Error Analysis

1. Error
Analysis
Dr.VMS

2. Transfer
 Carrying over the old habits get in the way of
learning new habits
 the first language acquisition patters of the
learners influence the way of learning the
second language

3. Error
 An error according to Corder, takes place
when the deviation arises due to lack of
knowledge. An error cannot be
self=corrected.(Ellis,19194)
 Pit Corder-Father of Error Analysis
 -”The Significance of Lerner Errors’(1967)

4. Corder, 1974
 Hat has come to be known as error analysis
has to do with the investigation of the
language of second language learners.

5. Norrish(1983)
 Error, ‘A systematic deviation when a learner
has not learnt something and consistently
gets it wrong’

6. DAVID CRYSTAL (1997
 ERROR is a term used in Psycholinguistics -
referring to mistakes in spontaneous speaking or
writing, -being attributable to a malfunctioning of
the neuro-muscular from the brain. -also called
‘slips of the tongue’ or ‘slip of the brain’.
 B. Richards, Jack (1999) • E A is an activity to
reveal errors found in writing and speaking. EA is
considered as an aid in teaching or in the
preparation of teaching materials

7. BROWN (2005)
 Error analysis is the process to • (1) observe,
• (2) analyze, • (3) classify the deviations of
the rules of the SL/FL/TL and to • (4) reveal
the systems operated by the learner

8. Errors and Mistakes
 Errors are systematic, governed by rules, and appear
because of learner’s knowledge of the rules of the target
language is incomplete • Indicative of the learner’s linguistic
system at a given stage of language learning ,i.e., his/her
transitional competence or interlanguage development •
Occur repeatedly and not recognized by the learner, in the
sense that only teachers and researchers can locate them
 In contrast, mistakes are: • random deviations, unrelated to
any system, and instead representing the same types of
performance mistakes that might occur in the speech or
writing of native speakers, such as • 1- slips of the tongue or
Freudian slips ,as in “You have hissed all my mystery
lectures” instead of “You have missed all my history lectures”.
• 2- slips of the ear ,as in “great ape” instead of “gray tape” •
3- false starts, lack of subject-verb agreement in a long
complicated sentences ,

9. Errors and Mistakes
 The distinction between learner’s errors and
mistakes has always been problematic for both
teachers and researchers , but to Ellis (1994)
frequency of occurrence is regarded the
distinctive point; • errors which have a rather low
frequency are considered mistakes or
performance errors • and those with high
frequency as systematic errors
 Error is overt or covert • Overt error is easy to
identify e.g I runned all the way. • A covert error
occurs in utterances that are superficially well
formed • It was stopped (from Corder 1971 a) •
Until we come to know that it refers to wind.

10. Description of Errors
 Involves the learner’s idiosyncratic utterances
with a reconstruction of those utterances in
the target language . • Dulay, Burt and
Krashan (1982) argues the need for
descriptive taxonomies of errors that focus
only on observable , surface features of
errors, as a basis of subsequent explanation.
• The simple type of classification is linguistic
involves(clause structure, the auxiliary
system, passive sentences, …

11. Corder (1974) Framework for
the description of errors
 Three types of errors according their systematicity
 Pre systematic : when a learner is unaware of the
particular rules in the language.
• Systematic : when the learner discover the rules
but it is a wrong one
• Post systematic: When the learner knows the
correct target language rule but uses it inconsistently

12. Transfer
 Carrying over the old habits get in the way of
learning new habits
 the first language acquisition patters of the
learners influence the way of learning the
second language

13. SOURCES OF ERRORS
 They can be categorized in two domains:
 1. Interlingual transfer , 2.Intralingual transfer
 Interlingual Transfer is a significant source for
language learners. Dictionary of language Teaching
and applied Linguistics (1992) defines: Interlingual
errors are the result of language transfer which is
caused by the learners’ first language. It occurs at
different levels such as transfer of phonological,
morphological, grammatical, and lexica-semantic
elements of the native language (L1) into the Target
Language.

14. Intralingual error
 Intralingual error is one which results from faulty or
partial learning of the target language, rather than from
language transfer. The sentence “She must goes” is
wrong. The error might be made as a result of blending
structures learned early in the learning process.
 Intralingual errors that result from L2 itself James
(1980: 185-187) goes into more details. He refers to
intralingual errors as learning-strategy based errors and
lists 7 types of them: False analogy, misanalysis,
incomplete rule application, exploiting redundancy,
over-laboration, hypercorrection and
overgeneralization.

15. Richard (1971
three types of competence errors
• Interference errors
• Intralingual errors
•Developmental errors(due to limited knowledge)

16. Mistakes
 A mistake refers to a performance error that is
either a random guess or a slip of tongue.
 It is actually a failure to utilize a known system
correctly.
 Native speakers make mistakes but when
attention is called to them, they can be
self=corrected

17. EA
 Error analysis helps students, teachers and
researchers in a way of helping the learners
to improve mostly the use and usage of
second language

18. EA and its need
 The errors give valuable feedback to both
teachers and learners regarding learner
strategies and progress.
 The errors also provide researchers with
insights into the nature of SLA process
 EA is not restricted to errors caused by
negative transfer fro the L1, it covers all types
of errors

19. Interlanguage
 It was coined by Selinker in the belief that the
language learner's language was a sort of hybrid
between his LI and the target language. The
evidence for this was the large number of errors
which could be ascribed to the process of transfer.
But when second language acquisition
researchers began to collect data from learners
not receiving formal instruction, particularly
children, the pro- portion of transfer errors was
found generally to be quite small.

20. Error Analysis and Inter language
 our teaching techniques. The philosophy of the
second school is that we live in an imperfect world
and consequently errors will always occur in spite
of our best efforts. Our ingenuity should be
concentrated on techniques for dealing with errors
after they have occurred. Both these points of
view are compatible with the same theoretical
standpoint about language and language learning,
psychologically behaviorist and linguistically
taxonomic.'

21. Acquistion vs learning
 The usefulness of the distinction between acquisition and learning has
been emphasized by Lambert (1966) and the possibility that the latter
may benefit from a study of the former has been suggested by
Carroll(i966).The differences between the two are obvious but not for
that reason easy to explain: that the learning of the mother tongue is
inevitable, whereas, alas, we all know that there is no such inevitability
about the learning of a second language; that the learning of the mother
tongue is part of the whole maturational process of the child, while
learning a second language normally begins only after the maturational
process is largely complete; that the infant starts with no overt language
behaviour, while in the case of the second language learner such
behaviour, of course, exists; that the motivation (if we can properly use
the term in the context) for learning a first language is quite different
from that for learning a second language. On examination it becomes
clear that these obvious difference simply nothing about the processes
that take place in the learning of the first and the second language.
Indeed the most widespread hypothesis about how languages are
learnt, which I have called behaviourist, is assumed to apply in both
circumstances.

22. EA Classification
 Phonological
 Lexical
 Syntactic,
 etc

23. EA categories
 Over-generalization
 Learners of second language sometimes
apply previous learned rules on the target
language without appropriate knowledge of
their application. Thus, they commit error.
Ex,. It can eats.

24. Ignorance of rules
 Every language has its unique rule system
ignoring the rule lead to errors

25. Error Analysis VS Contrastive
Analysis
 In the 1960s EA was acknowledged as an
alternative to the behaviourist CA • The
Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) was
widely accepted in the 1950s and 1960s USA
and its original purpose was purely
pedagogical. The teaching method which
used the CAH as its theory of learning was
the audiolingual method.

26. contrastive analysis
 The main idea of contrastive analysis, as
propounded by Robert Lado in his book
Linguistics Across Cultures (1957), was that • It is
possible to identify the areas of difficulty a
particular foreign language will present for native
speakers of another language by systematically
comparing the two languages and cultures. Where
the two languages and cultures are similar,
learning difficulties will not be expected, where
they are different, then learning difficulties are to
be expected, and the greater the difference, the
greater the degree of expected difficulty. (Lado
1957)

27. Thank you