Error analysis (linguistics)

In second language acquisition, error analysis studies the types and causes of language errors. Errors are classified^[1] according to:

• modality (i.e., level of proficiency in speaking, writing, reading, listening)
• linguistic levels (i.e., pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, style)
• form (e.g., omission, insertion, substitution)
• type (systematic errors/errors in competence vs. occasional errors/errors in performance)
• cause (e.g., interference, interlanguage)
• norm vs. system

Methodology

Error analysis in SLA was established in the 1960s by Stephen Pit Corder and colleagues.^[2] Error analysis (EA) was an alternative to contrastive analysis, an approach influenced by behaviorism through which applied linguists sought to use the formal distinctions between the learners' first and second languages to predict errors. Error analysis showed that contrastive analysis was unable to predict a great majority of errors, although its more valuable aspects have been incorporated into the study of language transfer. A key finding of error analysis has been that many learner errors are produced by learners making faulty inferences about the rules of the new language.

Error analysts distinguish between errors, which are systematic, and mistakes, which are not. They often seek to develop a typology of errors. Error can be classified according to basic type: omissive, additive, substitutive or related to word order. They can be classified by how apparent they are: overt errors such as "I angry" are obvious even out of context, whereas covert errors are evident only in context. Closely related to this is the classification according to domain, the breadth of context which the analyst must examine, and extent, the breadth of the utterance which must be changed in order to fix the error. Errors may also be classified according to the level of language: phonological errors, vocabulary or lexical errors, syntactic errors, and so on. They may be assessed according to the degree to which they interfere with communication: global errors make an utterance difficult to understand, while local errors do not. In the above example, "I angry" would be a local error, since the meaning is apparent.

From the beginning, error analysis was beset with methodological problems. In particular, the above typologies are problematic: from linguistic data alone, it is often impossible to reliably determine what kind of error a learner is making. Also, error analysis can deal effectively only with learner production (speaking and writing) and not with learner reception (listening and reading). Furthermore, it cannot account for learner use of communicative strategies such as avoidance, in which learners simply do not use a form with which they are uncomfortable. For these reasons, although error analysis is still used to investigate specific questions in SLA, the quest for an overarching theory of learner errors has largely been abandoned. In the mid-1970s, Corder and others moved on to a more wide-ranging approach to learner language, known as interlanguage.

Error analysis is closely related to the study of error treatment in language teaching. Today, the study of errors is particularly relevant for focus on form teaching methodology.

Steps in error analysis

According to linguist Corder, the following are the steps in any typical EA research:^[3]

1. collecting samples of learner language
2. identifying the errors
3. describing the errors
4. explaining the errors
5. evaluating/correcting the errors

collection of errors: the nature and quantity of errors is likely to vary depending on whether the data consist of natural, spontaneous language use or careful, elicited language use.

Corder(1973) distinguished two kinds of elicitation:clinical and experimental elicitation. clinical elicitation involves getting the informant to produce data of any sort, for example by means of general interview or writing a composition. experimental elicitation involves the use of special instrument to elicit data containing the linguistic features such as a series of pictures which had been designed to elicit specific features.

See also

• Error (linguistics)
• Error treatment (linguistics)
• Second language acquisition

Notes