4.2 Section A: Types and frequency of errors amongst schools
4.2.1 Interlingual errors
As outlined in chapter 2 of this thesis, there are two main sources of errors, interlingual and intralingual. The interlingual errors are those that result from first language interference whereas intralingual errors are caused by the mutual interference of items in the target language and reflect the general characteristics such as overgeneralisation, incomplete application of language rules or ignorance of language rules (Ellis, 2008; Johnson, 2008 and Kesharvarz, 1994).
4.2.1.1 Phonology/orthography errors
Errors related to phonology/orthography are presented in Table 10. A total of 314 errors from two main orthographic categories (spelling and word boundary) were observed. Spelling errors were highest, amounting to 96% and word boundary were the lowest with 4%.
65 In total school B made the most errors (72), followed by school E (69), school A (66) and school D (59).
School C recorded fewer errors (48) in comparison to the other four schools. Although these scores were not equal amongst these five schools, there seemed to be a general trend in terms of the type of error made, that is the error categories are similar amongst the schools.4
Type of error
Secondary Schools & Frequency of Error Total Percentage %
School A School B School C School D School E
Spelling 64 69 46 53 69 301 96%
Word boundary 2 3 2 6 0 13 4%
Total 66 72 48 59 69 314 100
Table 10 Phonology/orthography errors
4.2.1.2 (a) Spelling errors
Amongst all five schools, spelling errors were prevalent. The spelling errors were the highest frequent types of errors made in this study. A total of 301 errors were recorded from the overall 731 errors made in this study. As found in the learners’ written work, misspelling appeared when:
(i) Learners either doubled consonants (tommorrow - tomorrow, supprised - surprised, comming - coming);
(ii) Added a vowel at the end of a word (cloude - cloud, preciouse - precious);
(ii) Substitution of a consonant or vowel (buzy - busy, incourage - encourage, olso - also).
The English phonology and orthography differs from that of Oshiwambo; therefore, learners experience difficulties in writing English though even native speakers do. The Oshiwambo language has a transparent phonetic pronunciation, in that the letter or combination of letters always represents the same speech sound (Zimmerman and Hasheela, 1998). In other terms, the words are spelled in the same way as they are pronounced. For instance the word “card” is “okakalata” which is pronounced as /o-ka-ka-la-ta/ and the
4The frequency of errors per subcategory were summed and expressed as overall percentages of each subcategory. The percentage of each subcategory was calculated by dividing the frequency of error type with the total of the main error category, multiplied by 100.
66 word “powder” is “ufila” pronounced /u-fi-la/. Learners using the first language structure rule are likely to write the word “card” as /kard/ and “powder” as /pauda/ (Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 2006). In English the word “card” is pronounced as /kɑː(r)d/ and the word “powder” as /paʊdə(r)/ (ibid). The letter sound “k” is heard in the word “card”, while the word “powder” consists of a centering diphthong “aʊ”. The Bantu languages have no diphthongs (Wissing, 1988; Nurse, 2003).
Learners often write the sounds as they hear them using their known phonological route from the first language. This results in learners making spelling errors of transfer.
As the examples given in (i) above show, the doubling of letter “m” in the word “tomorrow” and “coming”
indicate the phonological rule that the pronunciation of “m” is prolonged as “mm” in Oshiwambo. For example, the pronunciation of “omunhu” (person/human being) is “ommnhu”. The learners may have carried this speech sound or rule to English. Although learners were not asked to produce words, I conclude that this form of error is a result of first language interference. This shows that learners did not make a distinction between spoken and written language.
In the second example (ii), the learners have added a vowel “e” after the consonant in the words “cloud”
and “precious” (cloude, preciouse). This is because Oshiwambo has an open syllabic structure, which means that words always end with a vowel (Zimmerman and Hasheela, 1994). Therefore, the learners have applied the same rule as that of their first language by adding a vowel at the end of the word.
The third example (iii) shows errors of substitution of a fricative “s” and substitution of vowels “a” and
“e”. In the word “busy” the learner has opted to use the fricative “z” so that the word reads as it is pronounced /bɪzi/. This error is attributed to first language interference since Oshiwambo words are written as they are pronounced. Powel (1998) terms this form of transfer “negative transfer”, which results when there is no concordance between the first language and the second language; however, the learner applies his or her first language rule to English. The learners have also misspelled the word “also” (olso) and “encourage” (incourage). In English “also” is pronounced as /ɔːlsəʊ/ and encourage /ɪnˈkʌrɪdʒ/
(Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 2006). This shows that the learners have written the words as they are pronounced employing the same rule used in Oshiwambo.
67 4.2.1.3 Word boundaries
The word boundary errors involved the breaking down of a word into phonemes. Learners have separated reflexive pronouns such as “myself”, “yourself”, and “herself” into two separate words “my self”, “your self” and “her self”. The learners did not regard these words as compound words but rather two separate words. Although many or most compound words in English are written as two words. In English, reflexive pronouns appear as compound words whereas in Oshiwambo, reflexive pronouns are written disjunctively (Zimmerman and Hasheela, 1998). This is demonstrated below:
(a) Ohandi shi ningi ame mwene. (I will do it myself) (b) Oto shi ningi ove mwene. (You will do it yourself)
(c) Ote shi ningi yee mwene. (He/she will do it himself/herself)
In the example above, “ame” denotes “me” or “my”, “ove” means “you” while “yee” refers to “she” or
“he” and “mwene” is “self”. Given that the learners have separated the reflexive pronouns into two separate words, shows that learners have transferred their first language rule and applied it in writing English. Therefore one may conclude that these errors are a result of interference from the learners’ first language.
4.2.1.4 Morpho-syntax errors
Table 11 presents the morpho-syntactic errors that were made amongst the five schools.
68 Type of error
Secondary Schools & Frequency of Error Total Percentage %
School A School B School C School D School E
Tense 30 30 15 23 11 109 41.9%
Preposition 17 9 6 12 2 46 17.6%
Article 11 12 8 6 4 41 15.7%
Noun/pronoun 9 2 4 10 5 30 11.5%
Agreement 3 2 0 4 2 11 4.2%
Run on sentence 3 3 3 2 0 11 4.2%
Phrasing 2 2 1 0 0 5 1.9%
Auxiliary 0 2 2 0 0 4 1.5%
Conjunction 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.3%
Word form 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.3%
Superlative 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.3%
Total 77 63 39 57 24 260 100
Table 11 Morpho-syntax errors
An overall total of 260 morpho-syntax errors were made in 11 subcategories (Table 11). Analysis revealed that the use of incorrect tenses was common amongst all five schools with a recorded 41.9%. In addition, the learners also had problems with the use of prepositions (17.7%), articles (15.8%) and nouns/pronouns (11.5%). The lowest number of errors recorded was for agreement (4.2%), run on sentences (4.2%), phrasing (1.9%), auxiliary verbs (1.5%), conjunction (0.3%), word form (0.3%) and superlative errors (0.3%). School A recorded the highest number of morpho-syntax errors, followed by school B and school D. The fewest morpho-syntax errors were recorded in school E.
4.2.1.5 (a) Noun/pronoun errors (omission of nouns/pronouns)
This category includes errors in the omission of a pronoun. According to Ellis (2008) omission errors refer to missing language elements in a sentence which are required so that the sentence reads correctly. An example attributed to first language interference is presented below:
(a) He should know that ( ) am here. (He should know that I am here) In Oshiwambo, the example above would read as:
69 (a) Neshi shive kutja opo ndili. (He should know that I am here)
The learners have omitted the pronoun “I” in the sentence when it was required to complete the sentence.
In the Oshiwambo version, the pronoun “ame” (I) is not used because with or without it the sentence still reads correctly. As in:
(a) Neshi shive kutja ame opo ndili. (He should know that I am here) (b) Neshi shive kutja opo ndili. (He should know that I am here)
A probable explanation for this type of error is first language interference because learners in this context have used the same rule that applies in their first language. The studies conducted by Mohamed (2004), Keiko (2003) and Olsen (1999) also found that learners have problems with the incorrect use of nouns and pronouns. These studies concluded that the causes of the errors that the learners made were first language influenced and also caused by the incomplete application of the language rule.