Error Analysis

What is error?
According to Richard & Schmidt (2002, p184), an error is the use of a word, speech act or
grammatical items in such a way it seems imperfect and significant of an incomplete
learning.
It is considered Norrish (1983, p. 7) as a systematic deviation that happens when a learner
has not learnt something, and consistently gets it wrong.
Significance of Errors
According to Corder (1976) errors are significant of three things:
1- To the teacher, in that they tell him, if he or she undertakes a systematic analysis, how far
towards that goal the learner has progressed and, consequently, what remains for him to
learn.
2- They provide the researcher with evidence of how language is learned or acquired, and
what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in his discovery of the language.
3- They are indispensable to the learner himself, because we can regard the making of errors
as a device the learner uses in order to learn (p. 167). The occurrence of errors is merely
signs of ‘’the present inadequacy of our teaching methods’’ (Corder 1976, p. 163). Likewise,
Hendrickson (1987:357) mentioned that errors are ‘signals’ that indicate an actual learning
process taking place and that the learner has not yet mastered or shown a well-structured
competence in the target language.
Schools of Thought in Error Analysis
There have been two schools of thought when it comes to errors analysis and philosophy.
The first one, according to Corder (1967) linked errors commitment with the teaching
method arguing that if the teaching method was adequate, the errors would not be
committed. The second school, however, believed that we live in an imperfect world and that
errors correction is something real and the applied linguist cannot do without it no matter
what teaching approach they may use.
Errors vs. mistakes
Chomsky (1965) made a distinguishing explanation of competence and performance on
which, later on, the identification of mistakes and errors will be possible, Chomsky stated
that ‘’We thus make a fundamental distinction between competence (the speaker-hearer's
knowledge of his language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete
situations)’’ ( 1956, p. 4). In other words, errors are thought of as indications of an
incomplete learning, and that the speaker or hearer has not yet accumulated a satisfied
language knowledge which can enable them to avoid linguistics misuse. Relating knowledge
with competence was significant enough to raepresent that the competence of the speaker
is judged by means of errors that concern the amount of linguistic data he or she has been
exposed to, however, performance which is the actual use of language does not represent
the language knowledge that the speaker has. According to J. Richard et al (2002), people
may have the competence to produce an infinitely long sentence but when they actually
attempt to use this knowledge (to “perform”) there are many reasons why they restrict the
number of adjectives, adverbs, and clauses in any one sentence (2002, 392).
The actual state of the speaker somehow involves and influences the speaker's performance
by either causing a good performance or mistakes. Thus, it is quite obvious that there is
some kind of interrelationship between competence and performance; somehow, a speaker
can perform well if he or she has had already satisfied linguistic knowledge. As a support to
this, Corder (1967) mentioned that mistakes are of no significance to “the process of
language learning’’ (P. 167).
Error analysis approach
Before the rise of error analysis approach, contrastive analysis had been the dominant
approach used in dealing and conceptualizing the learners’ errors in the 1950s, this approach
had often gone hand in hand with concept of L1 Interference and precisely the interlingual
effect (Anefnaf Z. 2017), it claimed that the main cause of committing errors in the process of
second language learning is the L1, in other words, the linguistic background of the language
learners badly affects the production in the target language.
X. Fang and J. Xue-mei (2007) pointed out that contrastive analysis hypothesis claimed that
the principal barrier to second language acquisition is the interference of the first language
system with the second language system and that a scientific, structural comparison of the
two languages in question would enable people to predict and describe which are problems
and which are not. Error analysis approach overwhelmed and announced the decline of the
Contrastive Analysis which was only effective in phonology; and, according to J. Richard et al.
(2002), EA developed as a branch of Linguistics in the 1960s and it came to light to argue that
the mother tongue was not the main and the only source of the errors committed by the
learners. In addition, Hashim, A. (1999) mentioned that the language effect is more complex
and these errors can be caused even by the target language itself and by the applied
communicative strategies as well as the type and quality of the second language instructions.
The aim of EA according to J. Richard et al. (2002) is, first, to identify strategies which
learners use in language learning, in terms of the approaches and strategies used in both of
teaching and learning. Second, to try to identify the causes of learners’ errors, that is,
investigating the motives behind committing such errors as the first attempt to eradicate
them. Third, to obtain information on common difficulties in Language Learning, as an aid to
teaching or in the preparation of the teaching materials,
The two major causes of error, coined by the error analysis approach, are the Interlingual
error which is an error made by the Learner's Linguistic background and Native language
interference, and the Intralingual error which is the error committed by the learners when
they misuse some Target Language rules, considering that the error cause lies within and
between the target language itself and the Learners false application of certain target
language rules.
Error analysis in SLA was established in the 1960s by Corder and colleagues.[1] Error analysis
(EA) was an alternative to contrastive analysis, an approach influenced by behaviorism
through which applied linguists sought to use the formal distinctions between the learners'
first and second languages to predict errors. Error analysis showed that contrastive analysis
was unable to predict a great majority of errors, although its more valuable aspects have
been incorporated into the study of language transfer. A key finding of error analysis has
been that many learner errors are produced by learners making faulty inferences about the
rules of the new language.
Error analysts distinguish between errors, which are systematic, and mistakes, which are not.
They often seek to develop a typology of errors. Error can be classified according to basic
type: omissive, additive, substitutive or related to word order. They can be classified by how
apparent they are: overt errors such as "I angry" are obvious even out of context, whereas
covert errors are evident only in context. Closely related to this is the classification according
to domain, the breadth of context which the analyst must examine, and extent, the breadth
of the utterance which must be changed in order to fix the error. Errors may also be classified
according to the level of language: phonological errors, vocabulary or lexical errors, syntactic
errors, and so on. They may be assessed according to the degree to which they interfere with
communication: global errors make an utterance difficult to understand, while local errors do
not. In the above example, "I angry" would be a local error, since the meaning is apparent.
From the beginning, error analysis was beset with methodological problems. In particular,
the above typologies are problematic: from linguistic data alone, it is often impossible to
reliably determine what kind of error a learner is making. Also, error analysis can deal
effectively only with learner production (speaking and writing) and not with learner
reception (listening and reading). Furthermore, it cannot account for learner use of
communicative strategies such as avoidance, in which learners simply do not use a form with
which they are uncomfortable. For these reasons, although error analysis is still used to
investigate specific questions in SLA, the quest for an overarching theory of learner errors
has largely been abandoned. In the mid-1970s, Corder and others moved on to a more
wide-ranging approach to learner language, known as interlanguage.
Error analysis is closely related to the study of error treatment in language teaching. Today,
the study of errors is particularly relevant for focus on form teaching methodology.
In second language acquisition, error analysis studies the types and causes of language
errors. Errors are classified[2] according to:
● modality (i.e., level of proficiency in speaking, writing, reading, listening)
● linguistic levels (i.e., pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, style)
● form (e.g., omission, insertion, substitution)
● type (systematic errors/errors in competence vs. occasional errors/errors in
performance)
● cause (e.g., interference, interlanguage)
● norm vs. system
Types of errors
Linguists have always been attempting to describe the types of errors committed by the
language learners, and that is exactly the best way to start with, as it helps out the applied
linguist to identify where the problem lies. According to Dulay et al. (1982) errors take place
when the learner change the surface structure in a particularly systematic manner (p. 150),
thus, the error, no matter what form and type it is, represent a damage at the level of the
target language production.
Errors have been classified by J. Richard et al. (2002) into two categories. The Interlingual
Error and the Intralingual Error, those two elements refer respectively to the negative
influence of both the speaker's native language, and the target language itself.
Interlingual error is caused by the interference of the native language L1 (also known as
interference, linguistic interference, and crosslinguistic influence), whereby the learner tends
to use their linguistic knowledge of L1 on some Linguistic features in the target language,
however, it often leads to making errors. The example, provided by J. Richard et al. (2002) ‘’
the incorrect French sentence Elle regarde les (“She sees them”), produced according to the
word order of English, instead of the correct French sentence Elle les regarde (Literally, “She
them sees”). (P. 267) shows the type of errors aroused by the negative effect of the native
language interference.
Intralingual error is an error that takes place due to a particular misuse of a particular rule of
the target language, it is, in fact, quite the opposite of Interlingual error, it puts the target
language into focus, the target language in this perspective is thought of as an error cause.
Furthermore, J. Richard, et al. (2002) consider it as one which results from ‘’faulty or partial’’
learning of the target language. (p.267) thus the intralingual error is classified as follow:
Overgeneralizations: in linguistics, overgeneralizations error occur when the speaker applies
a grammatical rule in cases where it doesn’t apply. Richard et al, (2002) mentioned that they
are caused ‘’by extension of target language rules to inappropriate context.’’ (P.185). this kind
of errors have been committed while dealing with regular and irregular verbs, as well as the
application of plural forms. E.g. (Tooth == Tooths rather than teeth) and (he goes == he goed
rather than went).
Simplifications: they result from learners producing simpler linguistic forms than those found
in the target language, in other words, learners attempt to be linguistically creative and
produce their own poetic sentences/utterances, they may actually be successful in doing it,
but it is not necessary the case, Corder (as cited in Mahmoud 2014:276) mentioned that
learners do not have the complex system which they could simplify. This kind of errors is
committed through both of Omission and addition of some linguistic elements at the level of
either the Spelling or grammar. A. Mahmoud (2014) provided examples based on a research
conducted on written English of Arabic-speaking second year University students:
1. Spelling: omission of silent letters:
o no (= know) * dout (= doubt) * weit (weight)
2. Grammar:
0. Omission:
▪ We wait ^ the bus all the time.

▪ He was ^ clever and has ^ understanding father.

▪ Both the boys and the girls they can study together.
Developmental errors: this kind of errors is somehow part of the overgeneralizations, (this
later is subtitled into Natural and developmental learning stage errors), D.E are results of
normal pattern of development, such as (come = comed) and (break = breaked), D.E indicates
that the learner has started developing their linguistic knowledge and fail to reproduce the
rules they have lately been exposed to in target language learning.
Induced errors: as known as transfer of training, errors caused by misleading teaching
examples, teachers, sometimes, unconditionally, explain a rule without highlighting the
exceptions or the intended message they would want to convey. J. Richard et al. (2002)
provided an example that occurs at the level of teaching prepositions and particularly ‘’ at ‘’
where the teacher may hold up a box and say ‘’ I am looking at the box ‘’, the students may
understand that ‘’ at ‘’ means ‘’ under ‘’, they may later utter ‘’ the cat is at the table ‘’
instead of the cat is under the table.
Errors of avoidance: these errors occur when the learner fail to apply certain target language
rules just because they are thought of to be too difficult.
Errors of overproduction: in the early stages of language learning, learners are supposed to
have not yet acquired and accumulated a satisfied linguistic knowledge which can enable
them to use the finite rules of the target language in order to produce infinite structures,
most of the time, beginners overproduce, in such a way, they frequently repeat a particular
structure.
Steps: According to Corder, the following are the steps in any typical EA research:
 1. collecting samples of learner language
2. identifying the errors
3. describing the errors
4. explaining the errors
5. evaluating/correcting the errors
collection of errors: the nature and quantity of errors is likely to vary depending on whether
the data consist of natural, spontaneous language use or careful, elicited language use.
Corder (1973) distinguished two kinds of elicitation:clinical and experimental elicitation.
clinical elicitation involves getting the informant to produce data of any sort, for example by
means of general interview or writing a composition. experimental elicitation involves the
use of special instrument to elicit data containing the linguistic features such as a series of
pictures which had been designed to elicit specific features.
Bibliography
● Anefnaf. Z ( 2017) English Learning: Linguistic flaws, Sais Faculty of Arts and
Humanities, USMBA, Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/33999467/English_Learning_in_Morocco_Linguistic_Fla
ws
● Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. P. 4
● Corder, Pit. (1967). the significance of learner's errors. International Review of
Applied Linguistics, 161-170
● Dulay, H., Burt, M., & Krashen, S.D. (1982). Language two. New York: Oxford
University Press. p. 150
● Edje, J (1989). Mistakes and Correction. London: Longman. P. 26
● Fang, X. & Xue-mei, J. (2007). Error analysis and the EFL classroom teaching: US-China
education review, 4(9), pp. 10–14.
● Hashim, A. (1999). Crosslinguistic influence in the written English of Malay
undergraduates: Journal of Modern Languages, 12, (1), pp. 59–76.
● Hendrickson, J.M. (1987). Error correction in foreign language teaching: Recent
theory, research, and practice. In M.H. Long & J.C. Richards (Eds.), Methodology in
TESOL: A book of readings. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. p. 357
● Norrish, J. (1983). Language learners and their errors. London: Macmillan Press. P. 7
● Richards, J. C. & Schmidt, R. (2002). Dictionary of language teaching and applied
linguistics (3rd Ed.). London: Longman.
● Richards J. C., & Rodgers T. S.(2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.
● Cf. Bussmann, Hadumod (1996), Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics,
London: Routledge, s.v. error analysis. A comprehensive bibliography was published
by Bernd Spillner (1991), Error Analysis, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
● Ellis, Rod (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. p. 48.
ISBN 9780194371896.