Error Analysis.doc

Error Analysis (EA)I. Birth of Error Analysis (EA)Error analysis is an activity which is at once ancient and new. It is ancient in that since ancient times this technique has been used by teachers in an informal and intuitive way long before the concept of error analysis came into being. It is new because as a new scientific technique based on psycholinguistics, it was developed in the late 1960s with the development of Chomskys standard theory. Until then for two decades, the prevailing technique used in the study of errors of L2 learners had been contrastive analysis.CA stressed the interfering effects of the L1 on L2 learning and claimed that L2 learning is primarily a process of acquiring whatever items are different from the first language. It ascribed most errors to interference of the first language. But such a narrow view of interference ignored the intralingual effects of language learning among other factors. During the process of teaching and learning, teachers have found that interlingual errors only constitute a small portion of L2 learners errors, and that among many other factors, interlingual effects of language learning play an important role. CA which aimed to predict errors resulting from L1 interference failed to account for other types of errors.Along with the Chomskyan revolution and the birth of psycholinguistics, the focus in second language teaching shifted from the view of the teacher as the controller of language learning process towards a more learned-centered view which stresses learners creative role in L2 learning. One major result of this shift has been the development and application of error analysis as a chief means of both assessing learners learning in general and of the degree of compatibility between their learning plan and the teachers teaching syllabus.II. Definition of EA In Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, error analysis is defined as “the study and analysis of the errors made by second and foreign language learners” (Richards, 1985). According to Corder (1981), who made the first arguments for the significance of learners errors in 1967, error analysis is a type of bilingual comparison, a comparison between learners interlanguage and the target language. It is a methodology of describing L2 learners language systems. He proposes two justifications for the study of learners errors.The first is pedagogical, which claims that a good understanding of the nature of errors is necessary before a systematic means of eradicating them can be found. The second is theoretical, which claims that a study of learners errors is part of the systematic study of the learners language, which is itself necessary to an understanding of the process of SLA.Error analysis aims to 1) find out how well the learner knows the second language; 2) find out how the learner learns the second language; 3) obtain information on common difficulties in second language learning; 4) serve as an aid in teaching or in the preparation and compilation of teaching materials.Error analysis is distinguished from CA by examining errors attributable to all possible sources not just those, which result from the interference of the first language. Although EA and CA are not mutually exclusive, the EA can easily supersede the CA. It is apparent that only some of the errors a learner makes are attributable to the native language. Learners do not actually make all the errors that contrastive analysis predicted they should and learners from different language backgrounds tend to make similar errors in learning one target language.III. Basic Assumptions of EA In recent years, researchers and teachers have realized that second language learning is a creative process of constructing a system in which learners are consciously testing hypotheses about the target language from a number of possible sources of knowledge: limited knowledge of the target language itself, knowledge about the native language, knowledge about the communicative function of language, knowledge about language in general, and knowledge about life, human beings, and the universe. The learners, in acting upon the environment around them, construct a legitimate system of language in its on right. According to Brown (1987), error analysis is based on the following assumptions:p Human learning is fundamentally a process involving making errors, which form an important aspect of learning any skills or accepting any knowledge.p Language learning is like any other human learning and in the course of learning a second language, learners will produce ungrammatical or even ill formed utterances if judged by the generally accepted rules of the language they are learning. In this sense, L2 learning is trial-and-error process in nature, hence errors are a natural and unavoidable part of language learning.p Errors made by L2 learners can be observed, analyzed, classified, and described.As Corder noted, “A learners errorsare significant in that they provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in the discovery of the language.”p In errors made by L2 learners lie some of the keys to the understanding of the process of second language learning. Therefore, L2 learners are not looked upon as procedures of malformed, imperfect language full of mistakes, but as intelligent and creative beings proceeding through logical, systematic stages of acquisition.VI. Procedures of EA Identification of Errors 识别错误Description of Errors 描述错误Explanation of Errors 解释错误Evaluation of Errors 评估错误 Evaluation of Errors 评估错误 V. Implication and Application of EA Implication of EAThe creation of EA has indicated a shift in the pedagogical focus from preventing errors to learning from errors. “It is noteworthy at the beginning of the sixties the word error was associated with correction, at the end with learning” (George, 1972). Error analysis has proved to be a direct, immediate and effective method of studying the learning process and examining the teaching situation as well. Learner s errors are by no means an indicator of his failure. On the contrary, they are significant in that they provide evidence of the system of the language that he is using at a particular point in the course (Corder 1967). The study of the learners errors is very important and the value of EA lies not only in pedagogical or practical application but in the theoretical application as well. The learners errors are significant in the following three aspects. p EA is useful to the teacher.The study of learners errors yields valuable insights into the nature of L2 learning process, and provides teachers with systematic evaluation of students difficulties and feedback, and guidelines for error treatment in the classroom. As Corder (1967) noted “Errors provide feedback, they tell the teacher something about the effectiveness of his teaching materials and his teaching techniques, and show him what parts of the syllabus he has been following have been inadequately learned or taught and need further attention.” EA furnishes teachers with information about the distance between what the learner has achieved and the goal to be reached.p EA is useful to the researcher.EA is useful to the applied linguists and psycholinguists. It provides feedback to theory, and evidence about the feasibility of the theory which in turn facilitates further research.They provide to the researcher evidence of how the target language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in his discovery of the language.p EA is useful to the learner.Errors are indispensable to the learner himself, because we can regard the making of errors as a device the learner uses in order to learn. It is a way the learner has of testing his hypotheses about the nature of language he is learning. Therefore, error analysis has two functions, theoretical and practical. The theoretical aspect of EA is that it is part of the methodology of investigating the language learning process. The practical aspect lies in its function in guiding the remedial activities to correct an unsatisfactory state of affairs for the learner or the teacher. In short, error analysis yields insights into the language learning process which will eventually have direct relevance to the improvement of language teaching materials and methodsApplication of EAAccording to Brown (1987), EA can be applied to foreign language teaching in four ways. 1. Correcting errors in the classroom. 2. Providing explanation. 3. Designing curricula and teaching materials. 4. Organizing remedial teaching. VI. Criticisms of EA Error analysis has been most successful in accounting for learners errors that can not be explained or predicted by contrastive analysis. It has succeeded in bringing the multiple sources of learners errors to the attention of the scholars and in raising the errors from the undesirable status to legitimate status in both teaching and research. However, this does not mean that it is a perfect technique. The weaknesses include methodological problems involving all stages of analysis and also, limitations in scope of EA. Focusing only on the errors which learners produce at a single point in time can only provide a partial picture. It takes no account of what learners do correctly, of development over time, and of avoidance phenomena. Confusion of error description and error explanation （错误描述与错误解释界限不清）This has to do with the process aspect of error analysis as well as its product aspect. Error description deals with the product of L2 acquisition whereas error explanation, which determines the origins of errors, deals with the process of L2 acquisition. The process of language acquisition involves the interaction of the learners internal processing mechanism with the external environment, whereas the product of language acquisition involves the learners verbal performance. While the product can be directly observed and described, the process can only be inferred. However, many reports on error analysis confuse the causes of errors and their description. This lack of distinction results in controversy in the development of criteria to describe different error types and in the formulation of theories to account for those errors. Lack of precision and specificity in the definition of error categories (错误范畴界定不够具体与准确)According to Dulay and Burt, there two different definitions of “intralingual errors”. Richards defines intralingual errors as “those which reflect the general characteristics of the rule learning, such as faulty overgeneraliza-tion, incomplete application of rules, and failure to learn conditions under which rules apply”. But LoCoco holds that intralingual errors occur when L1 does not have a rule which L2 has, the learner applies an L2 rule, producing an error. Inappropriate use of simplistic classifications to explain learners errors (错误解释分类过于简单化)In much analysis of errors, taxonomic formats are used to delineate sources of errors. This entails at least two assumptions. One is that a particular error has a single source. The other is that the specification of the sources of an error is a relatively straightforward descriptive task. However, neither is the case. If we accept the fact that language acquisition is an interaction between internal and external factors, then the same errors must have at least two major sources: one in the environment and one internal to the learner, and that multiple sub-sources can be delineated within these two sources. Too much attention to learners errors (过分关注学生错误)A frequently mentioned limitation is the EA fails to provide a complete picture of learner language. We need to know what learners do correctly as well as what they do wrongly. Although errors are indeed revealing of learnersinterlanguage process of L2 learning, teachers can become so preoccupied with noticing errors that the correct utterances in the second language go unnoticed. It is important not to lose sight of the value of positive reinforcement of clear, free communication. The diminishing of errors is an important criterion for increasing l