PROS Christianti Tri Hapsari An Analysis of Errors in the Use Full text

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 40

AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS IN THE USE OF ARTICLE

IN THE NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITING

STUDENTS

Christianti Tri Hapsari

Satya Wacana Christian University

Introduction

Article system includes the indefinite article a (n), the definite article the, and the zero (Ø) or null article (Maslo, 2011). Basically, it denotes a general picture of both spoken and written English (ibid.). Besides, English articles are also one of the crucial marks of native speaker competence because they indicate language mastery and accuracy in both thought and expression (Miller, 2005). Though the articles a(n), the and the zero article (Ø) are function words, they convey vital information about the noun phrases they modify (Stehle, 2009).

Articles are placed among the five most common words in English Master (2002) in Miller (2005) but it is an indefinable aspect of English grammar (Hasbun, 2009). Master (2002) as cited in Venuti (2011) points out that errors in the use of article still exist even when other elements of the language seem to have been acquired. According to Ekiert (2004), “Article system is one of the most difficult structural elements for ESL learners, causing even the most advanced non-native speakers of English (NNS) to make errors” (p.1). Moreover, Maslo (2011); Kaku (2006) as cited in Venuti (2011) also states that most of English learners are having difficulties in acquiring article system, even after many years of natural exposure; articles continue to contribute difficulties. It happens in both English learners whose first language has an article system and the one whose first language does not have that element (Maslo, 2011).

In general, Crompton (2011) stated “SLA research on English article acquisition has

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learners in interlanguage. However, Master (1997) as cited in Ekiert (2004) was the first to

point out that “Articles appear to be acquired differently, depending on whether or not they occur in the learner‟s L1” (p.3).

A study conducted for L1 Syrian Arabic speakers of English whose language had article system showed that they had a high accuracy rate in supplying the article the and a but tends not to produce them in every case where they are compulsory for native speakers (Sarko, 2008). A similar study conducted by Maslo (2011) for Arabic speakers found that the participants were more accurate in the use of the and Ø. He also discovered that L1 learners whose had article system in his study tend to overuse the in the early stage of acquisition.

Since Arabic has only a definite article and no indefinite article, Arabic students tend to broaden their L1 concept of not spotting the indefinite article in English and thus tend not to use a in obligatory contexts (Kharma, 1981; Thompson-Panos & Thomas-Ružić, 1983) in Bataineh (2005). Another study conducted for Spanish English learners‟ proved that the Spanish speakers optionally applied articles (Snape, 2006) in Stehle (2009). Alike study conducted for Arabic speakers, the results of the study showed that the speakers of the [+article] language (Spanish in the study) were able to transfer the article system from their

L1 to their L2 (Dağdeviren, 2010). In summary, L1 learners whose [+article] seem to be able

to master article system which is similar to their L1 but still having difficulties in acquiring article system which does not exist in their L1. It is in a line with what Master (1997) in Ekiert (2004) has suggested that the existence of article system in the L1 learners affects how articles system acquire differently.

Unlike L1 learners whose have article system, L1 [-article] cannot find supports in their mother tongue (Maslo, 2010). This is the reason why they are one stage behind L1 learners whose [+article]. Master (1997) in Ekiert (2004) who analyzed spoken data from twenty English learners found that the learners from [-article] initially oversupplied Ø in obligatory contexts and then after realizing that Ø was not always accurate, switch to using

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 42 Quite different from what Robertson (2000) found, Ionin et al. (2003) as cited in Dağdeviren

(2010) who conducted a research that included 50 L1-Russian and 38 L1-Korean learners of English found pretty dissimilar results. The results of the study showed that the intermediate and advanced L2-English learners used the with definites and a/some/zero article with non-specific indefinites. However, they used the and a interchangeably in specific indefinites.

In spite of its difficulties in learning, the article system is also too complicated to teach in a way that is completely comprehensible and appropriate for all uses. A claim states that exposure to instances of article over time should enable students to learn them (Venuti, 2011). However, some linguists such as Dulay, Burt, & Krashen (1982) in Ekiert (2004) have argued that the English articles are unteachable. Doughty and Williams (1998) in Ekiert (2004) added that “There are some forms, such as the English article system, that seem strangely impermeable to instruction and so, for that reason alone, perhaps should not take up

valuable class time” (p.8).

Due to those difficulties, the frequency of errors in the use of article is high. Article system is placed as one of the three most frequent types of grammar errors learners across levels (Hasbun, 2009). Therefore, a good way to find a better system of teaching articles is required to deal with such errors. That is why a closer look at why students make errors (sources of errors) is really significant. Essentially, there are two major sources of errors, interlingual and intralingual errors. Interlingual error is believed to be the interference of the

learner‟s mother tongue (Richards, 1971). Whereas intralingual error reflects the learner‟s competence at a particular stage and illustrates some of the general characteristics of language acquisition (ibid.).

A study by Dulay and Burt (1974) as cited in Crompton (2011) diagnosed only one of the 74 article system errors in their data as “interlingual”, whereas White (1977) as cited in Crompton (2011) did not find any interlingual errors in his study of the 31 article system

errors. The proper focus of such study were errors conceived of as “intralingual” or

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who have article system [+article]. The study that focus on the sources of errors in the use of articles for L1 learners whose [-article] is still lack.

Realizing the fact that article system is difficult to acquire and the studies investigating the sources of errors for L1 learners who do not have an article system is lack,

this study aims to find out the sources of errors in the use of article in Indonesian English learners whose L1 do not have an article system. By recognizing the sources, I believe it can help the teachers to identify the specific common language problems of their students and it will be useful to prepare effective teaching materials. In addition, the knowledge in knowing the sources of errors will equip teachers to help students minimize or overcome their language learning problems (Darus and Subramaniam, 2009 in Wee, 2009). By realizing the importance of finding the sources of errors, I intend to address the following research

question: “What caused English Department Satya Wacana Christian University narrative and descriptive writing students to make errors in the use of articles?”

The Study

This study surveyed 15 college students in Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Indonesia who took English as their major. All of the participants were the ED freshmen who attended Narrative and Descriptive Writing class, in the odd semester, year 2011-2012. Their age ranged from 18-22 years old. The sampling was chosen randomly and the participants were all female.

The reason why the study conducted in Narrative and Descriptive Writing class was because learners seemed to be more accurate when they were telling a narrative (Tarone, 1985; Tarone & Parish, 1988) as cited in Stehle (2009). They (Tarone and Parrish, 1988) added that, “Narration – a communicative language production task – requires a speaker to rely heavily on the accurate textual use of the definite article to communicate clearly and

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In attempting to answer the research question, the methodology used 2 data collections: collecting narrative and descriptive writing draft and interview. The first step was

the collection of a sample of learner language. I collected the participants‟ first draft of narrative and descriptive writing because it could reflect the real knowledge of the participants. The length of the draft was minimum one page. After doing collection of a sample of learner language, I continued to the next step, identification of errors. In identification of errors I should involve a comparison between what the learner had produced and what a native speaker counterpart would produce in the same context (Ellis & Barkhuizen , 2005). Thus, I asked a help from a native speaker teacher to give grammar

feedback in the participants‟ drafts. The native speaker teacher has been teaching English in

Indonesia for about 8 years and spoke Indonesian fluently. The feedback would be my

guidance for identifying the participants‟ errors in the use of articles.

After identifying the errors, the second data collection was done through individual

interviews. The interviews were recorded and done in the participants‟ native language

(Indonesian) so that the problems of communication could be avoided (Husada, 2007). Here the participants were unconsciously showed some words or phrases in their writing that reflected their errors in the use of article and asked for their reasons for producing such erros.

From this, the source of learners‟ errors could be identified. In spite of interviewing, I had to

distinguish between learners‟ errors and mistakes. If they could do self-correct so it was a mistake. However, when they were not able to do it, then it was an error (ibid.).

The analysis of participants‟ errors would use the steps suggested by by Corder (1974) in Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005). The steps included: (1) collection of a sample of learner language, (2) identification of errors, (3) description of errors, and (4) explanation of errors. While the analysis of this study was done through classifying the errors based on two different sources: interlingual (the participants mother tongue) and intralingual (their learning strategies) (Husada, 2007). According to James (1998), the strategies involved (1) false analogy (a kind of over-generalization), (2) misanalysis, (3) incomplete rule application (a kind of under-generalization), (4) exploiting redundancy, (5) overlooking co-occurrence restrictions, (6) hypercorrection, and (7) system simplification.

Discussion

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 45 students to make errors in the use of articles? the finding suggested that both interlingual errors (the result of mother tongue influences (Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005)) and intralingual errors (reflect the operation of learning strategies that are universal (Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005)) contributed to the production of errors in the use of articles. Yet most errors made by the participants attributed to intralingual errors. Out of 136 deviances, 28 or 20.59% belonged to mistakes, 17 or 12.5% were interlingual errors, and 86 or 63.23% were found to be intralingual errors. The result supported some previous findings that intralingual errors were more obvious than interlingual errors (Alsulmi, 2010; Husada, 2007; Bataineh, 2005). Besides, the study also found compound errors where errors were caused by more than one source (James, 1998). The study found 5 or 3.68% were compound errors.

Interlingual errors

Interlingual errors were believed to be the result of mother tongue influences (Corder (1983), in Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005)). The first cause of interlingual errors was because some participants translated their thought from Indonesian into English without considering any significant changes. The participants ignored the fact that a good translator did not let L1 to spoil the output of her translation, but edited unwanted transfers and made necessary adjustments to make the final text natural (James, 1998). Consequently, negative interference

from participants‟ native language (Indonesian) occurred. It was apparent from these

examples below.

The deletion of indefinite article

1. …I just had *20% chance of life [√a 20% chance of life]. (Participant H) The substitution of possessive pronoun for indefinite article

2. “Sego Jagung” has *its historical story [√a historical story]. (Participant D) mistakes

21%

interlingual errors

13% intralingual

errors 63% compound

errors 4%

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From the first example above, it seemed that the participant H was not really careful with her Indonesian English translation. Unlike English, Indonesian did not have article system. The absence of the article system in Indonesia influenced the output of her translation. As the result, when she translated the phrase 20% kesempatan untuk hidup into English *20% chance of life, she omitted the use of the indefinite article a which in English was obligatory for percentage (Thren, 2012).

Different from the first example, in the second example, the participant D tried to use a pattern that was close to the second language structure when she translated her thought from Indonesian to English. Odlin (1989) used the term calques to refer to such pattern

(“Calques are errors that reflects very closely to a native structure”).The participant D above wanted to say that Sego Jagung punya sejarahnya sendiri and she translated it into “Sego

Jagung” has its historical story. She tried to find the closest pattern for Indonesian possessive pronoun –nya in the target language, English. Consequently, she used the possessive pronoun its as the substitution for the Indonesian possessive pronoun -nya

(Dardjowidjojo, 1978). Unfortunately, in this case the use of its was not really suitable. According to Thren (2012) the use of its was more appropriate for noun like city, not for food

like “sego jagung” in general. It was more suitable to use the article a because there was a possibility that the story for “sego jagung” was more than one (Thren, 2012).

The second interlingual error was caused by the inappropriate transfer from Indonesian singular form into English singular form. For example:

The substitution of indefinite article for definite article

3. My dad became *a student [√the student]and I became *a teacher [√the teacher]. (Participant J)

In English, singular was expressed by the article a or an. Similar to English, Indonesian also had singular form. The application was marked by the word satu, suatu or esa and the prefix

se-(Alwi et al., 1998). Unfortunately, this similarity made the learners overuse article a/an. It could be seen in the participant J's sentence in which she directly translated her Indonesian singular concept, seorang guru and seorang murid, into a teacher and a student without making necessary adjustments. Actually, participant J needed to consider the textual use of the English article system. In her composition, the references for the words student and

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 47 Intralingual errors

Intralingual errors reflected the learner‟s competence at a particular stage, and

illustrated some of the general characteristics of language acquisition (Richards (1974), in Bahar (2007)). Based on James (1998), intralingual errors were divided into six categories: false analogy, misanalysis, incomplete rule application, exploiting redundancy, overlooking co-occurance restrictions, and system-simplification. The finding of the study showed that

exploiting redundancy and misanalysis were found dominant. Out of 86 intralingual errors, 30 or 34.88% were due to misanalysis (MA), 34 or 39.53% were exploiting redundancy (ER).

While, 7 or 8.14% were false analogy (FA), 2 or 2.33% were caused by incomplete rule application (ICA), 2 or 2.33% were overlooking co-occurance (OCR), 6 or 6.98% were due to hypercorrection (HC), and the rest of 5 or 5.81% were overgeneralization (OV).

The first source of intralingual error was false analogy. As James (1998) stated,

“False analogy happens when learners wrongly assume that the new item B behaves like A”

(p.185). For example:

The use of indefinite article with uncountable noun

4. She wrote the big one in *a paper [√a piece of paper]. (Participant L) 0

5 10 15 20 25 30 35

FA MA IRA OCR ER HC OV

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Here, participant L wrongly assumed that paper was a singular countable noun so she put a in front of paper. She did not realize that paper was actually uncountable. It collocated with a piece of (Thren, 2012). The correct pattern should be √a piece of paper.

The second source of intralingual errors discussed in this study was misanalysis. Different from false analogy, misanalysis occurred when the learners formed a hypothesis of L2 item, but the hypothesis was unfounded (James, 1998). For example, a learner wrongly assumed that the singular possessive pronoun its was plural because of the s. The example found in this study was:

The substitution of definite article for indefinite article

5. …I graduated from * the kindergarten [√a kindergarten]…(Participant L)

From the fifth example above, it was shown that the participant L had a false concept about the use of the article the. In her opinion, the article the could be used to emphasize something, in this case to emphasize the word kindergarten. Actually, the use of the article

the, in *the kindergarten, should be omitted because kindergarten had no particular name. Moreover the word kindergarten showed a general thing, not referred to a specific

kindergarten. The correct pattern should be √kindergarten. The following table shows some other errors caused by misanalysis:

Figure 3: Errors due to misanalysis

Types of errors Errors Reconstruction Description of misanalysis

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 49 as singular. In fact, there was a clear reference (Medan mall) for the word

name (definite).

The article the was wrongly used for emphasizing.

The third source of intralingual errors was incomplete rule application. According to

Alsulmi (2010), “Not all the intralingual sources were applicable when breaking down errors as it depended on the linguistic area being investigated. For example, incomplete application of the rules did not correspond with article errors” (p.32). This statement was strengthened by Brown (1987) in Alsulmi (2010):

This source can often be observed in the deviant order of subject and the verb „to be‟, as in: Nobody

knew where was Sami. A learner here has applied only two components of the interrogative formation rule, but he/she has not inverted subject and verb. (p.32)

Different from what Brown (1987) stated, in this study the researcher found an error that was caused by incomplete rule application. James (1998) mentioned:

Incomplete rule application is opposite to overgeneralization and can be found in the learner‟s failure

to utilize inductive word order: Nobody knew *where was Barbie. Here the learner knows the general rule of wh-questions, but he or she does not know how to use it in an indirect sentence. (p.185)

The example found in this study was:

Wrong Placement

6. There was a time when we were fighting for *a quite long time [quite √a long

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From the example above, it showed that the participant G had applied the rule of the article system but she failed to put the article a in the right order. An article was not placed before an adverb like quite. The correct placing for the article a should be after the adverb quite, quite √_{a long time}_{(Thren, 2012)}_.

The fourth intralingual error was exploiting redundancy. Exploiting redundancy often appeared when the learner omitted grammatical features that did not contribute to the meaning of an utterance (James, 1998 in Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005). These following examples would show it.

The deletion of indefinite article

7. “Hmm, you need to go on *diet [√a diet], buddy”. (Participant B) The deletion of definite article

8. … He can play *guitar, bass, and also drum [√the guitar, bass, and also drum]. (Participant A)

All examples above indicated that the participant A and B omitted the use of article because they were just focus on conveying their thought. The participants unconsciously cut the use of article because it did not carry any significant and obvious contrasts for their sentences (Richard, 1974). In the seventh example, the participant B should put the indefinite article a together with diet in the phrase go on *diet (go on √a diet) (Thren, 2012). Whereas in the eighth example, the definite article the was required because musical instruments should collocate with article the ( …play √the guitar, bass, and also drum) (Thren, 2012).

The fifth intralingul error was overlooking co-occurrence restrictions. According to Richards (1983) as cited in (Husada, 2007), “A learner occasionally overlooks or fails to

observe the restrictions of existing structures.” James (1998) also points out that:

Overlooking co-occurrence restriction appears in the use of the words fast and quick. People often mistakenly assume that the two words can be used interchangeably, though in fact they are not, because we may say fast food but not *quick food. (p.186)

The example of overlooking co-occurrence restrictions found in this study was:

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Here, the participant A thought that the use of the article the in the words “*the good

looking guy.” behaved like the use of the in the words the most handsome guy and the cute one. She believed those two words reflected the function of the that was used for emphasizing. It was correct that the use of the in the word the most handsome guy was to emphasize. However, the in the cute one was not for emphasizing but it was used to refer to a particular person who was cute. Moreover, the word one pointed out that there was only one person who was cute. That was different from the use of the in the words “*the good looking

guy.” At that phrase, the use of the showed that there was only one good looking guy in this world (Thren, 2012). It was absolutely impossible. If the participant A wanted to emphasize

good looking guy she should use superlative form. From those explanation, it was clear that the participant A could not distinguish the use of the in the words the cute one, the most handsome guy and “*the good looking guy.” The correct pattern should be “√a good looking guy”.

The sixth source of intralingual errors was hypercorrection. In hypercorrection learners made errors because they over-monitored their L2 output (James, 1998). Here, the examples found in this study:

10.I mean *the photo [√a photo]when he was younger,…(Participant A) The substitution of indefinite article for zero article

11.…but I knew it by *an accident [√accident]. (Participant H)

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In spite of showing erroneous due to fear of making errors, hypercorrection also

revealed learners’ consistency with their previous knowledge (James, 1998). These

examples below could illustrate it.

12.It was *the real home [√a real home] for me. (Participant C)

The substitution of indefinite article for plural noun

13.Since that time, we became *a friend [√friends]. (Participant G)

The participant C and G tried to be consistent with their previous knowledge about the concept of definiteness and indefiniteness in the article system but failed to recognize other rules. The participant C argued that the words real home was definite because it referred to the word my house in her previous sentence, I love my house. She did not realize that the use of the in *the real home created different meaning. Thren (2012) stated that the meaning would be the only one real home in this word belonging to participant C (the real home for me). The appropriate sentence should be It was √a real home for me. Whereas the participant G believed that the word friend was singular so that she put a in front of it. She did not aware that the use of pronoun we made the word friend become plural (Thren, 2012) so it supposed to be Since that time, we became √friends.

The seventh intralingual error was overgeneralization. James (1998) pointed out,

“Overgeneralization or system- simplification occurs when the learner overuses one member of a set of forms and underuses others in the set” (p.187). In addition, Richard (1974) explained that overgeneralization covered instances where a learner created a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in the target language. For example

he can *sings, we *are hope, it *is occurs, he *come from. These following examples could illustrateit:

The substitution of definite article for zero article

14.…by *the time [√time]. (Participant B)

The substitution of indefinite article for zero article

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It was clearly seen above that the participant B overused the article the. The participant assumed that the could be used with a noun like time so every time the word time

occurred she automatically use the to collocate with it. She did not notice that time was uncountable. It needed no article (Thren, 2012). The appropriate phrase should be √time.

Whereas the participant H over generalized her previous knowledge that was used to illustrate past childhood when I was a child. She thought it could also be used when the pronoun was different. As the result, she made a sentence When my parents was *a child. In this case, she did not change the to be (was) and the noun phrase (a child). Actually, subject should agree with the verb or the to be. Besides, subject also needed to agree with the object. In this case, the subject was my parents so the to be should be were because they were plural.

The object, a child, should also agree with the plural form of subject, my parents, so the object should be changed into children (the plural form of child). So that the correct pattern should be when my parents √were children.

Compound errors

Compound errors were errors that were caused by more than one source (James, 1998). It was also strengthen by Alsumi (2010) that errors could be attributed to multiple sources. For instance:

The substitution of indefinite article for definite article

16.I thank God for *a comfortableness [√the comfort]…(Participant C)

For this error, there would be two sources of error. The first source was

overgeneralization. As shown in the example above, the participant C employed the article a

because she argued that comfortableness was a noun and it required an article. It was pretty clear that the participant C seemed to over generalize that all nouns should have articles. Besides, she also overgeneralized the use of suffix –ness that was used to change adjectives to nouns so she produced the word comfortableness. In fact, there was no such a word like

comfortableness. The noun form for the adjective comfortable was √comfort (Thren, 2012). She also thought that the word comfortableness was indefinite so she decided to use a.

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Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 54 warm feeling in the previous sentence (It provides a warm feeling …), so the correct pattern should be √the comfort (Thren, 2012).

Conclusion

The results obtained above suggest that both interlingual and intralingual errors contributed to the acquisition of the article system. Intralingual errors appeared more dominant than interlingual errors in the acquisition of article system. Out of 136 deviances, 28 or 20.59% belonged to mistakes, 17 or 12.5% were interlingual errors, and 86 or 63.23% were found to be intralingual errors. These findings agree with earlier claims that errors are not only merely viewed from L1 influence but also from learners‟ competence and general characteristics of language acquisition (Shekhzadeh 2011; Alsumi 2010; Richard, 1971). Furthermore intrangual errors found in this study were dominantly caused by misanalysis and exploiting redundancy. Six other intralingual errors (false analogy, incomplete rule application, overlooking co-occurrence restriction, hypercorrection, and overgeneralization) were found minimal.

Apart from those sources of errors, this study also found a non-linguistic factor. The factor was participants‟ carelessness. Some of the participants were not careful enough when they were doing their narrative and descriptive drafts. They just focused on conveying the meaning of their composition without carefully considering English grammar. They also admitted that sometimes they only wrote what they thought and ignored the grammar.

Since the article system is difficult and need a slow and gradual process, teachers often wonder how to best guide their learners. Here, Cowan (2008) suggests that teachers need to focus on aspects of article usage as their students move through different level of proficiency. Moreover, he adds that teachers should give their students more correct examples of article usage and opportunities to use article in real communication. In summary, by studying the sources of errors in the use of articles, teachers can understand the difficulties that their students face and it can be used as guidance to find the right solution for students in acquiring article system.

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reliable conclusions. In spite of it, collecting spontaneous oral data such as speaking would enrich the scope of the study.

From this study, I hope that English teacher will be more aware of reasons behind

students‟ errors in the use of articles. Moreover, I also hope that teachers will make use of