Download CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND In this chapter the

CHAPTER 2
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
In this chapter the writer will explain about theoretical background, which
consists of error analysis, writing and grammar. Error analysis consists of the
definition of the definition of error and error analysis, the distinction between error
and mistake, the cause of errors. Writing discusses about the definition of writing,
the differences between error and mistake and the process of writing, the types of
writing, and the purpose of writing. Then grammar consists of the definition of
grammar, the importance grammar in teaching, and the grammatical errors in
writing.
2.1 Error Analysis
”Error analysis is a method used to document the systematic errors that
appear in the learner language” (Carla, 2013) In the process of learning English as
second language, students will easily get influenced by their mother language.
Students who learn English as their second language often use inappropriate forms of
English. These inappropriate forms can be called as errors. It is hard to avoid making
errors since English is not their first language. However, it cannot be considered as
the failure in learning, because making errors is an essential part of learning. In the
other hand error analysis is a very good source for teachers, it can help the teacher to
know the students’ errors and helps the teacher to correct students’ errors and also
improves their teaching skill.
2.1.1
The Definition of Error
Making errors in foreign language is something that difficult enough to avoid
by learners, especially in English. “An error can be defined as a deviation from the
norms of the target language” (Ellis, 2008, p. 51)
When a learner of English as a second language or a foreign language, and
they makes an error systematically, it is because they did not learn the correct form
of the language target. Mostly, the cause of error that students made was because
they did not learn the correct form of the language target. On the other word, error
analysis is a process of finding a learners’ error in the target of language learning by
identifying the students’ works.
2.1.2
The Differences between Error and Mistake
“A distinction sometime made between an error, which result from
incomplete knowledge, and mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking and
which is caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or some other aspect of
performance” (Jack C & Richard, 2002, p. 184)
Error is what a learner cannot correct by themselves. It is as the result of lack
of knowledge, the learner do not know the correct form for the sentences. And
mistake is a performance error, when the learner fail to perform their competence,
the learner actually know the correct form but they forget the right form, it because
the learner cannot make the correct sentence.
2.1.3
The Cause of Error
Norrish (1987) classifies causes of error in learning process in learning process of
students into three types below:
1. Carelessness
The cause of carelessness in students’ writing is not only the students’
fault if they lose interest to the subject. Sometimes the materials can be the
cause why students’ cannot understand the materials. The materials of the
subjects must be suit to the learners. In this case the lecturer should be able to
make learning materials interesting for students so they can interest to the
materials of the subject.
2. First language interference
The reason of the students making errors when they are learning
English as second language is first language interference. When someone
tries to learn new habits the old one will interference the new ones. It is also
happen to the students who learning English as the second language. When
they try to make a sentence they may be influenced by their first language or
their mother language.
3. Translation from the first language
When the students who learning English as the second language are
trying to make a sentence by translate the word by word from the first
language or their mother language, they can possibly produce an error in
structure, because they forget the grammatical form, they just put the word by
word.
2.1.4 The kinds of Error
According to (Tayfoor, 2004) there are some of errors often made by the
students in writing and need to be corrected. And the writer took some of the
example of these errors below into the analysis. There are:
1. Grammatical error, the examples of the errors are: from the tenses, the
noun, preposition, etc.
2.
Written error, the examples of the errors are: punctuation, apostrophe,
capital letter, comma, etc.
2.1.5 The Procedure of Error Analysis
The procedures of doing the error analysis based on S.N Sridhar (1985) as
quoted by Haryono (2011) stated that there are a number of steps should be taken in
conducting an error analysis::
a. Collecting of the data (either from a free composition by students on given theme
or form examination answer).
b. Identification of errors (labeling with varying degrees of precision depending on
the linguistic sophistication brought to beat on task, with respect to the exact
nature of the deviation, dangling preposition, anomalous sequence of the tense,
etc).
c. Classification into the type of errors.
d. Statement of relative frequency the type of errors.
e. Identification of the area of difficulty in the target language.
f. Therapy (remedial, drill, lesson, etc).
The data of error analysis are taken from written test given to students. The
written data are taken from the summary of the written test that student made. In
order to get the valid data, the writer determines the aims of analyzing, the method or
technique, the instrument and data gathering. After the writer got the data of
students’ writing, the writer analyze them based on the error categories into the same
types: tenses, noun singular/ plural, subject and verb agreement, ing form, usage of
‘to’ and also word order, word order divided into two types of errors: incomplete
sentence and sentence order.
The next step done by the writer counting the error that the student make in
their writing test and after that the writer making the percentages of the errors and
then finding the mistake that student make the most. After that, the writer will give
the evaluation of errors that done by students and correction the data.
2.2 Writing
2.2.1 The Definition of Writing
There are four skills in learning English, there are, listening, speaking,
reading and writing, and for some student writing is a difficult process to learn even
in the first language. It is because in doing writing, students need hard thinking and
they have to produce words, sentences and paragraph at the same time. It is even
more complicated to write in a foreign language.
Writing covers a number of elements, such as content, grammar, vocabulary,
unity and coherence. All of this items essential in writing. Writing can help the
student to express their ideas through words and also to express their feelings
because they can produce the writing in their own words.
2.2.2 The Purposes of Writing
According to (Reid, 2000) there are three purposes of writing, and they all
can occur in a single essay. There are:
1. to explain(educate, inform)
2. to entertain (amuse, give pleasure)
3. to persuade (convince, change the readers’ mind) (p.8)
Based on the explanation above, the writer gives more explanation about the
purposes of writing. First, Writing can be a media to give people education, and
some information. As an example on the internet there are a lot of website that
contains educative work and information for the readers about anything. Second,
Writing can be a way for students to express their ideas in writing and to create a
literary work. The last one, writing can be used as a media to change the readers’
mind, for example a champagne, the candidate write a promises for the public if the
public choose him/her, and then the public believe it.
In addition it is a good way to practice their English in doing writing, because
in doing writing students must have a good knowledge, good thinking process, and
good grammatical knowledge; they also have to produce words, sentences and
paragraphs with a good grammar at the same time. The students have to make their
writing extensive knowledge; like grammar, if they want to write something they
have to make their writing is able to be read and understood by the readers.
2.2.3 The Types of Writing
According to Jack C & Richard (2002) there are four types that are generally
used. Knowing all these four different types of writing and their usages are important
for any writer. The writing types are:
1. Descriptive writing
Descriptive writing is a style of writing which focuses on describing a person,
place or thing.
2. Narrative writing
Narrative writing is a style which the author places himself as the character
and narrates you to the story. Narrative writing reports an event or tells the
story of something that happened, either nonfictional or fictional.
3. Expository writing
Expository writing is a subject-oriented writing style which explains a
particular subject, in which the main focus is to explain or to inform about a
given topic or subject, and leave out his personal opinions. expository writing
include giving examples, describing a process of doing or making something,
analyzing cause and effects, comparing and/or contrasting, defining a term or
concept, and dividing something into parts or classifying it into categories.
4. Argumentative writing
Argumentative writing attempts to support controversial point or defend a
position on which there is a difference of opinion, ESL writing programmes
have often been based on the assumption that novice writers should begin
with the simplest mode – the descriptive essay and gradually move to
learning the most difficult – the argumentative one.
2.3 Grammar
2.3.1 The Definition of Grammar
“A description of the structure a language and the way in which linguistic
units such as words or phrases are combined to produce sentence in the language. It
usually takes into account the meanings and functions these sentences have in overall
system of the language” (Jack C & Richard, 2002, p. 230)
Grammar is defined as a way words are put together to make a meaningful
sentence. Knowing about how grammar works is to understand more about how and
when grammar form is used and misused. Since English is not our mother language,
it is cannot be denied that learning English need a hard work and it also means that
there is a possibility of error occurrence in students writing. In this paper, the term of
error in grammar will be called a grammatical error.
2.3.2 The Grammatical Errors in Writing
These are examples of grammatical errors that found in the students’ writing
and the writer use these theories to support his analysis. There are:
a. Tenses
Tenses are one of the subjects that we learn when we learning English. We
cannot avoid that, tenses are very important in a sentence to describe the time of the
action. “the relation between the form of the verb and the time of the action or state
it describe” (Jack C & Richard, 2002, p. 545)
“Tense in English identifies when an event happens or describes a state. The
simple past indicates that an activity or situation began an ended at particular time in
the past. We use past tense to describe and narrate an event or situation that occurred
in the past and is over” (Emmaryana, 2010, p. 20)
Using the wrong tenses is the basic error that students tend to make. They
may use wrong form of verb for a specific tense. Tenses consist of: present tense
consist of simple present tense, present continuous tense, present perfect, present
perfect continuous tense. Past tense consists of simple past tense, pas continuous
tense, past perfect tense, past perfect continuous tense. Future tense consists of
simple future tense, future continuous tense, future perfect tense, and future perfect
continuous tense. Past future tense consist of past future tense, past future
continuous tense, past future perfect tense, past future perfect continuous tense.
In this paper the writer will only concern 4 basic tenses which often occur in
the students writing, there are: simple present tense, simple past tense, simple future
tense, past perfect tense.
b. Singular and Plural Noun
“In writing, most English noun form the plural with –s. this is true of noun
which in most consonant (e.g. road – roads, bag – bags, town – towns) and the vowel
a and e (e.g. area – areas, rope – ropes)” (Foley & Hall, 2003, p. 248)
They also explained the where to use the regular plural noun, first you can
use the plural noun in ending consonant –y the plural form is + ies in the ends of the
noun. And also in consonant –y but vowel –y the plural noun add +s in the end of the
noun word. The other form is ending in –ch, -sh, -s, -x, -z, in this case you have to
put +es to change into the plural form. the noun ending in consonant –o you should
add –es by the end of the noun word, The last one is the noun ending in consonant –o
but vowel –o you should add –s to this noun word.
In speaking, the plural form of nouns the learners may not really use it,
especially with nouns that ending with –s or –es, but it is really important to show the
plural or singular noun in writing, but some students still have a difficulty in this type
of error, some of the learners usually forget to put –s or –es in the ending of noun
when the sentence is a plural form or they put –s or –es when the sentence is a
singular.
c. Subject-Verb Agreement
“When a verb is singular, its subject must be singular: when a verb is plural,
its subject must be plural. When a subject is in the first, second or third person, the
verb must match it. This matching in number and person of subjects and verbs is
called agreement” (Marius & Wiener, 1985, p. 169)
In this case the subject and verb phrase in the English sentence should agree
in number and person which mean if the subject is singular, verb has to be singular.
If subject is plural the verb also has to be plural. Some students seem to have
difficulties with subject-verb agreement.
“Sometimes a lack of agreement between subject and verb results from
carelessness in composition or revision. But more often, writers use a singular
subject with a plural verb or plural subject with a singular verb, not because they
misunderstand the general rule but they are uncertain of the number of the subject
and the verb obscure the real subject” (Leggett, Mead, Kramer, & Beal, 1985, p. 64)
From the quotation above, the cause of the student making this kind of errors
is because they cannot identify the subject of the noun phrase. If they learn to
identify the subject they could easily learn to avoid this type of error.
According to Langan (2000) sometimes mistakes in subject-verb agreement
are made in the following situations:
1. When the words come between the subject and the verb
2. When a verb comes before subject
3. With compound subjects
4. With indefinite pronouns
d. Ing Form
In this paper the writer will analyze the use of –ing form. The writer divided
the –ing form into two, there are: gerund and continuous verb.
“The gerund has the same form as the present participle (simple form + -ing),
but it used as noun. It may be used as the subject or the complement of a sentence or
as the object of either a verb or preposition” (Werner, 1985, pp. 184-185) from the
explanation above a gerund is the –ing form of a verb and it is used as a noun. For
example: Playing is children’s favorite activity.
In this paper the writer only used two continuous verb forms, present
continuous verb form and past continuous verb form. “The present continuous tense
describes actions or situations in progress at the moment of speaking this includes
activities that are happening right now and current activities of general nature”
(Werner, 1985, p. 69)
The present continuous tense often used to tell a situation that happening at
that time or it can describe a current activities. The time expression that can be use in
present continuous tense are: now, right now, today, this morning, etc. for example:
He is singing at the stage now.
“The past continuous tense describes actions in progress in the recent past, a
few moments before the moment of speaking or at specific time in the past” (Werner,
1985, p. 79) The past continuous tense often used to tell a situation that have just
happen before the moment of speaking. The time expression often used are: ago, at
that time and etc.
e. Usage of ‘to’
In this part, the writer will give explanations about the correct usage of ‘to’:
infinitive and preposition ‘to’. The writer will give more explanation about these two
roles in the paragraphs below.
“The distinction between the preposition to and infinitive marker is generally
clear. Preposition is followed by noun phrase or an –ing form, the infinitive marker
by an infinitive clause” (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999, p. 77)
An infinitive is a verbal consisting of the word to + a base form of the verb
and function as a noun. For example: I love to read a newspaper. “Infinitives are
generally used with to; besides simple infinitives like (to) write, there are also
progressive infinitives (e.g. (to) be writing), perfect infinitives (e.g. (to) have
written)” (Swan, 2005, p. 254)
“The basic of the preposition of the direction is “to” when the goal is physical
place, such as a destination, “to” implies movement in the direction of the goal.
When the goal is not a physical place, for instance, an action, “to“ marks a verb: it is
attached as an infinitive and expresses purpose” (Cimasko, 2010)
From the explanation above, the preposition ‘to’ refers to movement in
general, in a certain direction, or contact. Mostly is used when speaking of contact
with another object, time, or direction/destination.
f. Word Order
“Word in English is very important in signaling the relationship between the
different elements within a sentence. Although the subject usually precedes the verb
in English, there are many different ways of ordering the other elements in the
sentence. This unit examines word order in sentences, as well as the most common
verb patterns in English and the way we link clauses complex sentence” (Folley &
Hall, 2003, p. 290)
Since English is a second language for the learners in Indonesia, we cannot
avoid this type of error made by students who learn English as their second language.
Sometimes when you translating a sentence from your first language it can help you
in your writing but sometimes it can cause the errors. And in this thesis the writer
divided word order into two, incomplete sentence and sentence order.
2.4 Previous Research
First research is from Amalia (2009), a Bina Nusantara University graduated
student, who researches about “Analysis on Grammatical Errors made by 11th grade
of Al- Azhar 3 Kebayoran Students In Their Narrative Writing” the problem
formulation is: what are the most common grammatical errors that 11th grade Sma
Al- Azhar 3 Kebayoran students make in producing narrative composition writing.
She uses library research and field research to complete her research and to analyze
the collected data and concluded that the entire student still made a high frequency of
grammatical errors. The most typical errors made by those students are verb tense
with percentage of 24%. Amalia’s research help the writer to conducting the data
collection and how to make a percentage of the students’ errors.
Second research is from Emmaryana (2010), an Syarif Hidayatullah State
Islamic University “An Analysis on the Grammatical Errors in the Students’
Writing”. The problem formulation of the research is to find out the percentage of the
grammar error into five aspects: Sentence Pattern (subject and verb), Tenses,
Pronoun, Preposition, Punctuation and Spelling made by first year students of SMA
Negeri 1 Cigudeg in writing recount text. In this research, Emmaryana used field
research, she gave a writing recount text that implemented in the story that
unforgettable moment in the students’ live. Emmaryana’s research gives some
reference to the writer in the way to analyze the collected data. There are many
differences in the way Emmaryana and the writer collect the data and apply the
theories and draw the result.