Error Analysis

Error analysis means to detect the error and then analyze them according to their particular language area i.e. phonological, lexical etc, in which they occur. Before analyzing an error we are supposed to see whether the thing which we are correcting, really comes in the category of error or not and for this we have to be familiar with ‘Competence and Performance’. Competence may be defined as the knowledge of the language while Performance may be defined as the use of that knowledge.

Error:
An error is a systematic deviation, when a learner has not learnt something and constantly gets it wrong ( e.g. in verb we add ‘ed’ in all regular forms, but if we don’t tell learners about irregular forms, they tend to say ‘sleeped’ , ‘good’ without realizing that it is actually irregular form an unconscious mistake. Each time he will in the same way-a systematic deviation.

Mistake:
During the process of learning a second language sometimes a learner will use one form and sometimes the other form quite inconsistently. This inconsistent deviation is called a mistake, that is, something the learner gets it right but sometimes he makes a mistake and uses the wrong form.

Lapses:
There is another type of wrong usage which is neither a mistake nor an error and can happen to anyone at any time. This is a lapse which maybe due to lack of concentration, shortness of memory, fatigue etc. A lapse bears little relation to whether or not a given form in the language has been learned, has not been learned or is in the process of being learned. Native speakers suffer lapses in the same way as learners of the language, e.g. a presenter of BBC news said “achieving to astrive” instead of “striving to achieve”.

Distinction between Errors and Mistakes:
Errors occur when there is lack of knowledge about the target language, or when learners are still in the process of sorting things out for themselves. A foreigner learning Urdu language who says ‘usnay aya’ has made an error since he has not yet learned the rule about transitive verbs with past tense reference. He has made an error because at the time he didn’t know any matter. Usually learners are unaware of their errors and thus are in no position to correct them for themselves.

Mistakes are caused by such things as lack of concentration, forgetfulness, slips of tongue and sheer carelessness. A useful test for a mistake as opposed to an error is that the learner can usually correct it for himself when asked to do so.

Mistakes could be called errors of performance and they are unsystematic. The term error, on the other hand, is called as transitional competence and such errors are systematic whereas mistakes are errors of performance.
Attitude towards Errors

The Behaviorist Approach:
The behaviorist view of language learning is that of habit formation. This is a very negative approach towards errors. According to this view a learner learns whether, he is paying attention to what he is doing or not, and thus habit will be formed. The behaviorist view of H Flavell considers that it may help the learner to learn the language by repeating a correct form three or more times, and thus a learner will learn a new structure. In behaviorist approach of learning, errors were thus seen as bad habits that have been formed during the process of learning, as the response was based on the stimuli. Thorndike had experimented on the rats and tried to prove that they learn by the law of effect, i.e. if a step in the right direction is reward, it will lead to another right step. Thus drilling and role learning in the classroom was thought to be good for this habit formation.

Operant Conditioning

Stimulus Response Reinforcement Repetition

The Mentalist Approach:

In error analysis there has been a change by looking at the product (i.e. error) to the process (why students make error). Error analysis has been the focus of much research which has lead to a change in attitude towards error. The cognitive or mentalist approach view error as a clue what is happening in the mind. In this approach, error are seen as a nature phenomenon that must occur as learning a first or second language takes place before correct grammar rules are completely internalized. It is a more rational attitude towards the error. Error are not taken as a reflection on the teaching method of the teachers but are indicators that learning is taking place, which is an evidence that language acquisition device (L A D) is working so are error no longer bad, but good or natural.

Difference between Behaviorist and Mentalist Approaches:

To differentiate between behaviorist and mentalist approach, we have to focus on their approach towards error and language learning. The behaviorist stress at the ‘accuracy’ of language whiles the mentalist on ‘fluency’. For the behaviorist language should be perfect and the rules of grammar should be followed strictly, where there should be no error committed by learner. Otherwise teaching is faulty. So the occurrence of error was regarded as inadequacy of teaching technique.
But the mentalist put forth the view that we live in an imperfect world, and consequently error will always occur, in spite of the best efforts on the part of the teacher. Concentration should be on developing techniques where it is possible to reduce the occurrence of error. Fluency should precede accuracy.
Teacher should adopt to learner’s needs rather than opposing on the learner and his preconception of “how we ought to learn”, “what we ought to learn” and “when we ought to learn”. The teacher should try to create favorable conditions for language learning.


Stages of Error Analysis
In the error analysis of the learners one has to locate and identify the errors: whether errors exist or not? , If they do, why? , And how? , and what sort of errors they are? The process of error analysis involves various stages:

1) Recognition:
The first stage in error analysis is recognition of the error. For this purpose, all the learners ‘sentences should in principle are analyzed. This is the more necessary since many of his apparently ‘well-formed’ sentences may have a deviation different from that assigned by the rules of the target language. For example, if the learner does not know the rules for forming plurals he may express his meanings correctly half the time. On the other hand, the learner may produce an utterance which is well formed, i.e., almost as a native speaker would produce on an appropriate occasion, but when taken in context is not plausibly interpretative at all. Such an utterance is clearly erroneous, e.g. what did the writer mean to say in “he left at reached his destiny at twelve”.

2) Interpretation:
In this stage, the errors are interpreted according to the Grammatical and situational context of the utterance. There are some sentences which are obviously ill formed since they from obvious grammatical/lexical rules of language, e.g.
I knowed this man already.
She go to school.
On the other hand, there are some sentences which are apparently well formed but in fact they cannot be interpreted ‘normally’ in context, so they are erroneous, e.g.
He has been working in this company for three years.
This sentence seems to be alright, but if we look at its linguistic context; it becomes clear that this sentence is not correct.
“My sister is a legal advisor. He has been working in this company for three years”
So the sentence need to be interpreted not only on the basis of rules of language but also according to the context in which they occur. If a sentence can be interpreted normally, it is alright, and if not, it is not a correct sentence.

3) Reconstruction:
The third stage in error analysis tries to sort out what a learner intends to say in a particular utterance, or what he should have said. For this purpose, a reconstructed sentence is devised with which the original utterance is to be compared. So error analysis is a sort of contrastive analysis. S. Pit. Corder defines a reconstructed sentence as:
“What a native speaker of the target language would have said to express that meaning in the context, i.e. it is a translation equivalent.”
Plausible reconstruction of the learners’ utterance can be based on the following:
· Mother tongue
· Form
· Context
Mother tongue:
We can trace learners intended meaning by asking him in his mother tongue and then translating it into target language. Such a reconstruction is authoritative reconstruction since it arises no dispute.
We can trace the intended meaning through a recourse to mother tongue even the learner is not available at hand to tell us what did he intend to convey. This we can do by our knowledge of learner’s mother tongue. For example, if a Pakistani English learner writes a sentence:
Tablets were walking in the president.
Now reconstruction of this sentence cannot be based upon form or context, since its form is correct, and context totally vague. Thus we can translate it into Urdu to get than translate the Urdu sentence into correct English sentence.
Form and Context:
If mother tongue is of on help, we have to reconstruct a sentence on basis of its form and it linguistic and situational context. According to Cordor

“Interpretation/reconstructions made only on the basis of the form and context the learner’s utterance (including what we, as teachers, know about him and his knowledge of the language) are plausible interpretations/reconstructions”

Plausible reconstruction refers to the fact that reconstruction of the learner’s utterance is appropriate in a particular context or not.
4) Classification:
In error analysis correction is very important but the teacher should go searching for error that don’t exist. He/she should correct all grammatical error and those lexical forms that are obviously wrong. Classification of errors is important for correction because in order to make correction both the teacher and the student should be aware of the nature of the error. Superficially error can be classified into the following four class:
Error of Omission:
Errors of omission occur when a full word or letter is omitted. It includes both grammatical as well as lexical errors. In these errors grammatical errors are difficult to correct and understand than lexical errors and this can be seen through following examples:
I do not rely your word.
Bad news spreads fast.
I listen to music.
Errors of Addition:
In this type of error a word or letter is added in the sentence which is not needed. The most commonly made errors by English learners in this regard can be seen through these examples:

All his seeps are of a very good quality.
We brought furnitures for our house.
Breads and butter is what they need.
Did she comed.
Errors of Substitution:
The source of these errors are mostly confused words. These errors are found in lexical form and also in grammar especially in the use of prepositions. The errors committed by the English language learners can be seen in the following examples:
They denied (refused) listening to me.
I will give (take) my exam.
She is more intelligent then me (I).
This book is preferable than (to) that.
I have lost my ruler can I lend (borrow) yours.
Re-ordering:
Syntax/arrangement is very important in almost all the languages. In languages like English the whole meaning of the sentences is dependent on the order of the words. When the arrangement is disturbed meaning is also disturbed. Examples of the errors of syntax are as follows:
He (always) speaks the truth always.
I only did (only) two sums.
Can you tell us how (he) is he.
I (often) meet him at the corner of the street often.
Apple she eats (apple).

5) Explanation:
The fifth stage and the ultimate object of the error analysis is explanation. This stage is psycholinguistic in nature, since it attempts to account for how and why the learner’s utterances are erroneous.
Some of the explanations to this phenomenon are:
One explanation is that the learner is carrying over the habits of the mother tongues into the second language. This is called interference and in some way, it is assumed to prevent the acquisition of second language habits.

The other explanation is that the language learning is some sort of data processing and hypothesis forming activity of a cognitive sort. According to this view learner’s errors are sign of false hypothesis, which, through observation or correction, enable him to reformulate a more accurate hypothesis about the target language.

This view suggests that the making of errors is an inevitable and indeed necessary part of the learning process. The ‘correction, of error provides precisely the sort of negative evidence which is necessary to discovery of the correct concept or rule. Thus making errors enhances and speeds up the process of language teaching and learning.

Causes of Errors, Reasons and Remedies

1) Carelessness:
Carelessness is the major cause of committing errors on the part of the learners. It may be the outcome of many reasons that are following:
Reasons:
· Lack of motivation
· Losing interest
· Inappropriate/boring material
· Unexpressive style of presentation
Remedy:
We can overcome the careless errors in written work by involving the learners to check each other’s work. In this way the learners will be indulged in discussion about these errors.
2) Interference of mother tongue:
According to skinner’s definitive statement of the behaviorist theory of language learning:
“When we try to learn new habits the old ones will interfere with new ones. This is what is called mother tongue interference”
It is nature for a second language learner that he has to face the interference of his mother tongue. For example, in Urdu a vowel sound is compulsory after /s/ sound. Urdu speakers feel comfortable when they pronounce ‘stress’ /stress/ as /setres/. In some cases they add a vowel sound before ‘s’ instead of after it such as ‘station’ /is/ in Urdu. Another example is that Pakistani’s are always confused about where to produce aspirated sound and where not to
Most of the time native speakers have errors while using definite article. There is no such article in Urdu; therefore, they do not know the proper use of it in English.
Remedy:
Actually there is no special technique or set of techniques that can control the interference of mother tongue. The only thing which can be done is that the teacher should teach a given structure, say, or piece of vocabulary time and again with many points of view as possible.

3) Translation:
Word by word translation from one language to the other becomes the cause of errors. Idiomatic phrases and expressions are peculiar with a certain language. They cannot be translated word by word. So, when the learners translate them according to the expression of their own mother tongue, they commit errors. For example, the Urdu sentence is translated as:
Winter has come you should wear hot clothes.
The error lies in the word ‘hot’. In the same way another sentence is translated as:
“Allam Iqbal is our national poet. You born in Sailkot”.
Here the error lines in the word ‘you’.
Reasons:
· The first Reason is that the learner is unaware of the expression of the target language.
· The second reason is that when the learner concentrates more on the message than on the code, he commits errors.
Remedy:
· A possible remedy for this kind of error may be the Contrastive Analysis.
· Secondly, where the purpose of second language is communication, translation should not be adopted.

4) Over generalization:
When the learners have less experience of the language, they try to apply this experience on the whole system of language. In doing this, they over generalize the rules of grammar and make mistakes. For example if the learner learns the rule of making plural by adding ‘s’ or ‘es’ at the end of a singular noun, he will over generalize it where ‘s’ or ‘es’ is not required such as:
People Peoples
Woman Womans
Child Childs
Same case is with verbs, such as:
Give Gived
Go Goed
Blend of two structure in the standard version of the language maybe another cause of this type of error e.g. “she must goes”
Reasons:
The wrong manner or way in which the language items are presented by the teacher can be the cause of this sort of errors. The second reason is that less exercise can also give rise to these errors.
Remedy:
The general formula: ‘Never teach together what can be confused’ is the best remedy for these kinds of errors.

5) Incomplete Application of Rules:
If the student does not know the complete application of any grammatical rule, he will definitely commit errors. For example, if a learner knows only positive construction of present indefinite tense, he will be unable to make interrogative of the following sentence:
“He plays cricket?” as “What he plays?”
Reason:
The possible reason could be the unawareness of the complete rule.
Remedy:
The students should try to be familiar with all the possibilities of any rule.

6) Wrong Teaching Material and Methodology:
Sometimes the inappropriate material may cause errors. For example, the learners are taught the use of article in an expressive manner. But the material which is give to them in the form of book is so complicated that it is unmatchable with what is taught. The student may get confused and commit errors. In the same way the methodology of the teacher has a great affect on the learners. The learners try to follow what method is adopted by the teacher. If wrong methodology is used, it will appear in the form of errors.
Remedy:
The teacher should select appropriate material according to the objectives. He should also maintain his methodology according to the material.

7) Social Factors:
Some languages have specific social feature that may confuse the second language learner. For example, in Pakistani society people pay much attention to the formal and informal speech. There are three entities for the representation of second person i-e. in Urdu language. These entities show the level of formality. In English language the only word ‘you’ is used for these entities. The learner of Urdu language has to face a lot of errors in this regard.
Reason:
The reason is cultural differences.
Remedy:
The learner should also study the society and culture of the people of the target language.

8) Limited Opportunities to Use Language:
Especially, foreign language learners have limited time to utilize for learning purpose in classroom. They cannot use language in real situation. So their errors cannot be mended and they commit them time and again.
Remedy:
The learners should utilize more and more time for language using.

9) Errors of Second Language Learners:
Whatever the second language learners learn in the classroom is the standard form of language. But outside the classroom they have to converse in colloquial language. The learners make mistakes by the interning of the standard language and colloquial language. For example, in Arabic for “What is your name?” the following forms are used:
(Standard form)
(Colloquial form)
and for “How are you?” following forms are used:
(Standard form)
(Colloquial form)
Remedy:
The students should always speak standard form even with the people outside the classroom. They should not care for colloquial language.

Kinds of Errors

The sources of errors are to be found mainly in first language interference and partly in the inherent difficulties of English grammar. There are three types of errors:
Interlingua
Intralingua
Developmental
Inter-Lingual Errors:
These errors occur when the learner applies his mother tongue rules to the second language during the process of acquiring/leaving the second language. The more proficient he becomes to the second language, the lesser will be the interference from his mother tongues. This can be explained in the diagram:

Mother Tongue/ First language
Target LanguageSecond language


Inter-Lingual








Mother Tongue Target Language

The more the learner acquires the target language; there is lesser interference of his mother tongue rules. At all stages of learning, the learner has some system of rules which he follows. The making of errors under such circumstances seems inevitable. It forms a necessary part of his learning process. By studying them, the teacher may gain insight into the learner’s state of knowledge at any particular moment and also into the strategies of learning, that the learner maybe using. This approach clearly signifies that learners errors are in some sense systematic and not random.
Selinker in 1972 gave this version of the learner errors while learning the target language as Inter-language and it is this term which has gained wide currency among applied linguistics in recent years.
The study of Inter-language is then the study of the language system of the learner or simply the study of language learner’s language. Other names for the Inter-language were also proposed e.g. Nemsas calls it “APPROXIMATE SYSTEM” Pit Cordor named it “TRANSITIONAL COMPETENCE”
The learner is liable to make errors by translation. Here he simply translates the words into the target language which are taken from his own mother tongue e.g.

1. I am walking with with the road.
2. Go, go I have seen many like you.
3. Who, who is going.
4. Come on ox hit me.

Sometimes the student does not find an equivalent word for translation in the target language. Therefore he borrows it from his mother tongue; this could be called ‘Code Switching’ or ‘Resource Expansion Strategy’. For example:
1-
2-
3-

A number of other Interlingua errors that are committed by the students while learning the second language are as follows:

Omission of Articles:
There are no articles in the oriental languages. So, the students learning English as a second language commit the error related to articles. For example:
Old man was walking slowly. (Incorrect)
The old man was walking slowly. (Correct)

Wrong Addition of Articles:
Similarly, students use articles when they are not required. For example:
John died of the cholera. (Incorrect)
John died of cholera. (Correct)

Wrong use of Preposition:
There are no fix rules for the use of prepositions. So, this situation creates lot of trouble for the students. For example:
He is walking with the road.
She loves with him.

Wrong use of Tenses:
Most of the students do not understand the use of tenses especially the perfect tense. For example:
She is ill since Monday. (Incorrect)
She has been ill since Monday. (Correct)

Intra-Lingual Errors:
These errors are caused within the language. Mother tongue interference is not the cause as they are not interlingual errors. A native or a non native speaker both is liable to make such errors. For example, ‘What you are doing?’, ‘He comed’ etc. errors of these sort are frequent, regardless of the language learner’s background. They are called Intralingua. The origin of such errors is found within the structure of English itself, as these errors reflect the general characteristics of rule learning such as:
1. Over generalization
2. Ignorance of rule restriction
3. Incomplete application of rules
4. False concept hypothesis
Some of the irregularities and ambiguities of English grammar faced by the students are as follows:
Disagreement of Tenses:
There is disagreement of tenses in main and subordinate clauses. For example:
My friend told me that he will help me in the hour of need.
Omission of ‘to be’ in the Passive Construction:
For example:
He born in 1960.

Omission of‘s’ Sound in the Present Tense with Third Person ‘Singular’:
For example:
Asif go to school everyday.
Nasir become angry with his brother.

Confusion in the Use of Animate and Inanimate Relative Pronouns-who, whom, whose, which and that:
We see constructions like:
This is the boy which met me yesterday.

Confusion in the Use of Possessive Pronouns:
For example:
She bought a new shirt for his brother.
One must be loyal to his country.

Developmental Errors:
In addition to a wide range of intralingua errors, which have to do with faulty rule learning at various levels, there is a class of developmental errors which derive from faulty comprehension of the distinction in the target language. They are due to poor degradation of teaching items. For example: The form ‘was’ maybe interpreted as the marker of the past tense leading to the following utterance ‘One day it was happened’ and similarly ‘is’ maybe understood to be the corresponding marker of the present tense ‘He is speaks’.
Other kinds of error are
Errors of chain (syntactic errors)
Errors of choice (lexical errors)
Phonological errors (errors of pronunciation, intonation and stress)

Errors of Chain:
Errors of structure, number, gender, tense, voice and person are included in these kinds of errors.

Errors of structure:
For example:
What you are doing?
What are you doing?

Error of number:
For example:
She bought new furniture
She bought new furniture

Error of gender:
For example:
He changed his dress
She changed her dress

Error of tense:
For example:
John is ill since four days
John has been ill since four days

Errors of voice:
For example:
He was killed in an accident
He was killed in an accident

Errors of pronoun:
For example:
He is a beautiful dog
It is a beautiful dog

Errors of Choice:
These kinds of errors include:

Error of reordering:
For example:
To school should have gone Farwa
Farwa should have gone to school

Errors of omission:
For example:
She told that she on holiday
She told me that she was on holiday

Errors of addition:
For example:
There are too many beautiful flowers
There are many beautiful flowers

Errors of selection/substitution:
For example:
I have lost my ruler can I lend yours
I have lost my ruler can I borrow yours
Error of appropriacy:
For example:
Just drop in at my residence on your way to Ali’s place
Just drop at my residence on your way to Ali’s place

Phonological errors:
For example:
Boy/ /
Boy/ /

Difference between off/ / and of/ /
Difference between Hit/ / and Heat/ /

Errors of stress:
For example:
She is pretty (with fall in tone)
She is pretty (with rising tone)
With rising tone, the sentence becomes interrogative.

Significance of Error Analysis

Even since Corder highlighted the importance of considering errors in the language learning process, there has been a shift in emphasis towards an understanding of the problems learners face in their study of a language. Errors are indispensable to learners since the making of errors can be regarded as ‘a device the learner uses in order to learn’ (Selinker). Research has provided empirical evidence pointing to emphasis on learners’ errors as an effective means of improving grammatical accuracy Indeed, as Carter notes,
‘Knowing more about how grammar works is to understand more about how grammar is used and misused’
There is a need for students to recognize the significance of errors which occur in their writing, to fully grasp and understand the nature of the errors made. This requires English language teachers to be better equipped, more sensitive and aware of the difficulties students face with regard to grammar.

Pit Corder is of view:
“The most obvious practical use of the analysis of the error is to the teacher. Errors provide feedback, they tell the teacher something about the effectiveness, of his teaching materials and his teaching techniques and show him what parts of the syllabus he has been following, whether it has been learnt adequately or not. They enable to decide whether he can move on to the next item in the syllabus or whether he must devote more time to the item he as been working on. This is the day to day value of errors. But in term of broader planning and with a new group of learners, they provide the information for designing a remedial syllabus or a program of re-teaching”.
Errors are important in the process of learning because of two main reasons:
-In order to give most relevant help to your present group of students.
-In order to plan programs for future groups.
A study of errors show what problems students are facing and helps the teachers plan remedial work. This is often done very informally and gradually. This can be explained by the help of the following example. Suppose we observe that some students are not good at transforming direct narration into an indirect form. We observe that this not the case with all kinds of sentences. Further we observe that they make this error in speaking rather than writing. For example, instead saying:

“He asked why I was going there”. They say:

“He asked why was I going there”

They may know that in indirect question ‘wh’ word is followed by the subject but because of the lack of speaking practice, they can’t use it properly. So, it’s the duty of the teacher to give them more and more practice in that area of the language.