Dealing With Error Analysis In Language Acquisition

Here a distinction between overt and covert error should be highlighted. For instance what sounds as acceptable utterances may contain errors. These utterances may look acceptable and grammatical at the sentence level (overtly erronueous), but unacceptable in deeper level (covertly erroneous). The third step is the description of errors, here an explanation and interpretation of learners’errors is needed. If the learner is present the teacher can ask him to express his attention in his mother tongue. However if the learner is not accessible, the teacher had to infer what he/she intended to say from his utterance, its context and his knowledge of the target language. This called a plausible interpretation,( Keshavarz, 2011, p.79).

Error analysis

Corder (1967) proposed a criterion that helps us to do so. A mistake can be self corrected, but an error can not. Errors are “systematic” which means they can occur many times without a noticing of the learner. Only the teacher or researcher can locate them. This is the reason why researchers tend to focus on errors and not on mistakes. Corder made a distinction between systematic and non-systematic errors. Non systematic errors can occur in native language. Corder considered them as mistakes because they are not relevant to the process of language

The firs step is when the learner produces an error and does not notice it as an error. The second step is when a learner produces an error and he/she recognizes it as an error but he/she can not correct it. The mistake when the learner can correct the wrong form may be a third step. This distinction between errors and mistakes is maintained by many theorists.

2.5 Interlanguage

The interlanguage of a learner of a second/foreign language is the version of the TL that the learner has in his mind. The language he uses is neither a translation of his mother tongue, nor the TL he is learning, but a language in between. It is not exactly the same that native speakers have, instead it is an approximation.

Slinker identified four possible processes that figure the structure of interlanguage. First a transfer of ones’native language, some rules may result from the interference of L1. Second transfer of training (learner learn a rule as a result of instruction). Third, the overgeneralization of the TL rules (some forms of the TL may occur as a result of overgeneralization of the rules of the TL). Fourth, strategies of L2 communication (some elements may occur as result of specific ways learners use to communicate with native