Error analysis

&# 187;This is an intralingual error because of the insufficient knowledge of use of English synonyms. E ven though it was oldLexical error: The wrong use of the word. T he expression «even though» means «auncuando, a pesar de que"and doesn’t follow the logical statement (doesn't fit in the sentence): the student here wanted to highlight the contrast old versus beautiful but he did it using the wrong expression.

S o, the appropriate preposition here would be «despite», we should say"despite the fact that the castle was old". We also must place the conjunction «but» before the coma to highlight the contrast. W e also can call this type of error semantic error because of the illogical statement. L ine 13He watched thorough a windowLexical error: the wrong use of the verb: watch/look.

T here is a significant difference in meaning between these two, at the first sight similar, verbs. B asically, the verb look means «mirar», whereas the verb watch means «ver». In this case, in the expression «mirarpor la ventana"we must use the verb look, to look at something for a reason, with an intention. &# 171;He looked through the window."Morphological error: the wrong use of determiner.

W e must change the indefinite article to definite one. B ecause we are talking about the exact window through which he was looking. T.

his is an intralingual error. He saw wonderful creaturesHere, we observe the omission of the determiner «the». He saw wonderful creatures were having a celebrationWe find the omission again, in this case the omission of the relative pronoun. W e are talking about creatures «who we doing something», so the use of the pronoun here is compulsory. T he wrong structure of the relative clause we call syntactic error. W e have a noun phrase where the creatures is a head and the relative clause which starts with «who» gives us additional information about them.

T he correct structure will be: «He saw wonderful creatures who were…». There is another way to formulate the sentence: He saw wonderful creatures [doing something]. I n this case we replace the clause with the participle. Line 14The creatures were having a celebrationLexical error: the use of the wrong verb. W e use the verb «to have» only in the expression «to have dinner/breakfast/lunch, etc.» We can celebrate something, but we cannot say «to have a celebration». Thus, the correct way to say it will be «the creatures were celebrating something"using the past continuous tense because of the descriptive nature of the sentence.

L ine 15One of them saw him and invited to be with themSyntactic error: omission of the verb object. T he verb «invite» is the transitive verb, it is an action verb that must have an object to receive that action. &#.

171;Invite" means to ask (someone) to go somewhere or do something. H ere the student missed the personal pronoun «him» that is the object of the verb: «They saw him and invited him».To be with themHere, we find spanglish construction, the literal translation from Spanish «estar con alguien». We don’t say en English «to be with someone». In this case we should say that «they invited him to join them». This kind of errors we call an Interlingual error, because of the negative transfer and also we can define it as an intralingual error, because of the wrong selection of the expression within the target language. L ine 16It was wonderful, they were lovelyOnce again we find the same error, that isthe wrong use of punctuation marks. A fter the «wonderful» we should put the semicolon or the full stop in order to separate these two different clauses because they both express the complete statement.

&# 171;It was wonderful; they were lovely." We can define it as a recurrent intralingual error because of the wrong use of punctuation marks in English writing. they were lovely and looked to be very happyLexical error: the wrong use of the verb (misselection). H ere the student’s again chose the wrong verb between synonyms seem and look. The verb «look» makes reference to the physical aspect or state, whereas «seem» refers to the emotional state or to give an impression of something. S.

o the correct way to say it would be «they were lovely and seemed to be very happy» or «they were lovely and looked very happy».We can also define «looked to be happy» as overinclusion. B ecause the verb «look» here performs the function of the copular verb, so the use of «to be» next to «look» which performs the same function is completely redundant. L ine 17Everybody talked _ himSyntactical error: misuse (omission) of preposition. T here are several verbs defining the process of speaking. A.

ccording to M. S wan’s Practical English Usage there is little difference in the meaning of these words (see M. S wan’s Practical English Usage, pp. 543−544), but after talk the preposition (to or with) is needed, when this verb is used as intransitive.

T he correct fragment would be Everybody talked to him. as if they had seen him beforeLexical error: The verb see has its main meaning to perceive with the eyes. T hough, according to Oxford Dictionary, this verb can mean to meet someone, it is better to use more exact verb, which is meet. T.

hus, the correct sentence would be as if they had met him before. Line 20There was someone who looked at him very much. Lexical error: There we can see a rather odd use of the adverb. W e can presume that the student intended to express that someone looked at the character attentively or closely, but he cannot find the word he needed, so he used this adverb, which gives us understanding that the look was very intense, but expresses this thought in a wrong way from the point of view of lexicology. S o the correct version may be: There was someone who looked at him attentively. Line 19He approached her and she told him «Don't worry, Lexical error: It is better to use here the other verb + adverbcome closer / nearer (to her), because it is better from the point of view of stylistics. T he word approach is more booking in comparison with come.

L ine 21be quiet, I am with youLexical error: misuse of the idiom. W e normally say be quiet, when we want to express our annoyance (and want to stop noise), but evidently here it is not the case. T he creature wants to say that the main character should not worry anymore, so it is more correct to write: Don’t worry. Line 22and a noise woke up himSyntactical error, caused by the lack of knowledge about the use of the phrasal verb wake up. A ccording to M.

S wan’s Practical English Usage, adverb particles can go either before or after noun objects, but they can go only after pronoun objects. H ere the pronoun (him) is used, so the correct fragment is: and a noise woke him up. Line 23and he was oldMorphological error: when talking about the inanimate nouns one should use the neuter pronoun it instead of he or she. This error we can call interlingual, since in Spanish the word árbol (tree) in masculine, so if we translate the sentence into Spanish, we will definitely use the pronoun el (he). S o this error is one more example of linguistic interference in this text. L.

ine 24he must come back home. See comments to Line 4Line 25the house seemed much older and _ covered in ivy. Syntactical error: misuse of Passive Voice. W e can divide this sentence into two sentences: The house seemed much older and The house was covered in ivy. I n the first sentence Active Voice of the verb seem is needed, since the house (grammatical subject) also is a subject of the action, however in the second sentence the house is the object of the action, so we should use Passive Voice: The house seemed much older and was covered in ivy.

L ine 27When he went into the house, Lexical error: it is better to use the verb enter here, because the verb go with the preposition into has an abstract meaning rather them specific (compare: go into the Church — become a priest, enter the Church — enter the building). A lso if we use the verb enter, we do not need the preposition.

C orrect: When he entered the house. he spoke people about itSyntactical error: The verb to speak is intransitive. S o if we use a noun/pronoun with it, we should also use a preposition. T.

his error was caused by the lack of synonyms in student’s vocabulary. D epending on what the student wanted to express, we’d better use here verbs told, talk (to) or answer. L ine 29he asked people for them Syntactical error: misuse of the preposition. A.

ccording to the context we should use here the preposition about. and nobody knew what about he was talking. There we can see the confusion with the word order. T he second part of the clause begins with relative pronoun what (which is similar to the question word), so the student decides that the word order should be similar to the word order in question.

I t is incorrect, because this sentence is affirmative, so the word order also should be affirmative. L ine 31He had crumbled to dust…

but, who were the strange creaturesLexical error: misuse of idiom. I diom crumble to (into) dust means to break apart and fall down into bits and pieces. W e can use it withsomething that is really falls down into pieces.

B ut here it is used incorrectly in the figurative sense. I t is better to say: He was very upset. W.

e put all the errors into table (Appendix II) to show the significant difference between the frequency of several types of errors. Also in order toto sum up our data we produce two graph (Appendix III), in which the results of our work are showed. ConclusionConcluding our research we must notice that the intralingual errors caused by lacking of knowledge are more frequent, though the interlingual errors are also found in the text we have analysed. I t is obvious that there are different types of errors in the text (Lexical, Morphological, Syntactical, etc.), but according to graphs several types are more frequent than the others. A s we can see through the analysis of error we’ve just made the English Synonyms can easily confuse students of English as they all relate to actions done with our eyes. M.

ost confusing appeared to be verbs describing movement, the process of speech and the verbs of vision. T here are many synonyms with very close meaning in these groups of verbs; and the great experience of using English is needed if one wants to learn how to avoid these errors. B esides we must point out that there are different types of errors, which are connected with synonyms. F irst of all they are, of course, errors caused by scarcity of student’s vocabulary, but also there are errors caused by the confusion between synonyms, when the student uses one verb instead of the other with a preposition that should be used with the other verb.

S o English synonyms can cause not only lexical, but also syntactical errors. Interlingual errors are less frequent, but it is worth noticing that the structure of thу sentences, though quite correct, often is closer to Spanish sentences, than to English ones. W orks cited: Corder, S.P., Error Analysis and Interlanguage. O xford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Corder, S.P., Error Analysis. I.

n Allen J.P.B. and Pit Corder (eds.). Techniques in applied Linguistics (The Edinburh Course in Applied Linguistics). L ondon: Oxford University Press, 1974. Ellis R. U nderstanding Second Language Acquistion, Oxford University Press, 1985. Ellis, R.

SLA R esearch and Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Hubbard, P., Jones, H., Thornton, B. and Wheeler, R. A T raining Course for TEFL. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Richards, J.C., Plott, J. and Platt, H.

D ictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. L ondon: Longman, 1996. Swan, M., Practical English Usage. O xford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Appendix IA fairy taleMany years ago a young man went out one summer’s day, he needed to be alone for a while and decided to walk toward the forest. H.

e was walking about four hours and he began to feel tired, he sat down beneath a tree. H e was relaxed and didn’t think he must come back home. H e closed his eyes and imagined lovely things.

H e had problems but he was feeling free. Nobody was near to him, it seemed to be the only man in the world. O n a sudden he heard beautiful fairy melody what drifted off to sleeps. I n his dreams, he was on a path where there was a beautiful castle.

H e was a little afraid but went on walking until it. T he castle looked to be inhabited but, even though it was old, it was the most beautiful castle he had ever seen. He watched through the window and saw _wonderful creatures_ were having a celebration. One of them saw him and invited _ to be with them. I t was wonderful, they were lovely and looked to be very happy. Everybody talked _ him as if they had seen him before, They offered him cakes and wine. There was someone who looked at him very much. He approached her and she told him «Don't worry, All your problems will be solved very soon, be quiet, I am with you».The creatures began to vanish and a noise woke up him. He looked at the tree and he was old, as if it had passed many years. He thought he must come back home. When he arrived home, the house seemed much older and _ covered in ivy.

H e felt something strange. When he went into the house, he spoke people about it but they were not his friends, he asked people for them and nobody knew what about he was talking. Then he realized that he had been away for a hundred years andHe had crumbled to dust… but, who were the strange creaturesThat gave him so lovely moments? Appendix IITYPE OF ERRORSNUMBER OF ERRORS (49)PERCENTAGE (%)Lexical 2149Morphological612Syntactical1836Spelling / Punctuation 43Appendix III.