Comparative Error Analysis in The University Students

Abstract

In the process of language learning, error is a case that can not be avoided. Making some errors are able to do even by the university students. The objective of the study is to describe the similarities and differences of types of error made by the first and the third semester students of English Department UMS 2014/ 2015 academic year. This study is qualitative research. The data are taken from all interlanguage errors which are made by the student’s writing recount text. The data classifies by using the combination of linguistic category and surface strategy taxonomy by Dulay, H et al. (1982). The results of this study were: (1) the similarities types of error that were made by the first and the third semester students were morphological and syntactical error. In the morphological error the writer found some similar types of error, namely: ommission of bound morpheme {-s} as plural marker and wrong spelling of the words. Meanwhile in the syntactical error, the similarities were found on article (omission of definite article the), omission of subject, omission of suffix (-ed) in regular past tense, etc. In the other side, the differences types of error happened in the syntactical error only. There were some types of error that were made by the first semester students but the third semester students did not, such as article (omission of indefinite article a/ an), omission of introductory THERE as subject, the use of verb as past tense (verb II is used after ‘modal’ form), etc.