AN ERR
FACULTY OF TEACCHER TRAAINING ANND EDUCAATION UNIVEERSITY OFF MUHAMMMADIYAAH MALANNG
AN ERR
Thiss thesis is submitted tto meet onee of the requirements to achieve S
Sarjana Deegree in English Department
By:
SIITI MAHMMUDAH 093601151
ENGLLISH DEPAARTMENTT F
FACULTY OF TEACCHER TRAAINING ANND EDUCAATION UNIVEERSITY OFF MUHAMMMADIYAAH MALANNG
This thesis written bySitiMahmudah was approved on October 22, 2013
By:
Advisor II,
Khairudin, M.Pd
Advisor I,
Puji Sumarsono, M.Pd,.M.Ed
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillah, all price to Allah SWT, because of His gracious, mercies, blessing
and gives the researcher a power of spirits this thesis. Sholawat and greeting to his
greatest prophet Muhammad SAW who has bring us from the darkness to the
lightness.
The researcher would like to express her great appreciation to many persons who
had been involved in finishing this thesis. This researcher thanks to Puji
Sumarsono, M.Pd,.M.Ed as the first advisor and Khairudin, M.Pd as the second
advisor who gave their guidance, suggestion, correction, comment and their
practice. Moreover, her deepest gratitude is also extended to Hastirin Widi, M.A
as the English teacher in University of Muhammadiyah Malang who has helped
her to obtain the data.
The researcher grateful thank are expressed to her beloved parents (Djoko
Sumarno, Alm and Imaroh), her sister (Siti Masyrifah and Siti Maghfiroh), and
also her big family who always give their praying and love. Finally, her big thanks
for Marjuki who always give his love, praying, and spirit. Also her best friends
Nuria Setiarini, Markus Dana Arbianto, Rivaatin Mila Pratiwi, and Desi
Setyowati who always help, give motivate, and spirit to the researcher in finishing
the thesis.
Malang, Oktober 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
APPROVAL ... i
LEGALIZATION ... ii
MOTTO ANS DEDICATION ... iii
ABSTRACT ... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... v
TABLE OF CONTENT ... vi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1Background of the Study ... 1
1.2Statement of study ... 6
1.3Purpose of the Study ... 6
1.4Significance of the Study ... 6
1.5Scope and Limitation ... 7
1.6Definition of the Key Terms ... 7
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 9
2.1Writing ... 9
2.2Types of Writing ... 10
2.2.1 Narrating ... 10
2.2.2 Describing ... 11
2.2.3 Defining ... 12
2.2.4 Classifying ... 12
2.2.6 Arguing ... 13
2.3 Descriptive Essay ... 14
2.4 Definition of Error ... 17
2.5 Types of Error ... 17
2.5.1 Linguistic Category Taxonomy ... 18
2.5.2 Surface Strategy Taxonomy ... 19
2.5.3 Comparative Taxonomy ... 24
2.5.4 Communicative Effect Taxonomy ... 26
2.5.5 Organizational Error ... 28
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 29
3.1 Research Design ... 29
3.2 Population and Sample ... 30
3.3 Data Collection ... 32
3.3.1 Research Instrument ... 32
3.3.2 Procedures of Data Collection ... 33
3.4 Data Analysis ... 33
CHAPTER IV FINDING AND DISCUSSION ... 35
4.1 Research Findings ... 35
4.1.1 Types of Error ... 35
4.1.2 The Most Dominant Errors ... 45
REFERENCES
Ary, Donald. 2006. Introduction to Research in Education Seventh Edition. USA:
ThomsonHighest Education
Axelrod, Rise B & Charles R. Chooper. 1991. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing
(Short Third Edition). New York: ST. MARTIN’S PRESS
Azar, Betty Schramper. 1992. Fundamentals of English Grammar Second Edition.
New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs
Brown, H. Douglas. 2007. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Fifth
Edition. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
Dulay, Heidy. 1982. Language Two. New York: Oxford University Press
Dewi, Fenti Utia. 2011. An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing
Descriptive Paragraph Made by The Second Year Students of SMP
Muhammadiyah 06 DAUMalang. Unpublic Thesis. Malang: Universitas
Muhammadiyah Malang
Lainuddin, Mochammad. 2005. The Effect of Giving Feedback to Student’s
Writing. Malang: SMU Salahuddin
McCrimmon, James M. 1984. Writing With a Purpose. USA: Houghton Mifflin
Company
Oshima, Alice & Hogue, Ann. 2007. Introduction to Academic English Third
Edition. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
Riduwan. 2008. Belajar Mudah Penelitian Untuk Guru-Karyawan dan Peneliti
Pemula. Bandung: ALFABETA
Sattayaham, Anchalee & Ratanapinyowong, Pongrat. 2008. Analysis of Errors in
Paragraph Writing in English by First Year Medical Students from The
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents about: background of the study, statement of the
problems, purposes of the study, significances of the study, scope and limitation
and also definition of key terms. Each section is presented as follows:
1.1. Background of Study
English is a foreign language that should be learned by students from primary
school until university. Not only in Indonesia, English has big advantages to
learners in the whole world. It happens because English is an international
language that is used as formal or informal communication in the world. So,
English is a subject which is taught in the school’s curriculum in schools in many
countries.
English which is taught in Indonesian schools has four skills, which are
listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Listening and reading belong to passive
skill, because these skills just involve understanding words or sentences or item
recognition. Whereas, speaking and writing belong to active skills, because these
skills are included in productive skills.
In this case, productive skill has important role in teaching learning activity.
By applying productive skill, students can improve their English more active. In
especially writing skill, this skill can improve all students’ ability such as
(1983:6, in Anchalee and Pongrat, 2008) identified the different components for
producing a clear, fluent, and effective piece of writing: content, the writer’s
process, audience, purpose, word choice, organization, mechanics, grammar, and
syntax. In addition, correct language, punctuation mechanics, and logical content
are considered important to communicate in written work. So, writing is included
in complex skill because it consists of some abilities that should be mastered by
students at the same time.
The complexity of writing often leads some students to make some errors in
making written work. White and Arndt (1991, in Zainudin, 2004) argue that
writing is far from being a simple matter of transcribing language into written
symbols. Writing is a thinking process in its own right and certainly needs a great
intellectual effort which usually takes place a considerable period of time.
Because writing is complex language skill, the error level in making written work
is very high. Meanwhile, the meaning of the error itself is a systematic deviation
that happens when a learner has not learnt something and consistently ‘gets it
wrong’ (Norrish, 1983, in Anchalee and Pongrat, 2008).
Furthermore, the most dominant errors made by students are making an essay.
Essay is a written work that consists of some paragraphs, namely, introduction,
body, and conclusion paragraph (Hogue: 2007). Essay is a complicated
composition because essay should have coherence and unity in each paragraph.
introduction paragraph should have general and thesis statement; body paragraph
should have main topic sentence and supporting sentence; and conclusion
paragraph should have summaries of the whole of the paragraphs.
To avoid some errors in making an essay, teacher should have technique to
teach the students. For the example, the teacher begins to ask the student to make
an essay outlining or essay planning in order to make their essay coherent and
united in each paragraph before they write their essay. After that, to minimize
those errors, teacher can ask the students to do self editing and then peer editing.
It has advantages to add student’s knowledge about the element of essay.
In this study, the researcher just focuses on errors on the descriptive essay
written by the sixth semester students at the English Department of University of
Muhammadiyah Malang. The researcher chooses descriptive essay because
descriptive essay is complicated and most students often make errors. It is
because writing descriptive essay needs more concentration, and it requires the
students to combine their five senses to work together. Students should have the
ability to write the condition of something, and it should be well organized,
because they should make the reader not confused with their essay, and really
imagine that thing to be described.
There are three descriptive strategies to make a wonderful descriptive essay:
namely strategies-naming, detailing, and comparing.
or actual instances), while other are abstract (referring to ideas or qualities). And then for detailing, it has purpose to make the thing more specific. Although nouns can be quite specific, adding details is a way of making them more specific, and thus describing something more precisely. And for comparing has purpose to make the thing or object more evocative. Comparison makes language even more precise and description more evocative (Axelrod and Chooper, 1991).
In descriptive essay, the student should explain the object clearly such as, how
the object looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sounds. Descriptive essay is an essay
that tells how something looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sounds (Hogue: 2007).
So, to write descriptive essay the students should use their five senses, such as,
the sense of sights, smells, touchs, and tastes. If there are three basic descriptive
strategies-naming, detailing, and comparing, there are many language resources,
and some limitations, for reporting sense impression. These resources help
convey sights, sound, smell, touches, and tastes (Axelrod and Chooper: 1991).
In Fentis’ study (2011), she found that there were 230 grammatical errors
recognized from the composition. It was divided into 86 errors or 37, 39% errors
of omission, 23 errors or 10% errors of addition, 89 errors or 38, 70% errors of
misformation, and 32% errors or 13, 19% errors misordering. Based on the total
percentage of each type of errors, it was concluded that the dominant error in
descriptive paragraph made by the second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah
06 Dau Malang was information error. There were 89 or 38, 70% errors of
misformation. These errors were caused by overgeneralization in which the
to the target language, ignorance of rule restriction, and incomplete rule
application.
There are many reasons why students often make grammatical errors in their
writing. There are differences between grammar rules in English and those in
Bahasa Indonesia. For example, English has concept of tense for verb and subject
agreement, while grammar in Indonesia does not have any. Then, English has
different formation of regular plural nouns and irregular, but not in Bahasa
Indonesia. Besides, Bahasa Indonesia does not have gender pronouns, and the
pronouns are not as various as English in which pronouns depend on their
position in the sentence (Maulidiyah: 2008, in Frenti: 2011)
In summary, descriptive essay is a written work that describe about something
and tells how something looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sounds. The students
should use their five senses to explain something. This essay should has three
paragraphs, namely introduction, body, and conclusion paragraph. The students
also should master to make each paragraph in this essay united. Then the students
should explain something well organized. So, the reader can really imagine those
things. From those complex rules, sometime students do some errors in their
written work, such as; wrong punctuation, inappropriate spatial order, etc.
From those phenomena, the researcher is interested in choosing “An error
analysis on the descriptive essay written by the 6th semester students at the
English department of University of Muhammadiyah Malang” as the title of this
1.2. Statement of Study
Based on the background that has been discussed above, the writer formulated
the problems as follow:
1. What are types of errors found in descriptive essay written by the 6th
semester students at the English department of University of
Muhammadiyah Malang?
2. What are the most dominant errors found in the descriptive essay written
by the 6th semester students at the English department of University of
Muhammadiyah Malang?
1.3.The Purpose of Study
1. To identify what types of errors found in descriptive essay written by the
6th semester students at the English department of University of
Muhammadiyah Malang.
2. To identify the most dominant errors found in the descriptive essay
written by the 6th semester students at English department of University of
Muhammadiyah Malang.
1.4.The Significance of the Study
The writer hopes this study will give the information to the teachers about the
types of errors and the most dominant errors that is usually done by their students
in writing the descriptive essay. The result of this study can improve teacher’s
Also, the writer hopes this study will give the information to the reader who
wants to write descriptive essay by reading some errors that are presented. So, the
reader can avoid those errors and read some explanations about descriptive essay
to make a good descriptive essay.
1.5. Scope and Limitation
The scope of this study is the descriptive essay, while the limitation of this
study is the descriptive essay written by the 6th semester students at the English
department of University of Muhammadiyah Malang.
1.6. Definition of Key Term
To avoid misunderstanding of the terms used in this study, it is necessary to
define the key term as follows:
1. Error is a systematic deviation that happens when a learner has not learnt something and consistently ‘gets it wrong’ (Norrish, 1983:7, in Anchalee
and Pongrat, 2008).
2. Mistake refers to a performance error that is either random or a slip of the tongue, in that it is failure to utilize a known system correctly (Brown,
2007:257).
3. Error Analysis is the process of determining the incidence, nature, causes, and consequences of unsuccessful language (James, 1998:1, in
Anchalee and Pongrat, 2008).
