انجمن علمی زبان دانشگاه آزاد یزد

Types of Errors

The different types of errors in error analysis vary among researchers in error analysis. Jack C. Richards suggests there are three kinds of errors: interlanguage, intralingual, and developmental.

Interlanguage, or “language transfer,” errors occur when the learner tries to apply rules from his or her mother tongue to those of the second language. Therefore, the learner's first-language background plays a part in this type of error. Contrary to the interlanguage errors, language learners show a similar pattern in making an intralingual error and a developmental error regardless of their language backgrounds. This type of error is thought to originate from the language structure itself and is found not only in the production of the second-language learner but also in the language of children who are acquiring the language as their first language. One example of intralingual errors is missing a modal auxiliary (the verb to be), as in the following sentence: What you reading?

 Two other researchers, Heidi C. Dulay and Marina K. Burt, categorize errors differently. Their two categories, “interference-like goofs” and “first-language developmental goofs” are similar to Richards's interlanguage and intralingual errors, respectively. The other two types are “ambiguous goofs,” which can be either interference-like goofs or first-language developmental goofs, and “unique goofs,” which are not found in the children's language acquisition of the target language. Because some categories of errors are unclear, generally, researchers classify errors as interlingual errors and intralingual errors.

During the 1970s, many studies were conducted in error analysis. As mentioned above, some research was done to find out the different sources of these errors. Studies on what type of error occurred more frequently were conducted, and it was concluded that intralingual errors occur more often than interlingual errors.

Error analysis also brought about new ideas in teaching languages. Whereas in the behaviorist view of learning, the teachers' role was to prevent the learners from making errors and the main classroom activities were drills of the correct rules or forms, within this new perspective, correcting the errors immediately was not desirable because it could deprive the learner of the opportunity to reformulate their hypothesis about rules of the target language. It is recommended, as for an adult during child-adult conversations while a child is acquiring his or her first language, that teachers repeat what the learner said in the correct form or ask the learner in the correct form, rather than point out the incorrect form and provide the correct one immediately.

  Sage Reference Online