What is error? What is error analysis? Describe the types of error, source/cause of error.

Write the description and identification and the fields of errors. Discuss the implication, significance and the limitations of error analysis.

Errors, committed by the second of foreign language learners, are an inevitable part of language learning. Through making errors, and hearing the correct forms from the teacher, learners can develop their skills. So errors and their analysis is advantageous for both learners and teachers. 

Definition of Error

The present researcher uses the term "error" to refer to a systematic deviation from a selected norm or a set of norms of a target language. In Bangladeshi education system, for instance, the selected norms “standard British English”.

However, the experts present various definitions of the single term “error”. Basically those definitions contain the same meaning while the difference lies only on the ways they formulate them.

Norrish(1987), to define the term, comments:

“…error is a systematic deviation, when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong”

Cunningworth(1987:87) remarks: 

“Errors are systematic deviations from the norms of the language being learned.”

Here the phrase ‘systematic deviation’ means “the deviation which happens repeatedly”.

Difference between Error and Mistake:

Like an error a mistake is also a deviation of the norms of the language but is not systematic. Norrish (1983:8) says that a mistake is an inconsistent deviation that is sometimes the learner ‘gets it right’ but sometimes wrong. Richards et.al (1985:95) state that mistake, made by a learner when writing or speaking,  is caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or other aspects of performance.

So we can say that a mistake is made by a learner because he does not apply the rule (s) that he actually knows.

Definition of Error Analysis:

Error analysis is an activity to reveal errors committed by students both in writing and speaking.

Richards et.al (1985:96) states:

“Error analysis is the study of errors made by the second and foreign language learners.”

Brown (1980:166) defines error analysis as:

“…the process to observe, analyze, and classify the deviations of the rules of the second language and then to reveal the systems operated by learner.”

Crystal (1987:112) comments :

 “…error analysis is a technique for identifying, classifying and systematically interpreting the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign language, using any of the principles and procedures provided by linguistics.”

Considering above definitions, we can say that- error analysis is an activity to identify, describe, interpret,evaluate and prevent the errors made by the learners.

Classification/types of Error:

Corder (1971) classifies “Errors” into two types such as:

1.  ‘Errors of Competence’are the result of the application of the rules which do not correspond to the target language norm. It occurs when SL/FL learners do not know the rules of target language adequately.

2. ‘Errors of performance’ are the outcome of the mistakes in language such as false starts or slips of the tongue. It happens when the learners suffer from stress, indecision, conflict, fatigue etc.

Again “Errors of Competence’” are divided into two kinds:

1. ‘Interlingual Error: It depends on linguistic differences between the first language and the target language, and is traditionally interpreted as interference problem.

2. IntralingualError: It relates to a specific interpretation of the target language and manifests itself as a universal phenomenon in any language learning process. It is mainly overgeneralization found in both the first language and the target language learning.

Burt and Kiparsky (1975) suggests fundamentally two types of error such as:

1. Local Error: It affects merely apart,clause or phrase, of a sentence.  

2.Global Error: It affects the interpretation of the whole sentence.  

Sources /Causes of Errors

In his “A Non-Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis”, Richards (1971:19-22) shows the four main causes of errors. 

1.     Overgeneralization: Richards says that "Overgeneralization covers instances where the learner creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in thetarget language." A learner may write “She walked fastly to catch the bus” because he already knows “He walked quickly to catch the train”

2. Incomplete application of rules: It involves a failure to fully develop a structure. Thus learners are observed to use declarative word order in questions such as “You like to play?” instead of “Do you like to play?”

3.  False concepts hypothesized:It arises when the learners do not fully comprehend a distinction in the target language, for example,the use of  ‘was’ as the marker of the past tense, as in the sentence “one day it was happened”.

4.  Ignorance of rule restriction:it involves the application of rules to contexts where they do not apply. An example is “He made me to laugh” through extinction of the pattern found with the majority of verbs that take infinitival complements, for example, he asked/wanted / invited me to go.

Brown (1980:173-181) shows us the four sources of error. They are as follow 

1.     interlingual transfer, that is the negative influence of the mother tongue of learner.

2.     intralingual transfer, that is the incorrect generalization of rules within the target language.

3.     Context of learning, which overlaps both types of transfer, for example, the classroom with its teacher and its materials. In a classroom context the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make wrong generalization about the language.

4.     Communication strategies.Sometimes the communication strategies can lead the student to make error. There are five main communication strategies, namely-Avoidance,Prefabricated patterns, Cognitive and personality style, Appeal to authority, and Language Switch.

Norrish (1983:21-26) classifies causes of error into three types which are:

1. Carelessness, the lack of motivation

2. First language interference with the habit formation of target language

3. Translation of idiomatic expression in to the target language word by word

Significance of Error Analysis (153)                                                             

Errors, both in first language and target language, are inevitable in the language learning process. Errors, handled in error analysis, are significant in three different ways.

Firstly, learners’ errors are significant to the teacher, as Corder (1987), the forerunner of EA, explains:

“…to the teacher in that they (error) tell him (the teacher), if heundertakes a systematic analysis, how far towards the goal the learner has progressed, and consequently what remains for him (learner) to learn.”

 Secondly, errors are important to the researcher as Corder(1987), remarks:

“…they provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in his discovery of the language.”

Thirdly, errors are the most momentous to the student as Corder (1987), comments:

“…they are indispensable to the learner himself, because we can regard the making oferrors as a device the learner uses in order to learn.”

Identification of errors 

To identify an error, we need to know what constitutes an “error” and to establish a procedure how to recognize it. For this purpose, we can follow four successive stages.

The first stage concerns what the “Error" is. It can be defined as a systematic deviation from a selected norm or a set of norms of a target language. In Bangladeshi education system, for instance, the selected norm is “standard British English”. For example the sentence “He coped up with his problems very well” is incorrect according to British norm but correct in Zambian English.

The second question concerns the distinction between “errors and mistakes”. An error takes place when the deviation arises as result of lack of knowledge. It,in fact, represents a lack of competence. A mistake usually occurs when learners fail to perform their competence.Corder argues that the Error Analysis should be restricted to only “Study of Errors” and mistakes should be eliminated from the analysis. 

The third question concerns, as Corder (1971) says, whether the error is ‘overt’ or ‘covert’. An overt error is easy to identify because there is a clear deviation in structure, as when a learner says:

 “I runned all the way”.

On the other hand a covert error occurs in utterances that superficially well-form but which do not mean what the learner intended them to mean. For example, the utterance (from Corder 1971):

“It was stopped.”

is apparently grammatical until it becomes clear that ‘it’ refers to the ‘wind’.

The fourthstage concerns weather the analysis should examine only deviations in ‘correctness’ or also deviations in ‘appropriateness’. The former involves rules of usage and later one involves rules of language use.   

Description of errors 

A number of different categories for describing errors have been identified. But Dulay, Burt and Krashen(1982) categorize and describe the idea most clearly. To them, errors fall into four categories:

1. Omission:  it is the absence of an item that must appear in a well formed utterance for example, to say “She * sleeping”.

2. Addition: it is the presence of an item that must not appear in a well formed utterance for example, to say “He retuned backthere”.

3. Misinformation: it is the use of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure for example, to say “the dog eatedthe chicken”. 

4.  Misordering: it is the incorrect placement of a morpheme or a group of morphemes in an utterance such as “What he is doing?” 

According toCordererrors fall into four categories:

1.omission of some required element;

2.addition of some unnecessary or incorrect element;

3. selection of an incorrect element; and

4.misordering of the elements.

Limitations/draw backs of Error Analysis:

Dr. M. Maniruzzaman points out four major limitations of Error analysis. They are given bellow

1.Cordr’s distinction between errors of competence and errors of performance is by no mean clear-cut as for example:

He induced me to John (intended:introduced)

In this case, the verb form used is found to be an error of performance because of syllabic deletion or an error of competence because of phonetic similarity. 

2. It is very difficult to make a distinction between interlingual and intralingual deviations from SL/FL norm, because it remains unclear which operating principle SL/FL learners in fact uses for instance:

There are many snakes in the garden (intended: snails)

In this case, the operating principle applied may be interlingual or intralingual or even both. 

3 Error analysis hardly goes by any insights into the course of the second language learning process. For example, error analysis is restricted by definition to what the learner cannot do. 

4. The first step in nearly all error analyses is compiling a corpus of SL/FL utterances. The second stage is isolating the error in such a corpus. After the second stage the attention is usually entirely focused on what the learner cannot do but no attention is paid to what the learner can do.  

Fields of Error:

The very common errors the SL/FL learners usually commit are given bellow:

1. Wrong choice of words, usually occurs as a result of learners poor range of vocabulary. For example, one can say “He performed a sin” instead of saying “He committed a sin”. 

2.  Incorrect use of Number, such as one may say “Brush your tooths” instead of “teeth”. 

3.  Error in Tense usually occurs as a result of the influence of mother tongue on the target language such as “He has gone yesterday”.

4. Error in Spelling, usually happen as a result of learners lack of attention as well as the inherent difficulties of the target language. For example, one may write the word ‘Embarrassment’ as “Embarassment”since he knows the spelling of the word “Harassment” 

5.  Error in Voice usually happens as a result of overgeneralization such as one can say “He was died in 1985”as he uses “He was born”. 

6.   Error in Article, a very common error found in SL/FL learners, includes error like “He is * richest person”, “He is a honest man” or “This is an unique idea”. 

7. Error in Preposition deals with misuse of preposition or using one in place 

of other such as: “He discussed about the matter” or “He is blind of his son”. 

8. Error in Auxiliary verb usually found such as to say “politics are playing a dominant role in our society.” Here the auxiliary verb should be is as ‘politics’ is singular. 

9. Wrong use of connectors is often seen in the SL/FL learners such as “He is a meritorious student and his handwriting is illegible”.Here the connector should be “but” instead of “and”. 

10.   Error in capitalization is a very significant as usually SL/ FL learners tend to neglect it such as “Keats’ ‘ode on a grecian urn’ is a famous poem”. Here “Ode, Grecian and Urn” must be capitalized. 

At the end of our discussion, we can say that committing error is a general tendency for the second or foreign language learners. The proper analysis of the error can be very much helpful for the students in reducing error in their writing or speaking. So, errors and their analysis demand a keen concentrationin the teaching of a second language.

Works Cited

Brown, H.D. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 4th. New York: Longman, 2000.

Corder, S.P. Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1987.

Dr. M Maniruzzaman. "The contribution of Error Analysis to Second/Foreign Language Learning and

Teaching ." Critique vol.1. Department of English, Islamic university, Kushtia(2003): 31-46.

Norrish, J. Language Learning and their Errors. London: Macmillan Publisher Ltd. 1987. 

This paper is prepared for you by Talim Enam, BA (Hons), MA in English.

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