CHAPTER 2
THE NATURE OF
LEARNER LANGUAGE
Agnetia dian saputri
2201410017
101-102
English education
ERRORS AND ERROR
ANALYSIS
Identifying errors


The first step in analysing learner errors is to
identify them. This is in fact easier said than done.
To identify errors we have to compare the sentences
learners produce with what seem ‘correct’ sentences
in target language.
Examples :
 A man and a little boy was watching him
× A man and a little boy were watching him
We need to distinguish errors and mistakes
 Errors : reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they
occur because the learner does not know what is
correct
 Mistakes : reflect occasional lapses in performance;
they occur because, in a particular instance, the learner
is unable to perform what he or she knows.
Describing errors
 errors into grammatical categories

try to identify general ways in which the learners’
utterances differ from the reconstructed target-language
utterances.
 Omission
 Misinformation
 Misordering
Explaining errors


The identification and description of errors are
preminariesto the much more interesting task of
trying to explain why they occur.
Errors are not only sistematic, but also universal.
ERRORS, THEN, HAVE DIFFERENT SOURCESS
 Learners commit errors of
ommision.
 Overgeneralization error.
Error evaluation


Some errors can be considered more serious than
others because they are more likely to interfere with
the intelligibility of what someone says.
Some errors, known as global errors and local
errors.
example of global error :
The policeman was in this corner whistle. . .
(which is difficult to understand because the baic
structure of the sentences is wrong).
Example of local errors :
Affect only a single constituent in the sentence ( for
example, the verb) and are, perhaps, less likely to create
any processing problems.
DEVELOPMENTAL
PATTERNS
The early stages of L2 acquisition
When learners do begin to speak in L2 their
speech is likely to manifest two particular
characteristics.
1. The kind of formulaic chunks which we saw in the
case studies.
Fixed expression like ‘How do you do ?’
2. Propositional simplification.
Learners find it difficult to speak in full sentences so
they frequently leave words out.
Example :
J wanted the teacher to give him a blue crayon, but he
said only “Me no blue”.
The order of acquisition
To investigate the order of acquistion, reseachers
choose a number of grammatical structures to study
(for ex: progressive –ing, auxiliary be, and plural –s).
SEQUENCE OF ACQUISITION
The acquisition of a particular grammatical
structure, must be seen as a process involving
transitional cosructions.
For example :
stage
description
example
1
Learners fail to mark the
verb for past time.
‘eat’
2
Learners begin to produce
irregular past tense forms.
‘ate’
3
Learners overgeneralize the
regular past tense form.
‘eated’
4
Sometimes learners produce
hybrid forms.
‘ated’
5
Learners produce correct
irregular past tense forms.
‘ate’
SOME IMPLICATION
The discovery of common patterns in the way in which
learner language changes over time is one of the most
important findings of SLA.
VARIABILITY IN LEARNER LANGUAGE
This is one type of error may alternate with another
type:
Yesterday the thief steal the suitcase.
Yesterday the thief stealing the suitcase.
Or an error may alternate with the correct targetlanguage form:
Yesterday the thief steal the suitcase.
Yesterday the thief stole the suitcase.
The claim that learner language is systematic since it is
possible that variability is also systematic. That is, we
may be able to explain, and even predict, when learners
use one form and when another.
Learners vary their use of language similarly. They are
more likely to use the correct target-language forms in
formal contexts and non-target forms in informal
contexts.
Another important factor that accounts for the
systematic nature of variability is the psycholinguistic
context-whether learners have the opportunity to plan
their production.
A characteristic of any natural language is that forms
realize meanings in a systematic way. Learners
language is no different.
It is important to recognize that this general sequence
of acquisition applies to specific grammatical features.
Thus, it is possible for individual learners to be at
different stages in the sequence for different
grammatical features.
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