.

c. Cognitive and Personality Style

Ones own personality style or style of thinking can be a source of error, highlighting
the idiosyncratic nature of many learner errors.
d. Appeal to Authority
A common strategy of communication is a direct appeal to authority. The learner may,
if stuck for a particular word or phrase, directly ask a native speaker (the authority) for
the form (How do you say . ?) or he might venture a possible guess and then ask for
verification from the native speaker of the correctness for the attempt. He might also
choose to look a word or structure up in a bilingual dictionary.

e. Language Switch
Finally, when all else fails or other strategies are all incapable of producing a
meaningful utterance a learner may resort to language switch. That is, he may simply
use his native language whether the hearer knows that native language or not.

E. The Practical Uses of Error Analysis

1. Errors provide feedback, they tell the teacher something about the effectiveness
of his teaching materials and his teaching techniques.
2. The show him what parts of the syllabus he has been following have been
inadequately learned or taught and need further attention.
3. They enable him to decide whether he must devote more time to the item he
has been working on.
4. They provide the information for designing a remedial syllabus or a program of
reteaching.

F. The Methodology of Error Analysis

S.N. Sridhar (1985: 222):
1. Coolection of data (either from a free composition by students on a given
theme or from examination answers).
2. Identification of errors (labelling with varying degrees of precision depending on
the linguistic sophistication brought to bear on the task, with respect to the
exact nature of the deviation; e.g. dangling preposition, anomalous sequence of
tense, etc.).
3. Classification into error types.
4. Statement of relative frequency of error types.
5. Identification of the areas of difficulty in the target language.
6. Therapy (remedial drill, lesson, etc.).
As the follow up and to make the investigation more sophisticated, Duskova suggests
to include one or both of the following:
 1. Analysis of the source of errors (e.g. mother tongue interference,
overgeneralization, inconsistency in the spelling system of the target
language).
2. Determination of the degree of disturbance caused by the error (or the
seriousness of the error in terms of communication, norm, etc.)

Ellis (1986: 296):

1. Collection of sample data.
2. Identification of errors.
3. Clarification of error types.
4. Classification into error types.
5. Evaluating the errors.

Tarigan (1988: 71):

1. Collecting the data (students errors taken from examination answers,
compositions, or conversations).
2. Identifying and classifying errors.
3. Stating the frequency of errors.
4. Clarifying errors.
5. Predicting the area of difficulties.
6. Correcting errors.

G. Types of Errors
According to Dullay (1982: 155), there are four types of errors based on the surface
strategy taxonomy, omission, addition, misformation and misordering.
1. Omission
Omission errors are characterized by the absence of items that must appear in well-
formed utterance.
Examples:
a. Susan is good student.
b. Jack is best student in his class.
In utterance a the student omits an indefinite article a for Susan is a good student,
while in utterance b a definite article the is omitted for Jack is the best student in his
class.
2. Addition
Addition errors are the opposite of omission errors. They are characterized by the
presence of an item which must not be present in a well-formed utterance. Dullay
(1982: 156) divides addition errors into three types, double marking, regularization,
and simple addition.
a. Double Marking
Many addition errors are more accurately described as the failure to delete certain
items which are required in some linguistic constructions but not in others.
Examples:
1) The girl does not dresses up appropriately.
2) The teacher did not arrived on time.
In utterance a the two items rather than one are marked for the same feature (tense in
these example).
b. Regularization
Regularization error refers to an error having exceptional items of the given class that
do not take a marker.
Examples:
1) mans
2) buyed
3) childs, etc.
c. Simple Addition
Errors of simple addition refer to the addition of one element to the correct utterance.
Examples:
1) I am is a student.
2) You can to swim in the swimming pool anytime.

3. Misformation
Misformation errors are characterized by the use of the unacceptable forms of the
morpheme or structure. There are three subtypes of misformation errors, regularization
error, archi-form, and alternating form.
a. Regularization Errors
Regularization errors are errors in which regular marker are used in place of irregular
ones.
Examples:
1) sheeps
2) runned
b. Archi-forms
The selection of marker of one member of a class of forms to represent other in the
class is a common characteristic of all stages of second language acquisition. The
forms selected by the learner is called archi-form.
The following examples are dealing with the use of demonstrative adjective this, that,
these, and those.
1) That tables.
2) This students.
3) These book.
4) Those table.
This type of misformation errors has been called archi-form. That should be followed
by singular form, while these should be followed by plural form.
c. Alternating Form
As learners vocabulary and grammar grow, the use of archi-form often gives away to
the apparently free alternation of various member of class with each other.
1) I seen her yesterday.
2) He would have saw them.
The utterances above have incorrect use of the verbs seen and saw instead of saw
and seen respectively.
4. Misordering
The incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance
characterizes misordering error. Misordering errors occur systematically for both L1
and L2 learners.
1) Do you know who is she?
2) What youe are thinking about?