This document provides a summary of error analysis and its historical background. It discusses how error analysis evolved from contrastive analysis in the 1960s. Contrastive analysis predicted errors based on differences between a learner's native language and the target language but did not accurately predict all errors. Error analysis emerged in the 1970s as a superior alternative that studied all types of learner errors without relying solely on native language influences. The document outlines the typical steps in conducting an error analysis, including collecting language samples, identifying errors, describing errors, and explaining error sources. It also discusses theoretical perspectives like interlanguage theory and different types of errors learners may make. Finally, it notes that error evaluation was a supplementary step to determine which errors required instruction but

1. Error analysis
Rod Ellis
Presenter: F.Faryabi
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2. Content
• Introduction
• Historical background
• Theoretical background
• Conducting Error Analysis (EA)
• Error Evaluation (EE)
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3. Introduction
• Error Analysis (EA): consists of a set of procedures for
identifying, describing and explaining learner errors
• Error Evaluation (EE): is a set of procedure for assessing the
relative seriousness of learner errors
• Contrastive Analysis (CA):
a. Why learners make errors
b. Which structural area of the TL teachers need to teach
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4. Corder (1974) the study of errors:
(1)provided the teacher with information about how much the
learner had learnt
reflects traditional role of EA
(2) provided the researcher with evidence of how language was learnt
provides new role on L2 research
(3)Acting as devices by which the learner discovered the rules of the
target language
process of L2 acquisition
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5. 1960s
Mid-
1970
1970s
Historical Background
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6. Contrastive analysis (1960)
*CA was not itself a method for analysing learner language
*contrasting two native-speaker language systems- that’s
of MT and TL-
*Errors were the product of negative transfer brought
about by differences between MT and TL
*Many of the errors predicted to occur by CA did not in
fact occur and, furthermore that some errors that were
not predicted to occur did occur
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7. Error analysis (1970)
*Alternative and superior approach to CA
* Provided a methodology
*Starting point for the study of learner language and L2 acquisition
*EA is not restricted to errors caused by negative transfer from the L1, it
covers all types of errors.
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8. Mid- 1970
*Heyday of EA was short-lived
*Give away to other types of analysis( e.g. obligatory occasion analysis)
*Interest in EA has not faded entirely in Applied Linguistic
Measure of accuracy
CA also lived on the form of contrastive rhetoric
Describe the typical theoretical structures in writing of different languages with
a view to showing how they differ and thus how the rhetorical structure of
writing in the L1 influence the L2 writer.
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9. Theoretical background
CA_ behaviorists_ new habit_ proactive inhibition
Sought to identify the features of the L2 that differed from those of
the L1. So learners could be helped to form the ‘new habits’ of the
L2 by practicing them intensively
overcome interface of L1 habit
EA_ nativists_ interlanguage theory
Emphasize the mental process that occur in the ‘black box’ of the
mind when learning take place
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10. Theoretical background
Selinker (1972)
Interlanguage
The mental grammar that a learner construct at a specific stage in the
learning process.
Corder (1971) Idiosyncratic
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11. Conducting Error Analysis: Corder (1974)
1. Collection of a sample of learner language
2. Identification of errors
3. Description of errors
4. Explanation of errors
5. Evaluation of errors
Many studies do not include Step 5 .
It is seen as separate issue with its own
methods of enquiry
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12. 1. Collection of a sample of learner language
The learner, language and production factors can influence the
sample collected.
a) They can control for them, by narrowly specifying the sample
they intend to collect.
e.g. advanced, instructed, Iranian, learner of English producing
oral narratives.
b) Collecting a broader sample reflecting different learners, different
types of language and different production conditions.
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13. 2. Identification of errors
• A comparison between what the learner has produced and what a
native speaker counterpart would produce in the same context.
1. Prepare a reconstruction of the sample as this would have been
produced by the learner’s native speaker counterpart.
2. Assume that every utterance/sentence produced by the learner is
erroneous and systematically eliminate those that an initial
comparison with the native speaker sample shows to be well-formed
3. Identify which part(s) of each learner utterance/sentence differ
from the reconstructed version
Key
procedure
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14. The policeman was in this corner whistle
but it was too late
Reconstructions for identifying the
error on whistle
The policemen who was in this
corner whistled but it was too late
Missing relative pronoun
The policemen was in this corner and
whistled but it was too late
Missing co-ordinator
The policemen in this corner
whistled but it was too late
Superfluous copula verb
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15. 3. Description of errors
*Comparative process
*Specifying how the forms produced by the learner differ
from those produced by the learners’ native speaker
counterparts
*Focuses on the surface properties of learner utterances
*Dualy, Burt, Krashen (1982) surface structure taxonomy is
based on ‘the ways surface structure are altered ‘ in
erroneous utterances.
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16. 1.omission omission of copula be “ my sister very pretty”
2.addition the presence of the form that does not appear in well-formed utterances
Regularization “eated for ate”
Double marking he didn’t came
Simple addition additions not describable as regularization or as double marking
3.misinformation the use of wrong form of the morpheme or structure
Regularization Do they be happy?
Archi-form the learner use me as both object and subject pronoun
Alternating forms Don’t + v and No+v
4.misordering incorrect placement of morphemes. “she fights all the time her brother”
James (1998)
5. Blends
errors that reflect the learners’ uncertainty as to which of two forms is required
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“ the only one thing I want which is an amalgam of the only thing I want and the one thing I want”

17. 4. Explanation of errors
• The most important stage in an EA
• Determining the source of errors in order to account for why they
were made
• Concern here will be with psycholinguistic sources of error
• Why learners make errors?
- The difficulty they experience in accessing their L2 knowledge
- If L2 forms have not been yet automatized & Ls require control
processing
resort to use of non-standard forms
( acquired earlier)
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18. Corder (1974) it is useful to distinguish between errors and mistakes
error analysis should focus attention to ERRORS
Errors: arise because of gaps in L2 Knowledge
Mistakes: occur because of the difficulty of processing forms that are not
yet fully mastered
HOW Errors & Mistakes can be distinguished?
a)To check whether learner alternates between the erroneous form the
correct target-language form
b) Consult the learners_ if they are able to self-correct mistake
Not
practicable
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19. Interlanguage Errors
• Result of mother tongue influences
• Transfer: introduction of an L1 form into the interlanguage system
• Borrowing: temporary use of an L1 form as a communication strategy
but does not entail incorporation of the form into the interlanguage
system.
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20. • Universal strategies
1. False analogy (a kind of over-generalization) boy boys
child childs
2. Misanalysis: the learner wrongly assume that the singular possessive
pronoun Its is plural because of the –s
3. Incomplete rule application: a kind of under generalization.
The failure to utilize indicative word order in “ nobody know where was
Bashie”
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21. 4.Exploiting redundancy: omitting the grammatical features that do not
contributes to the meaning of an utterance. “ Martin like tennis”
5.Overlooking co-occurrence restrictions: failing to recognize that
although quick and fast are synonyms, quick food is not possible
collection
6. System- simplification: simplifying the burden of learning by
substituting a single form where the TL uses two or more
e.g. The use of that as a ubiquitous relative pronoun
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22. Error Evaluation
EE is not so much a stage in the analysis of learner errors as
supplementary procedure for applying the result of an EA
involves determining the gravity of different errors with a view to deciding
which ones should receive instruction
EE studies were popular in the 1970s and 1980s, but have deride up
entirely
Inclusive results that made it impossible to develop a definite scale for
predicting error gravity
Teachers do need to take decision which errors to address
A practical need to undertake some kind of error evaluation
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23. • Error Analysis In Technology-Mediated
Communication: Focus On EFL Writing In
Synchronous And Asynchronous Modes Of
Communication
Ali Rahimi &Dara Tafazoli
ScienceDirect
2013
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24. • This study was conducted on 63 EFL undergraduate university students’ writings
to provide a linguistic taxonomy of frequent syntactic-morphological errors in
synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication.
• It provided the most frequent and the least frequent errors among EFL students’
writings in these two modes
the most frequent syntactico-morphological error in
synchronous mode of communication
the most frequent syntactic morphological error;
error in use of
articles
error in distribution and
use of verb groups
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25. most frequent syntactic morphological error In
asynchronous mode of communication
error in use of
preposition
Wrong use of negative
construction
• was the least frequent error
The results showed that more errors were found in the synchronous mode of
communication than in the asynchronous one.
The authors believed that “By learning error sources and their frequencies, teacher
can meet their students’ needs”
“Providing remedial materials based on identifying learners’ linguistic difficulties is
one of the fruitful aspect of these kinds of researches.”
“teachers should tolerate the learners’ errors; not to try to find solution for solving
them.”
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