SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING ERRORS

THEIR TYPES AND CAUSES

*Language learning, like any kind of human learning, involves committing errors.

* In the past, language teachers considered errors committed by their students as something undesirable which they diligently sought to prevent from occurring.

* During the past fifteen years, however, researchers in the field of applied linguistics came to view errors as evidence for a creative process in language learning in which learners employ hypothesis testing and various strategies in learning a second language.

Far from being a nuisance to be eradicated, errors are, as Selinker (1969) indicates, significant in three respects:

(1)errors are important for the language teacher because they indicate the learner's progress in language learning.

(2) errors are also important for the language researcher as they provide insights into how language is learnt.

 (3) finally, errors are significant to the language learner himself/herself as he/she gets involved in hypothesis testing.

Types of Errors

Researchers in the field of applied linguistics usually distinguish between two types of errors: performance errors and competence errors. Performance errors are those errors made by learners when they are tired or hurried. Normally, this type of error is not serious and can be overcome with little effort by the learner. Competence errors, on the other hand, are more serious than performance errors since competence errors reflect inadequate learning. In this connection, it is important to note that researchers (cf. Gefen 1979) distinguish between mistakes which are lapses (decline) in performance and errors which reflect inadequate competence.

Other researchers (cf. Burt and Kiparsky 1974) distinguish between local and global errors.

 Local errors do not hinder communication and understanding the meaning of an utterance. Global errors, on the other hand, are more serious than local errors because global errors interfere with communication and disrupt the meaning of utterances. Local errors involve noun and verb inflections, and the use of articles, prepositions, and auxiliaries. Global errors, for example, involve wrong word order in a sentence.

Finally, language learning errors involve all language components: the phonological, the morphological, the lexical, and the syntactic.

An example of a phonological error is the distinction between the phoneme /p / and the phoneme /b/ among Arab ESL learners; so we hear them saying pird and brison, for example, instead of bird and prison.

An example of a morphological error is the production of such errors as womans, sheeps, and furnitures.

A lexical error involves inappropriate direct translation from the learner's native language or the use of wrong lexical items in the second language. Examples of lexical errors are: This is the home that my father built, and The clock is now ten.

Finally, examples of syntactic errors are errors in word order, subject-verb agreement, and the use of the resumptive (summarizing) pronoun in English relative clauses produced by Arab ESL learners as illustrated in: The boy that I saw him is called Ali.

Error Analysis

Error analysis or (EA) for short is a branch of applied linguistics which emerged in the sixties as a reaction to contrastive analysis theory.

Contrary to (CA) which considers interference as the only source of errors, error analysis demonstrates that (L2) errors are not only due to the learners native language influence but also due to the reflection of some universal learning strategies such as simplification.

Erdoǧane (2005)argues that error analysis and contrastive analysis which try to investigate the same problem, i.e. explaining the second language acquisition, have different views of what is called an “error.'' Contrastive analysis considers errors as the result of transferring old habits from the learner's source language to the target language whereas error analysis considers them as the result of deviation from the target language norms.

Thus, error analysis deals with the learner's performance in terms of cognitive process; that is, the act of coding the received input from the target language by the learner. Coder (1967) notes that first language learners as well as second language learners have the cognitive capacity to make hypothesis about the language they are learning. In addition, he stresses that the strategies used by both learners are in many cases similar.

Sources of Errors

Interference errors are those caused by the use of the learner's native language elements in the target language, yet one must not confuse this with behaviouristic approach to language transfer. It is worth noting that (EA) does not consider interference as the result of old habits persistent, but rather as signs that the learners is investigating the systems of the new language.

Developmental errors are those caused by building hypotheses about the target language on the learner's limited experience, that is to say the strategies used by the learner to learn a language. Case of literal translation.

Intralingual errors are those which originate within the structure of the target language itself ; they are subdivided into errors due to overgeneralization, incomplete application of rules, ignorance of rule restrictions and false concepts hypothesized.

1. Overgeneralization: Overgeneralization occurs when the learner learns a rule and then uses it in new situation where it does not fit. Richards claims that ‘‘overgeneralization'' covers instances where the learner creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in the target language ...'' (1974, p.174). For example, producing sentences such as ‘'he can sings'' and ‘'he can plays'' instead of

‘'he can sing'' and ‘' he can play'' is due to false generalization.

2. Ignorance of Rule Restrictions

Generalization of deviant structures is usually the result of learners' ignorance of rule restrictions, For example, a novice learner of English who ignores the limitation on subject in structures with “who” will erroneously produce “The girl who I met her” instead of “The girl who I met.”

3. Incomplete Application of Rules

e.g. Write you the lesson ? instead of do write or have you written?

4- False Concepts Hypothesized

Many learners' errors can be attributed to wrong hypotheses formed by these learners about the target language. For example, some learners think that “is” is the marker of the present tense. So, they produce: He is talk to the teacher. Similarly, they think that was is the past tense marker. Hence they say: It was happened last night