Comparative Error Gravity: Toward a Cross Linguistic Theory

Negative transfer is a difficulty for Arabic-speaking students of English. This study juxtaposes eight categories of Arabic-to-English transfer errors with equivalent and near-equivalent errors in Arabic. It compares their error gravity as rated by teachers and students to discover whether there are any differences between teacher and student perceptions that might inform teaching practices. It is also the first step toward a cross-linguistic theory of comparative error gravity based on the functional equivalence approach to translation. It finds that teachers tend to perceive grammatical errors as graver than mechanical or lexical errors, with most differences in perception appearing to stem from cultural background. Among students, there is very little consensus, in line with previous studies. This study concludes that teachers and students might benefit from a better understanding of both their own tendencies in perceiving errors and those of the other party in the learning process. It also recommends the development of a full-fledged theory for moving between languages for the purpose of studying error gravity comparatively in languages other than Arabic.

COMPARATIVE ERROR ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH WRITING BY FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD YEAR STUDNETS OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF FACULTY OF EDUCATION AT CHAMPASACK UNIVERSITY

levels. To investigate the error types, the frequency of error types, the similarities and difference of errors and the last to find the error sources that occur in first, second and third year learners. Error analysis is one type of linguistic study and it focuses on learners’ error making. The linguistic category and surface strategy taxonomy are used to find out the types of error. The analysis the phenomenon based on Brown (1980) namely, error identification, error classification, Error description and error explanation. The data from students’ writing products, 54 pieces in three levels andthe total errors are 571 erroneous sentences. There are two types of errors, namely lexical errors and syntactical errors; eight error categories and twenty-seven error cases. The second year learners made the most error 263 errors or 46, 05% whilefirst year learners produced 229 errors or 40, 10% and third year learners made 79 errors or 13, 83%. There are similarity in errors types, five similar categories and five error cases, but there are three different error categories and eighteen error cases. The main error sources, learners had lack knowledge of English grammatical rule. The overgeneralization (265 errors or 46, 40%) influences learners’ error, language transfer (199 errors or 34, 85%) still interfere learners’ acquisition and simplification (107 errors or 18, 73%) is one factor that effect learners’ errors.