Discuss the concept error analysis

Language learning is like any other human learning in the sense that like any other learning process, it involves the making of mistakes and errors. Mistakes form an important aspect of learning because as Brown (1993) points out the process of learning involves a process in which success comes by profiting from mistakes, by using mistakes to obtain feedback from the environment and with that feedback to make new attempts which successfully move closer to approximate desired goals.
Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis whose main focus is on the errors the learners make in the process of learning a language. The concept of error analysis began when language teachers and researchers realized that the mistakes a learner makes in the process of constructing a new language system needed to be analyzed carefully because they would possibly provide a solution to the understanding of the process of second language acquisition.
Previously errors had been viewed negatively; they had been regarded as something that should be avoided and eradicated. But this changed when in 1967 Corder came up with an article “The learner Errors” where he viewed errors differently, suggesting that they were important since they gave a clue as to the state of the learners knowledge of L2. He further suggested that teachers needed to view errors as indications that a learner was making an attempt to figure out something. Corder (1967:167) noted: “A learner’s ---- errors are significant in that they provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired....”
So what are errors and mistakes? Technically the two are different. A mistake refers to a performance error that is either a random guess or a slip. Corder describes mistakes as “deviations in learner language that occur when learners fail to perform their competence.”
According to Corder, mistakes are like slips of the tongue and occur only once and when recognized are corrected by the learner immediately. The learner may make a mistake because of a slip of the tongue or some other reason such as anxiety, fatigue, fear or sickness. When for example in the play The Government Inspector one of the characters, the mayor says: “Get the watchmen to bring streets and clean the brooms” (Pg 33); he is making a mistake because he is talking out of anxiety and he even realizes his mistake and says: “You know what I mean. Tell them to sweep the streets”. And when a learner says “l aks you to give it to me’’ then immediately says ‘sorry l mean; l ask you to give it to me’, he is making a mistake not an error. All people make mistakes in both native and second language learning situations. Where a person makes a mistake, he is capable of recognizing and correcting such a mistake just like the mayor and the learner do.

An error on the other hand means breaking the rules of a language system because the learner does not know these rules well. Ellis (1994) defines errors as ‘deviations in learner’s language which result from lack of knowledge of the correct rule’. Errors reflect the interlanguage competence of the learner. If a learner of English asks, “Does John can sing?” he is probably reflecting a competence level in which adverbs require a proposed “do” auxiliary for question formation. This is an error not a mistake; it reveals the learner’s portion of competence in the target language. Secondly errors are systematic, occur repeatedly and are not recognized by the learner. An error may be repeated several times or on several occasions in various ways. If for example a learner writes a sentence like. “The books opens easily” but recognizes the problem and corrects it, then this was merely a mistake. But if he does not notice his problem and repeats it in other utterances or writings such as:
“The leaders of this country needs our help”
“Neither of these books interest me”
“Many students comes to school late”
Then the conclusion here will be that the learner has a problem with subject — verb agreement and is making errors not mistakes. Whereas mistakes can be noticed and corrected by the learner, errors are not identified and may not be corrected by the learner without help. Therefore errors are only errors from the teacher’s point of view not the learner’s.

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francis1897 answered the question on March 8, 2023 at 13:14