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Summary Chapter 2 Learner Errors and Error Analysis

The document discusses learner errors and error analysis. It covers the following key points: 1) Error analysis examines both comprehension and production errors made by learners. Comprehension errors occur when learners misunderstand aspects of language. 2) Error analysis identifies, describes, explains, and evaluates errors made by learners. It aims to understand how language is learned and how learners discover rules. 3) There are various challenges to error analysis, such as distinguishing errors from mistakes, determining the source of errors, and whether it provides a complete picture of learner language ability.

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784 views3 pages

Summary Chapter 2 Learner Errors and Error Analysis

The document discusses learner errors and error analysis. It covers the following key points: 1) Error analysis examines both comprehension and production errors made by learners. Comprehension errors occur when learners misunderstand aspects of language. 2) Error analysis identifies, describes, explains, and evaluates errors made by learners. It aims to understand how language is learned and how learners discover rules. 3) There are various challenges to error analysis, such as distinguishing errors from mistakes, determining the source of errors, and whether it provides a complete picture of learner language ability.

Uploaded by

Rifky
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter 2 Learner errors and error analysis

Learners make error in both comprehension and production. An example of a


comprehension error is when a learner misunderstands the sentence Pass me the paper as
Pass me the pepper, because of an inability to discriminate the sounds /eI/ and /e/. The
study of errors is carried out by means of Error Analysis (EA). In the 1970s,EA supplanted
Contrastive Analysis (CA), which sought to predict the errors that learners make by
identifying the linguistic differences between their L1 and the target language. Based on
CA that errors occured primarily as a result of interference when the learner transferred
native language habits into the L2. It was believed to take the place whenever the habtis
of the native languages differed from those of the target language.

Corder (1967) noted that errors could be significant in three ways: 1) they provided
the teacher with information about how much the learner had learnt, 2) they provided the
researcher with evidence of how language was learnt, 3) they served as devices by which
the learner discovered the rules of the target language. He also suggets the following steps
in EA research (1974) which were collection of a sample of learner language,
identification of errors, description of errors, explanation of errors, and evaluation of
errors.

a. Collection of a sample of learner language


A massive sample involves collecting several samples of language use from a large
number of learners in order to compile a comprehensive list of errors, representative of the
entire population. A specific sample consists of one sample of language use collected from
a limited number of learners, while an incidental sample involves only one sample of
language use produced by a single learner. The errors that learners make can be influenced
by a variety of factors. Another issue is whether the samples of learner language are
collected cross-sectionally or longitudinally. The majority of Eas have been cross-
sectional, thus making it difficult to determine accurately the different errors that learners
produce at different stages of their development.

b. Identification of errors
First issue, there is a question regarding which variety of the target language should
serve as norm. It is fundamentally wrong if the goal in the classroom is to describe
learners oral production. Some learners are exposed to varieties of the language which

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differ from the standard dialect. For example, in comparison with the norms of British or
American standard written language in utterance she coped up with her problem very
well is errorneous, but in comparison with norms of educated Zambian English such an
utterance can be considered correct.
Second issue concerns the distinction between errors and mistakes.An error takes
place when the deviation arises as a result of lack of knowledge. It represents a lack of
competence. While, a mistake occurs whenr learners fail to perform their competence. It is
the result of processing problems that prevent learners from accessing their knowledge of a
target language rule and cause them to fall back on some alternative, non-standard rule that
they find easier to access.
Third issue concerns whether the error is overt or covert. An overt error is easy to
identify because there is clear deviation in form, while covert occurs in utterances that are
superficially we-formed, but which do not mean what the learner intended them to mean.
Fourth issue concerns whether the analysis should examine only deviations in
correctness or also deviations in approriateness.

c. Description of errors
It involves a comparison of the learners idiosyncratic utterances with a reconstruction
of those utterances in the target language. It requires, therefore, attention to the surface
properties of the learnersutterances. Corders (1974) framework for describing errors is in
three tyoes of error according to their systematicity which are presystematic errors (occur
when the learner is unaware of the existence of a particular rule in the target language
randomly), systematic errors (occur when the learner has discovered a rule but it is the
wrong one, postsystematic errors (occur when the learner knows the correct target
language rule but uses it incosistently).

d. Explanation of errors
Explanation is concerned with establishing the source of the error, accounting for why
it was made. The error source, as Taylor (1986) points out, may be psycholinguistic
(concern with the nature of the L2 knowledge system and the difficulties learners have in
using it in production), sociolinguistic (involve such matters as the learners ability to
adjust their language in accordance with the social context), epistemic (concern the
learners lack of world knowledge), or may reside in the discourse structure (involve
problems in the organization of information into a coherent text).

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Richards (1971b) also distinguishes a number of different sources or causes of
competence errors, which were: interference error (occur as a result of the use of elements
from one language while speaking another, intralingual errors (reflect the general
characteristics of rule learning such as faulty generalization, incomplete application of
rules and failure to learn conditions under which rules apply), and developmental errors
( occur when the learner attemps to build up hypotheses about the target language on the
basis of limited experience).

e. Evaluating errors
Error evaluation involves a consideration of the effect that errors have on the person(s)
addressed. This effect can be gauged either in terms of the addresses comprehension of
the learners meaning or in terms of the addresses affective response to the errors. NS
tend to judge lexical errors as more serious than grammatical errors. They also tend to
judge globalgrammatical errors as more likely to interfere with comprehension than local
errors, although as Santos (1987) points out, there have been conflicting results on this
point.
Global errors are errors that affect iverall sentence organization, while local errors are
errors that affect single elements in a sentence. They may also said it could be influenced
by markedness factors.

f. The limitations of error analysis


A frequently mentioned limitation that EA fails to provide a complete picture of
learner language. We need to know what learners do correclt as well as what they do
wrongly. First, Corder (1971b) explicitly recognized the importance of examining the
totality of the learners production. Second, there is nothing to prevent the researcher doing
this. At the very least, EA can be considered to have a place as a partial and preliminary
source of information at an initial stage of investigation.

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