LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching http://e-journal.
id/index.
php/LLT Sanata Dharma University.
Yogyakarta.
Indonesia
ERROR ANALYSIS OF INFLECTIONAL AFFIXATION IN ACADEMIC
WRITING OF FRESHMAN STUDENTS
Clauvico Chesario Florianus and Vera Syamsi Sampoerna University.
Indonesia correspondence: cpikocf@gmail.
DOI: 10.
24071/llt.
received 21 July 2021.
accepted 29 October 2021 Abstract Errors, defined as mistaken application of linguistic theory done by language learners, are generally seen as negative element in language learning.
However, several researchers believed that error analysis can be used to understand how students process a target language.
Understanding this will give insights on which areas of language the students find it difficult.
Therefore, this study was conducted for this purpose.
Descriptive qualitative methodology was employed to examine types of writing errors that are related to inflectional affixation performed by 8 freshman students.
The errors that were identified in the studentsAo written language were described in linguistic and surface category.
Authoritative interpretation was conducted to investigate the cause of error occurrence through The study finds that the students still face difficulty in subject-verb agreement, plurals, and past participle.
Furthermore, it was also found that the dominant cause of the error occurrence is interlingual factors, negative transfer from their first language.
Keywords: Error analysis, writing errors, inflectional affixation, academic writing Introduction Writing is one of the four skills that students will learn in language learning process besides listening, reading, and speaking.
However, mastering the art of writing is difficult because students need to undergo a set of process, such as brainstorming, writing, revising, editing, and publishing (Christine, 2003, as cited in Rahayu & Arrasyid, 2.
It is also considered to be the most challenging language skill that even native speakers exhibit hardship in writing (Johnstone.
Ashbaugh, & Warfield, as cited in Javed.
Juan, & Nazli, 2.
This complicated process makes writing in English become a challenging task for students, especially learners of English in English as Foreign Language .
ereafter: EFL) context (Sermsook.
Liamnimitr, & Pochakorn, 2.
The difficulties in writing English has led learners to commit errors and In general, error is a deviation of language output from its standard (Ellis, 2.
However, one must be aware of the difference between nonsystematic and systematic errors.
The term Aonon-systematic errorAo refers to the one-time violation of language rule because of slips due to certain physical or psychological condition, such as fatigue or memory lapse (Corder, 1.
Even an LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 adult and the most fluent speaker could still commit to this error, even though they have already mastered the language convention.
Hence hereafter, this error in performance will be considered as a AomistakeAo.
The example of AomistakeAo is when a student writes the sentence AuMy mother work at that companyAy when that particular student was already aware that one should add the suffix Ao-sAo for third person singular subject.
On the other hand, systematic error is considered as deviation of language convention that was caused by knowledge gap that is yet to be filled in the learnerAos understanding (Corder, 1.
These errors occur as a signal that language learning is ongoing because the occurrence of these errors entails the learnersAo current understanding of the target language.
Corder .
7, as cited in Gass & Selinker, 2.
believed that these errors are important because it provides a window to overview learnersAo understanding of the target language.
these errors are properly analysed, then the result of the study could be used as a tool for learners to improve their target language learning.
The example of systematic error is when a student writes the sentence AuMy father work at that factoryAy because the student never knew about the rule of subject-verb agreement in English language.
There are two main causes of error occurrence, which are interlingual factor and intralingual factor (Gass & Selinker, 2.
The development of second language learning, a process of learning any other language after the first language (Ellis, 2.
, is different with the development of the first language.
Since second language learning will occur after the first language is largely acquired, the learning process will be interfered with the learnerAos knowledge of the first While first language learning involves the learners to construct their language competency from ground zero, second language learning involves the learners to use the characteristics of their first language as a comparison tool to learn the target language (Ellis, 2.
This phenomenon is the interlingual factor of error occurrence, often referred to as language transfer.
The result of language transfer could be either positive transfer or negative Positive transfer will occur if the rules of the first language is similar with the target language (Ellis, 2.
For example.
French learners of L2 English will learn the target language faster than Persian learners because more language rules of English and French converge compared to English and Persian (Gass, 1979, 1983, as cited in Ellis, 2.
Conversely, negative transfer will occur if the rules of the first language differs with the target language.
For instance, half of Chinese learners of L2 English errors were caused by the usage of Chinese grammar in English corpus, in which the two language rules are mostly different (Tran-Chi-Chau, 1975, as cited in Ellis, 2.
Hence, negative transfer is one of the causes of error occurrence in learning new language.
The other cause of error occurrence is known as intralingual factor.
Errors that are caused by this factor are errors due to learnerAos failure to correctly apply certain language rule in certain circumstances (Ellis, 2.
In other words, it is the kind of error that infants made when they learn to use their first language for the first time.
These errors are not caused by influence of first language (Lim, 2010, as cited in Al-Khresheh, 2.
it was committed due to learnersAo inability to fully grasp the target language rule.
Consequently, intralingual errors are committed due to overgeneralisation of language rules, ignorance of rule LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 restrictions, incomplete application of rules, and hypothesis of false concept (Ellis, 2.
While errors are generally seen as a negative element of language that needs to be eradicated, some researchers believed otherwise through the study of error As the name suggests, the occurrence of these systematic errors can be utilized as a tool to analyse studentsAo language learning process (Corder, 1.
Only through understanding the studentsAo current language knowledge can a teacher provide comprehensible inputs to make language learning more meaningful to the students (Krashen, 1985, in Gass & Selinker, 2.
In this perspective, the act of committing error is no longer seen as an obstacle of language output, but as a sign that the students are learning more about the target Analysing these errors serves several purposes: students are able to know the level of their understanding of the target language, while teachers are able to know the areas of language that the students need to improve and using that knowledge to give comprehensible inputs to the students (Corder, 1.
The study of error analysis can be done on the studentsAo written language One example of writing that bears challenge is academic writing, which refers to any kind of written composition to fulfil assignments in university (Mutimani, 2.
This piece of writing is challenging because it involves complicated intellectual effort to produce a legitimate academic work (Grami, 2010, as cited in Mutimani, 2.
Errors that occur in academic writing could result in low quality of academic writing, which in turn will also lead to low academic achievement.
In the perspective of error analyst, the errors occurred in studentsAo writing could be used to remediate studentsAo writing quality, and consequently, their academic achievement.
In several universities, various academic writing .
in form of essay, paper, ) is used as one of examination methods of summative assessmen.
Subsequently, these students are expected to write proficient academic writing in English to obtain good grades in their academic transcript.
However, fulfilling this expectation is challenging for them due to the huge gap between secondary education and higher education (Mutimani, 2.
Therefore, committing error in their writing is common due to this reason.
Recurrence of error commitment in academic writing may lower studentsAo academic achievement, which could undermine the studentsAo life in the future.
This error analysis study focused on morphological errors, specifically in inflectional affixation, due to EFL learnersAo frequent difficulty in this linguistic This claim is supported by various error analysis study in the context of EFL, which showed that errors related to morphology is one of the most frequent types of error that occur in studentsAo writing.
For instance.
Andrian .
conducted an error analysis study to Indonesian undergraduate students, and he found that error in tenses and subject-verb agreement is the frequent type of errors that exist in studentsAo writing.
Karim.
Mohamed.
Ismail.
Shahed.
Rahman, and HaqueAos .
study also produce similar result to Andrian, where morphological-related errors such as errors in verbs, tenses, and subject-verb agreement were responsible for 61 percent of all grammatical errors that the Bangladesh students committed.
Hence, morphological errors specified in inflectional affixation was focused in this research.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 In brief, this research is significant for the lecturers to understand the studentsAo level of language competency (Corder, 1.
, to identify the students learning process of language structure so the teachers can aid them to provide comprehensible inputs to make language learning more meaningful (Krashen, 1985, as cited in Gass & Selinker, 2.
Furthermore, the result of this research would be significant for the students because it is used as a feedback to aid their language learning process (Corder, 1.
, hence improving their English language skill.
After the target language errors have been analysed, the nature of the difficulty experienced by the learners will be uncovered (Al-Khresheh, 2.
, thus the students could evaluate their own language learning strategy and avoid committing to the errors that have been explained to them in this research.
Therefore, error analysis study is conducted to studentsAo academic writing to improve their English language learning process.
Theory As the name suggests, error analysis study is a form of linguistic study that puts emphasis on the errors that learners make (Gass & Selinker, 2.
According to James .
8, in Al-khresheh, 2.
, error analysis is Aua process of determining the incidence, nature, causes, and consequences of unsuccessful Ay This study was pioneered by Stephen Pit Corder, whom proposed a point of view where learnersAo errors are not to be completely avoided, but it could be utilized to investigate the cognitive process on how they process language (Corder, 1.
This knowledge can be utilized further for pedagogical purposes to improve the language learning, which will be beneficial for the learners Brown .
4, in Al-khresheh, 2.
added that error analysis has significant value in classroom research, as the result could help language learners determine the room of improvement for their language learning process.
Error analysis theory arose to answer the severe criticism toward contrastive analysis study (Al-khresheh, 2.
Contrastive analysis is a method of comparing languages to reveal possible errors for the purpose of differentiating the rule that can be transferred to the second language (Gass & Selinker, 2.
Dulay and Burt .
added that contrastive analysis lies on the ideas that language learning is habit formation and old habit of first language will either hampers or eases the new habit of the target language.
Following the previous ideas, contrastive analysis holds belief that errors occurred solely due to interference factors.
Despite having the similarity of analysing learnersAo errors for pedagogical purposes, contrastive analysis was criticized due to its underlying belief that interlingual factor was the only factor of error occurrence (Al-khresheh, 2.
The application of contrastive analysis was not capable to explain the occurrence of errors that was caused by intralingual factor.
In contrast, error analysis study had an underlying belief that second language was learned in a similar manner with first language learning (Corder, 1.
, thus intralingual factor was also accounted to explain the nature of the errors.
Therefore, error analysis was deemed to be the most appropriate tool to analyze learnersAo errors (Al-khresheh.
Corder .
4, as cited in Ellis, 2.
formulated several steps to conduct error analysis study.
Generally, there are five steps, which are collection of samples of learnersAo language, identification of errors, description of errors, explanation of errors.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 The difference between the role of AoerrorAo and AomistakeAo needs to be clarified in when identifying the learnersAo errors.
Corder .
defined error as a systematic deviation that occurs due to lack of language competence, while mistake is caused by poor language performance.
While error analysis was argued to focus solely on the learnersAo error (Corder, 1.
, but in the reality, identifying which are errors and which are mistakes is still a complexity for error analyst (Ellis, 2.
, which is important.
For instance, if a learner inconsistently uses an incorrect form of a language structure, it does not mean that the deviation can be considered as a mistake, since it is likely that the learnersAo knowledge of the target form is only mastered partially.
For example, a learner might write the following sentences to convey plurality in his writing:
My sisters are older than me My three sister are older than me If the term AomistakeAo is solely perceived as Aoan inconsistent deviation of language that is caused by language performanceAo, then the example .
can be considered as a mistake, since the learner can write the sentence .
However, it is also possible that the example .
is a form of a learnerAos misunderstanding of language structure, where the students perceives that plural AosAo is no longer needed for nouns with specific quantifiers and would lead to redundancy if that suffix is added.
If this is the case, then the example .
can be considered as an intralingual errors, not a mistake.
With the issue of confusing distinction between error and mistake.
Gass and Selinker .
shed light to clarify the role of these terminologies in error They claimed that deviation in language are only perceivable as Aosystematic errorAo from the perspective of teachers or researchers, not from the Along the learnersAo language learning process, they actively construct grammatical system of the target language in their mind.
Systematic error is caused by the lack of language competency, in other words, their constructed grammatical system of the target language is not in accordance with the correct Thus, there will never be Aosystematic errorAo in the learnersAo perspective because they perceive that those Aosystematic errorAo is correct based on their current understanding.
For example, a learner might write the following utterance:
I no speak Researchers might understand that the example .
is erroneous, hence marking this as an AoerrorAo, but the learner who write this might perceive otherwise.
If the learner has the understanding that the utterance .
is acceptable based on his current grammatical system in his mind, then it is not a Aosystematic errorAo in his perspective.
However, if the learner initial intention is to write AoI no speaksAo instead, then the sentence .
can be considered as a mistake, or Aonon-systematic errorAo, but the utterance AoI no speaksAo is still a Aosystematic errorAo in the teachersAo The illustration of this explanation can be seen in the following LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 AuI no speakAy Error Correct English Grammar (ResearchersAo perspectiv.
LearnersAo grammar of English (LearnerAos perspectiv.
AuI no speaksAy Error Mistake English Grammar (ResearchersAo perspectiv.
LearnersAo grammar of English (LearnerAos perspectiv.
Figure 1: Difference between error and mistake Therefore, error analysts can identify errors that occurred in the language sample based on their perspective.
One of the methods that can be used to justify AoerrorAo and AomistakeAo is to conduct an Aoauthoritative interpretationAo, where the researcher consults to the learners themselves to determine whether an error is AoerrorAo or AomistakeAo (Corder, 1.
If in the later stage some errors are discovered to be a mistake, then those can be distinguished in the study, since the focus of error analysis is limited only to systematic error (Corder, 1.
After identifying the errors, they are described based on their linguistic category, which is the description based on the certain language elements such as errors in plural, possessive, subject-verb agreement, and so on.
Furthermore, it is also described based on surface category, which is the description based on noticeable surface features of language, such as errors of omission, errors of addition, errors of selection, and errors of ordering.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 Table 1: Error taxonomy based on surface strategy Category Description Example Errors of The absence of an element that A strange thing happen should be included.
to me yesterday.
Errors of addition The presence of an element The books is here.
that should not be included.
Errors of The use of the wrong item My friend is oldest than instead of the correct one.
Errors of The use of correct item, but in He was get upping from a wrong sequence.
his bed.
The next step after description of errors is to explain the cause of their To explain the errors.
Corder .
generated a term called Aoauthoritative interpretationAo, in which the error analyst could directly ask the learners about their intention behind the erroneous utterances that they produced.
In brief, authoritative interpretation is similar to an interview, since both involves conversation with purpose.
However, in the case where learners are not available for consultation, it is possible for error analysts to interpret the cause of errors by determining the form of errors and its situational context, although it is trickier than authoritative interpretation.
There are two general causes of error, which are interlingual factor and intralingual factor.
Interlingual errors, also known as transfer errors, are error that occurred due to interference of the first language, while intralingual errors occurred naturally in the process of developing language, similar to first language error (Al-khresheh, 2.
There are four possible explanation of intralingual First is overgeneralization, which is defined as the use of wrong language structure based on the learnersAo knowledge of other forms (Richards, 1.
Second is ignorance of rule restriction, which is defined as the learners.
of ignoring the exception of certain language rule (Richards, 1.
Third is incomplete application of rule, which is the learnersAo inability to fully implement the complete knowledge of language rule (Richards, 1.
Finally, there is hypothesis of false concept, which is the result of learnersAo wrong comprehension of certain distinction of target language rule (Richards, 1.
Method Atmowardoyo .
stated that the Austudies of learnersAo errors in their language production are actually descriptive in nature.
Ay Thus, error analysis research can be included in the umbrella term of descriptive research.
Unlike other descriptive research, however, error analysis research has a specific set of procedure, thus these studies are usually classified as Aoerror analysisAo.
Hence, this study employed qualitative descriptive as its research design because the aim of this study is to present a detailed description of morphological errors in studentsAo writing along with the cause of the occurrence.
Settings and Participants This study took place in Sampoerna University, a private university located in South Jakarta, because it employed academic writing as one of its examination LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 methods, such as research paper and research project (Sampoerna University Student Handbook, n.
The sample learners are freshman students that from Writing Convention and Grammar Analysis class because it was the mandatory course that all English Education freshman should take and it laid foundation of grammatical knowledge to the studentsAo academic writing.
Eight out of twenty-four students of English Education Department of Sampoerna University were chosen to be the participants of this research.
These students acquired Bahasa Indonesia as their first language and English as their second language.
In regards to their third language, some learned Bahasa Jawa.
Bahasa Sunda.
Bahasa Palembang, and did not have a third language.
Even though their third language were heterogenous, but this will not be a major issue because second language learning is interfered by first language knowledge only, not the third language and so forth (Hammarberg, 2.
Therefore, this research partook eight students to be the participants of this study.
In general, these eight participants have acquired English language since they were still little.
Some of the students have acquired English since kindergarten and some have acquired English since elementary school.
However, there is one student that acquired the English language since high school, but given the need of communicating in English in his high school, this particular student was more comfortable to address English as his second language instead of his regional This is in line with HammarbergAos .
claim that multilingual language should be labelled based on language learning experience instead of the order of acquisition.
Instrument and Data Analysis Technique To answer the research questions, two kinds of data were collected in this Firstly, the frequency of the morphological error occurrence was the data needed to answer the first research question.
For this purpose, the researcher collaborated with the course lecturer to hold an International English Language Testing System .
ereafter: IELTS) academic writing test simulation.
IELTS
writing test is a timed task, which could guarantee the naturality of the sample To identify the error frequency of the collected sample language, two reviewers helped to mark and identify the error in the studentsAo writing.
The reviewers that helped in the error identification process are lecturers from English Education Department of Sampoerna University, hence they are credible to identify the errors accurately.
In brief, the error frequency data was checked by two experts in English language, thus the credibility of this data was verified.
Secondly, the errors that were identified needed to be classified to understand the cognitive process in language learning (Ellis, 2.
The errors were classified in two categories, which are linguistic categories and surface category.
In this research, linguistic categorization is limited only to errors in inflectional affixation, which are errors in pluralism, errors in possessive, errors in subjectverb agreement, errors in past tense, errors in present participle, errors in past participle, errors in comparative, and errors in superlative.
In terms of surface categorization, the errors were classified into four categories, which are errors of omission, errors of addition, errors of selection, and errors of ordering (Corder, 1981, as cited in Al-khresheh, 2.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 Finally, the cause studentsAo error was another data that was necessary to answer the second research objective.
The instrument used to collect this data was a set of interview questions that will be used to elicit the cause of studentsAo errors in their writing.
To achieve this purpose, a semi structured interview was used as an instrument to investigate the cause of studentsAo errors.
The interview was proceeded while showing examples of erroneous sentence from the top three frequent errors one by one and asking the participants a set of questions to investigate the cause of the error in that particular sentence.
The questions for the interview are illustrated in the following figure:
Figure 2: Interview guideline After the interview was conducted, framework analysis method was used to code and analyze the result of the interview.
This method is defined as an approach to qualitative data analysis that enables researchers to systematically organize and manage textual data, particularly in analyzing and identifying LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 specific themes (Hackett & Strickland, 2.
The predetermined themes that were used during the coding process was based on CorderAos explanation about intralingual errors, which are overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restriction, incomplete application of rule, and hypothesis of false concept.
As shown in Figure 2, the interview questions were indexed into AuQ1Ay.
AuQ2Ay.
AuQ3Ay, etc.
This set of questions was asked for each erroneous sentence that the student commit.
For example, in AuSentence 1Ay, the first erroneous sentence that the student commit, the student was prompted to answer Q1.
According to the answer, the question would progress to either Q1.
2 or Q2, and so on until the cause of error in that sentence was elicited.
After AuSentence 1Ay is done, then the interview will proceed to AuSentence 2Ay, the second erroneous sentence that the student commit, and the questioning cycle was repeated.
The answer of Q3 .
nd possibly Q.
was coded based on the predetermined themes based on CorderAos explanation about intralingual errors to elicit the cause of error in each sentence.
Findings and Discussion After the sample language was marked and identified by the reviewers, 115 errors were discovered in the participantsAo written language.
This research was specified to analyze eight types of error that were related with inflectional affixes, which are possessive errors, subject-verb agreement errors, past tense errors, present participle errors, past participle errors, comparative errors, and superlative The result of this research showed that the participants committed at least one error in eight of these linguistic classifications.
Table 2: Error Frequency Error Types/Participant Possessive P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 Total Percent Rank Present Participle 2 Past Participle Comparative Superlative Total Plural Subject-verb Agreement Past Tense Table 4.
1 exhibited that the error occurrence in this study was somewhat variative among the participants.
For instance.
Participant 2 committed six errors in comparative, despite other participants did not commit to that error type.
Similar case was evident in Participant 5 who committed a superlative error when the other participants do not have trouble with.
Regardless of the variation, however, most of the participants of this research share similar problem in LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 subject-verb agreement errors, plural errors, and past participle errors.
In contrast, superlative errors, possessive errors, and past tense errors were the types of error that the students have least problem with.
Description based on Surface Category This section will elaborate the errors that were identified in this research and describe them based on surface categorization, as cited from Corder .
There will subtopics to describe the error commitment based on the error types to give insights on how the students commit their error in inflectional affixes.
Subject-verb Agreement Errors In case of subject-verb agreement errors, there are 43 errors that were identified in the participantsAo language, and it accounted as the most frequent errors to appear in the writing.
After describing these 43 errors into surface category, it was found that error in omission, error in addition, and error in selection were behind these erroneous sentences.
Similar to plural errors, there were no error in ordering in subject-verb agreement errors, possibly due to this linguistic feature revolves around modifying either the subject or verb, not ordering them in particular sequence.
Several samples of those subject-verb agreement errors can be seen in the table below:
Table 3: Surface Category of Subject-verb Agreement Errors Surface Sample of Erroneous Percentage Corrected Sentence Category Sentence if every country in the .
if every country in the their world nonsense such as wars nonsense such as wars and conquers attempts and conquers attempts towards others and start towards others and starts Error in focusing to renew the focusing to renew the Omission home of humanityA home of humanityA If the country supportive supportive in preventing the disasters, so the disasters, so the natural natural disaster can be disaster can be solved.
Environment problems Environment problems requires an international require an international an solution international movement.
international movement.
In many other cases.
Error in In many other cases, other countries also often Addition other countries also often show their concern and show their concern and offered their help by offer their help by giving giving food supplies, food supplies, donations, donations, etc.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 Surface Category Percentage Error in Selection Sample of Erroneous Sentence Environmental problems has always been around, no matter which part of the globe.
Most countriesAo land are close to each other and in other meaning.
Corrected Sentence Environmental problems around, no matter which part of the globe.
Most countriesAo land is close to each other and in other meaning.
It could be seen that error in omission of suffixes related to subject-verb agreement is the most frequent error in the scope of subject-verb agreement errors, with the percentage of 47 percent.
The example of this kind of error is in the sentence Au.
if every country in the world stop their nonsense such as wars and conquers attempts towards others and start focusing to renew the home of humanityAAy In this sentence, the word AustopAy and AustartAy was written without the suffix Ao-sAo, despite the subject of this sentence is Auevery countryAy, which is Thus, this sentence is considered erroneous.
Another example would be the sentence Auif the country supportive in preventing the disasters, so the natural disaster can be solved.
Ay This sentence is missing a main verb, which is an essential element in making a proper sentence, thus this is also considered Furthermore, error in addition of suffixes related to subject-verb agreement contributed to 14 percent of all error in subject-verb agreement.
The example of this kind of error is evident in the sentence AuEnvironment problems requires an international solution or an international movement.
Ay In this sentence, the writer added the suffix Ao-sAo in the verb AurequireAy, which is unnecessary since the subject is in plural form .
nvironment problem.
Hence, adding the suffix Ao-sAo makes the sentence erroneous, since the verb did not agree with the plural subject.
Another example can be seen in the sentence AuIn many other cases, other countries also often show their concern and offered their help by giving food supplies, donations.
Ay In this sentence, the student also added the suffix Ao-edAo in the word AuofferAy, which was not parallel with the other verb AushowAy.
In this case, the student should choose whether to write in present tense (Auother countries also show their concern and offer their helpA.
or in past tense (Auother countries also showed their concern and offered their helpA.
Accordingly, the reviewer decided that the present context of the sentence is more suitable than the past tense, hence the correction is Auother countries also show their concern and offer their helpAy.
In regards to the error in selection of elements related to subject-verb agreement, the errors that were categorized under this surface structure were mostly the cases of the student choosing the wrong be verb in place of the correct This error contributed 40 percemt to all subject-verb agreement error.
The example of this error is evident in the sentence AuEnvironmental problems has always been around, no matter which part of the globe.
Ay Here, the writer mistakenly chose the verb AohasAo instead of AohaveAo, since AohasAo does not agree with the plural subject Auenvironmental problemsAy.
The same case was applied in the sentence AuMost countriesAo land are close to each other and in other meaning,Ay LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 where the writer chose the verb AoareAo in place of AoisAo.
This sentence was considered erroneous because the verb AoareAo does not agree with the uncountable noun AolandAo.
Plural Errors In terms of plural errors, there are 38 errors that were found in the studentsAo language, and it is the second most frequent error in the participantsAo language.
Based on surface category, these 38 errors were described as errors in omission, errors in addition, and errors in selection.
According to the result of error description process, no plural errors were described as error in ordering, most likely since plurality is only conveyed through noun modification, such as using suffix Ao-sAo or through vowel mutation.
A conclusion of these errors is presented in the table below:
Table 4: Surface Category of Plural Errors Sample of Erroneous Percentage Corrected Sentence Sentence One of the case that One of the cases that shows that environmental environmental problems are an international international problem is problems is IndonesiaAos Error in IndonesiaAos forest is on forest is on fireA Omission fireA movement that is being movements that is being held to save the held it reduce the use of it reduce the use of plastic, stuff that cannot cannot be recycle, and be recycle, and several several one-time use one-time use stuff.
Error in The environmental The environmental ethics Addition ethics should be more should evaluated by every evaluated by and developed developing countries developing because it is.
because it is.
For instance, if the For instance, if the Error in country makes a law & country makes laws & Selection regulations about the regulations about the trash issue.
trash issue.
Surface Category As seen in Table 4.
3, omission of suffix Ao-sAo is the most frequent kind of plural errors in the participantsAo language, with the percentage of 68 percent.
The example of this kind of sentence is AuOne of the case that shows that LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 environmental problems are an international problems is when IndonesiaAos forest is on fireAAy In this sentence, the writer did not add the suffix Ao-sAo in the word AucaseAy, which is required because this phrase gives meaning of exemplifying one case out of many other cases.
Another case of error in omission of plural affixes is evident in the sentence Au.
there are many international movement that is being held to save the environment.
Ay In this sentence, the writer wrote Auinternational movementAy without the suffix Ao-sAo, despite following plural determiner AumanyAy, which is erroneous.
Besides error in omission of plural, error in addition of unnecessary plural form is also apparent in the participantsAo language.
This kind of error contributed 26 percent to the total of plural errors.
For instance, the sentence Au.
it reduce the use of plastic, stuffs that cannot be recycle, and several one-time use stuffsAy was erroneous because the word AustuffAy is written with the suffix Ao-sAo, despite being an uncountable noun.
Uncountable nouns does not have a plural form, hence adding plural to the noun was unnecessary and it makes the sentence erroneous.
Another case of this kind of error can be seen in this sentence AuThe environmental ethics should be more evaluated by every developed and developing countries because it Ay In this sentence, the student wrote Audeveloped and developing countriesAy with a suffix Ao-sAo to convey pluralism, even though the phrase was following the singular determiner AueveryAy, thus this sentence is considered as error by the Lastly, error in selection of plural form also contributed slightly to the plural errors in the studentsAo corpus.
Out of all 38 plural errors, there are only two errors that were categorized as error in selection, with the percentage of 5 percent.
One example of error in selection of plural form can be found in the sentence AuFor instance, if the country makes a law & regulations about the trash issue.
Ay In this sentence, the writer chose the wrong form of singular noun phrase .
instead of plural noun .
when forming the sentence.
This is erroneous because it made the two nouns not parallel with one another.
To make it correct, the two nouns must be in the same form, it could be Aua law and a regulationAy, or AuLaws and regulations.
Ay Based on the reviewerAos note, the latter is more appropriate, hence the correct sentence would be AuFor instance, if the country makes laws & regulations about the trash issue.
Ay Past Participle Error Errors in past participle was identified to be the third most frequent errors to appear in the participantsAo written language, with 14 errors under the description of error in omission, error in addition, and error in selection.
Table 4.
7 shows several samples of past participle errors that existed in the participantsAo language.
Table 5: Surface Category of Present Participle Errors Surface Category Percentage Error in Omission Sample of Erroneous Sentence However, we have to think twice that natural disaster/environmental problems can be reduce government/country.
Corrected Sentence However, we have to think disaster/environmental problems can be reduced by the government/country.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 Surface Category Percentage Error in Addition Error in Selection Sample of Erroneous Sentence The awareness expected to increase the participant awareness also.
If there is global warming, the North and South pole will melted and it will cause many animal did not have any place to live.
for humanity keeps on destroying parts of the forest for the sake of without considering the risks for nature and humans themselves.
Corrected Sentence The motivation or awareness is expected to increase the participant awareness also.
If there is global warming, the North and South pole will melt and it will cause many animal did not have any place to live.
for humanity keeps on expanding their polluted areas, destroying parts of the forest for the sake of economical profit without considering the risks for Table 4.
7 shows that there are 8 errors in omission of necessary elements in forming the past participle, with the percentage of 57 percent.
Most participants who commit to this kind of error mistakenly omitted some elements that are required to form a correct sentence with past participle and passive voice with past participle.
For example, in the sentence AuHowever, we have to think twice that natural disaster/environmental problems can be reduce by the government/country,Ay the student omitted the suffix Ao-edAo to form past participle, which is necessary when one wants to form a passive voice.
Another example is evident in the sentence AuThe motivation or awareness expected to increase the participant awareness also.
Ay Similar to the previous example, this sentence is missing the essential be verb to precede the past participle AoexpectedAo, hence this sentence is also considered as erroneous.
For the error in addition, there are only 2 errors recorded under this surface category, with 14 percent of occurrence out of all past participle errors.
One example of this error can be seen in this sentence "If there is global warming, the North and South pole will melted and it will cause many animal did not have any place to live.
Ay In this sentence, the students who commit to this error added the suffix Ao-edAo in a verb that follows modal AowillAo.
This is erroneous because modal verb should not precede modified verbs, they can only precede verbs in their base It is most likely that the student attempted to write Auwill be melted,Ay however the reviewer believes that the correction that is provided in Table 4.
7 is more suitable and effective for academic writing.
Finally, the error in selection of past participle contributed to 29 percent of all errors in past participle.
Students who commit to this error usually chose the wrong verb that is related with past participle.
For example, in the sentence Au.
humanity keeps on expanding their polluting areas, destroying parts of the forest for the sake of economical profit without considering the risks for nature and LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 humans themselves,Ay the student mistakenly chose the gerund form of AopollutingAo to modify the noun AoareasAo instead of using the past participle form AopollutedAo.
Although gerund may also be used to modify noun, but the reviewer judged that the context of this sentence is more suitable if the noun modifier is in past participle form, hence this sentence is erroneous.
Explanation of Error To explain the cause of error, an interview was conducted to participants to gain the reason of error occurrence directly from the writers themselves.
Thus, this section will elaborate the result of the interview as a method to explain the cause of the studentsAo errors.
For this section, only the three most frequent error types which will be explained further in this section, which are subject-verb agreement errors, plural errors, and past participle errors.
The justification for this decision was that those three error types have accounted to 82% of the total errors in the sample corpus.
The high percentage presented by the three most frequent error types was believed to be sufficient to represent the majority of the studentsAo weakness in writing.
In cases where one error is recurrent in several sentences, only one or two sentence that were questioned during the interview.
For example, not all subjectverb agreement errors were questioned, but the causes of error in questions that were not included were still represented.
Furthermore, only seven out of eight participants that were interviewed in this process, due to one participant was unavailable to be interviewed at the time.
However, the absence of this participant in the interview process did not significantly alter the result of the interview, since this one particular student only committed 4 out of 95 errors that will be explained in this section .
ubject-verb agreement errors, plural errors, and past participle Summary of the error frequency based on their cause of occurrence is presented in Table 4.
10 below.
Table 6: Cause of Error Occurrence SubjectPast Cause of Errors /Error type Plural Participle Agreement Mistake Interlingual Overgeneralization Ignorance Rule Restriction Incomplete Application of Rule Hypothesis of False Concept 4 Unidentifiable Total Total As shown in Table 4.
10, interlingual factor was the main reason why the students commit errors, which followed with unintended errors .
and hypothesis of false concept.
Therefore, a total of 78 sentences out of 95 sentences LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 that were erroneous in subject-verb agreement, plural, and past participle were questioned to investigate their cause of occurrence in this interview.
Several causes of errors were unidentifiable because the students were unable to give proper reasoning behind his/her error, or the given answer was contradictive, making it tricky to determine the real cause of the occurrence.
Detailed explanation about those errors will be reviewed in the discussion section.
Discussion Based on the result of the research finding, the most frequent errors that are related to inflectional affixes that appeared in the studentsAo written language are subject-verb agreement error, plural error, and past participle error.
Summary of the research result is shown in Table 4.
11 below.
Table 7: Result of the Error Analysis Frequent Surface Dominating Causes Frequent Errors Description .
xcluding mistake.
Error in omission of Subject-verb necessary element related to Interlingual factors agreement errors subject-verb agreement Error in omission of suffix Plural errors Ao-sAo to convey plural Interlingual factors Error in omission of Past participle errors necessary element related to Interlingual factors past participle As summarized in Table 4.
11, the surface description of the three most frequent error types are described as error in omission of certain element related to the respective linguistic feature.
According to Corder .
, description on surface strategy should not end only to that extent.
the description should incorporate linguistic theory in order to be a meaningful information.
With this regard, the summary in Table 4.
11 can be read as: the students have omitted certain element in three linguistic features, which are omission of suffix Ao-sAo in verbs to agree with third person singular subject, omission of suffix Ao-sAo in nouns to convey plural expression, and omission of be verb to use past participle for passive voice formation.
In conclusion, the students were yet to master subjectverb agreement, plurals, and past participles of English grammar.
Furthermore, the result of the interview found that the interlingual factors are the most frequent cause of the studentsAo error occurrence.
This means that the participants who participated in this study committed their errors due to negative transfer from the first language.
However, the participants who participated in this study commit to various kinds of errors with various explanation behind their For instance, some students consistently committed to interlingual errors, some students consistently committed to intralingual errors, and some students have mixed explanation between interlingual and intralingual errors.
However, interlingual errors are the most frequent cause of the error occurrence.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 The dominant cause of errors in the studentsAo language is interlingual factor, followed by hypothesis of false concept and incomplete application of rule.
Thus, only errors in omission of the three most frequent error types are discussed in this Further elaboration of these explanations can be viewed in the subsections Interlingual Errors In the interview, it was found that there are 28 erroneous sentences that occurred due to interlingual factors.
Specifically, there are 14 interlingual errors in subject-verb agreement errors, 10 interlingual errors in plural errors, and 4 interlingual errors in past participle.
In case of subject-verb agreement, it was found that there are four students who have committed at least one interlingual plural errors, while one of them consistently committed interlingual errors in his/her language.
Out of 35 sentences with subject-verb agreement error that were questioned, 14 sentences were considered as interlingual errors, based on the response from the participants.
The features of subject-verb agreement interlingual errors are omission of suffix Ao-sAo in verbs to agree with subject and error in selection of be verb.
Firstly, participants who commit interlingual errors in subject-verb agreement omitted the suffix Ao-sAo in verbs because of interference from Indonesian language In Indonesian, verbs are not inflected to agree with the subject in any For instance, the participant who consistently committed interlingual errors, wrote the following sentence: AuThe writer agree about this, global warming is classified as international problem because of its cause and effect.
Ay This sentence is erroneous due to the phrase AoThe writer agreeAo, which has uninflected verb AoagreeAo, which did not match with the singular verb AowriterAo.
When the participant was asked further, he/she explained that:
AuIya, ini aku merujuk ke bahasa indonesia.
Jadi disitu the writer kan aku, jadi Aoaku setuju tentang hal ini, global warming diklasifikasikan sebagai masalah internasional karena sebab dan akibatnyaAo [Yes.
I refer to Indonesian Thus, in that .
, the writer was me, so .
hat I meant to say wa.
AoI agree about this matter, global warming is classified as an international problem because of its cause and effectA.
Ay As seen in the underlined phrases, the writer referred to Indonesian rule that does not inflect the Indonesian word AosetujuAo, which means AoagreeAo in English, to agree with the subject.
Although the translation of the phrase Aoaku setujuAo is acceptable in English (AoI agreeA.
, but if the erroneous phrase AoThe writer agreeAo was translated into Indonesian, the result.
AoSang penulis setujuAo, is still acceptable in that language.
In conclusion, the participant negatively transferred this Indonesian rule to English, which is not acceptable.
According to Al-khresheh .
, interlingual error is also known as transfer error, which occurs when the studentsAo first language interferes with the production of the target language.
In this case.
Indonesian language as the participantsAo first language is interfering the production of written English In terms of subject-verb agreement errors, the students have negatively transferred Indonesian grammar system that do not have inflectional Ao-sAo in verbs LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 to agree with third person singular subjects.
Furthermore.
Indonesian language does not use various be verb to agree with third person singular, and the participants of this study have shown to transfer this habit into English, making them select the wrong be verb to agree with the subject.
Hypothesis of False Concept Hypothesis of false concept is the second most dominant error cause in the studentsAo writing.
It was found that there are 13 erroneous sentences due to this Specifically, there are 4 errors of this kind in subject-verb agreement errors, 8 in plural errors, and 1 in past participle.
The example is taken from one of the plural errors that the student commit.
During the interview process, the participants gave reasoning behind their errors that can be considered as Aohypothesis of false conceptAo on 8 sentences out of 31 sentences that were In overall, there were various false concepts that were formulated by the students that leads to erroneous sentences, one of them is uncountable noun vocabulary and the use of determiner.
Firstly, some participants have gap knowledge in deciding which nouns were considered as countable and uncountable.
One case of this error is seen on this sentence: AuThere are some effort that can be done to help slower the Ay In this sentence, the error lies on the phrase Ausome effortAy, since the noun should be inflected with Ao-sAo to agree with the plural determiner AosomeAo.
When the student.
P2, who wrote this sentence was questioned, he/she responded AuGimana ya, soalnya aku ngiranya kalo ini tu kaya, itu 'effort' itu aku kiranya uncountable gitu, kan kaya aktivitas jadi gabisa dihitung, jadi mikirnya ga pake -s.
[How should I put it.
I thought that this was like.
AoeffortAo.
I thought it was uncountable, like it is an activity that cannot be counted, so I thought it should not use Ao-sA.
Ay From this response, it can be assumed that the student decide which noun is countable or uncountable based on personal judgement whether the noun is concretely countable or not, which was a false understanding.
Secondly, another false concept that was hypothesized by the participants was the use of determiner.
In this case.
P3 wrote this sentence: AuIs all of those natural disaster really a huge problem for the life of human?Ay This sentence is erroneous in the phrase Auall of those natural disasterAy, since the noun phrase should be inflected with Ao-sAo to agree with the plural determiner AothoseAo.
In his defense.
P3 reasoned that AuKalo gua sih setiap ngetik 'those' itu kan gw gini sih pemahamannya kalo 'that' gitu yang kita bisa liat gitu, yang bisa ditunjuk.
'that table', 'that chair', 'Those' itu sesuatu yang kita gabisa liat ato ga keliatan.
makanya disitu gw pake those natural disasters karena kan natural disasters ngga terjadi.
[In my case, when I write AothoseAo, my understanding was .
he wor.
AothatAo is used for something we can see, we can point, .
uch a.
Aothat tableAo.
Aothat chairAo, something like that.
AoThoseAo is for something that we cannot see or invisible.
LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 That is why I used Aothose natural disastersAo because natural disasters are not happening .
ot something that can be see.
Ay In this response, it can be inferred that the student has false perception that the determiner AothoseAo is used only for abstract nouns, while actually, it is used for plural nouns, hence explaining the occurrence of that erroneous sentence.
Incomplete Application of Rules During the interview process, it was found that there are 6 erroneous sentences due to this factor.
Specifically, there are 3 errors of this kind in subjectverb agreement errors, 2 in plural errors, and 1 in past participle.
The example of this error is taken from the past participle error that the student commit.
In the sentence AuAcoordination & prevention is the best solution to do before the main issue can be fixed,Ay the reviewer marked the phrase Aobefore the main issue can be fixedAo as an error.
According to the reviewer, the use of passive voice in this phrase was not suitable, hence that phrase was supposed to be revised as Aobefore fixing the main issueAo.
In response to this correction.
P4 said during the interview that:
AuI just write what I think sih, jadi kalo udah kerasa bener aku ga akan kepikiran kaya ini aktif apa pasif ya, gitu.
[I just write what I think, so when I think it is already correct, then I will not mind whether it .
he sentenc.
is in active or passive voice.
]Ay From this statement, it can be inferred that the participant did not have the knowledge about the appropriacy on when to use passive voice and when to not use it.
This can be concluded from how he/she highlighted that he/she has written the correct version of the sentence.
Moreover, the statement AuI just write what I thinkAy could imply the idea that the writer was focusing to communicate his/her thought in his/her writing, even though his/her subject matter in the use of passive voice was not yet complete.
Thus, this error can be considered as an error due to incomplete application of rules.
Conclusion There are two conclusions that can be summarized from this study.
Firstly, the result of this research showed that the freshmen of English Language Education in Sampoerna University still have hardships on three types linguistic items related to inflectional affixes, which are subject-verb agreement, plural, and past participle.
Specifically, the hardship related to omission of certain elements which are required to produce a grammatically correct sentence.
Secondly, the causes of the error occurrence were investigated through authoritative interpretation or interview, and it was found that interference of the first language was the dominating reason behind the erroneous sentences.
Negative transfers of Indonesian language system to English language system were responsible to most of the errors that the students committed.
Besides interlingual errors, there were several instances where intralingual factor played role, such as overgeneralization, incomplete application of rule, and false concept LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201.
Vol.
No.
October 2021 There were no errors that were caused by ignorance of rule There are several recommendations that were derived from the result.
Firstly, the lecturers of English Language Department, specifically in English grammarrelated course, are recommended to focus more on complementing the studentsAo comprehension regarding subject-verb agreement, plurals, and past participle.
This recommendation derived on the answer of the first research question, which showed that the students are still facing difficulties in those linguistic features.
Secondly, the lecturers are also recommended to point out the difference between Indonesian language system and English language system to avoid errors occurrence due to interlingual factors, such as negative transfer of Indonesian rules that is not compatible with English rules.
There is also a recommendation for future error analysis research based on the current research limitation.
From the experience of this research, having more than one reviewer to identify errors have its own benefits and drawbacks.
The benefit includes a more credible data .
rror occurrenc.
that can be extracted from the studentsAo written language, since the reviewer were experts in fields of linguistics and English language.
However, there is a drawback that needs to be considered, which is the differing opinion between the two reviewers about certain errors.
For instance, there was a case where a sentence was considered erroneous and was given correction by one reviewer, but the other reviewer deemed that the correction was erroneous.
To deal with this issue, it was decided to disregard both opinion in the research.
Hence, it is recommended for the researcher to have only one credible reviewer to identify and mark the errors of the studentsAo language to avoid this kind of issue to arise in future research.
References