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Error Analysis (Second Language Acquisition)

🗣️ Language & Literature By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated
Quick answer: error analysis collects, classifies and explains the errors language learners make in order to understand acquisition and improve teaching. It treats errors not as failures but as evidence of the rules learners are building.
Contents
  1. 1. Background
  2. 2. Errors vs mistakes
  3. 3. Sources of error
  4. 4. Procedure (Corder, Ellis)
  5. 5. Criticism and later work
  6. 6. References

Background

In the 1950s-60s, behaviorist language teaching relied on the contrastive analysis hypothesis, predicting errors from L1-L2 differences. Because many real errors could not be traced to the first language, Corder (1967), in "The significance of learners' errors", proposed treating errors as a window on learners' internal systems, in line with a cognitive view of acquisition.

Errors vs mistakes

  • Errors: systematic deviations from not yet knowing, or misknowing, a rule; learners cannot easily self-correct.
  • Mistakes: one-off slips from fatigue or inattention; learners can correct them when noticed.

Sources of error

  • Interlingual: transfer of L1 rules, e.g. English speakers dropping Korean particles, Chinese speakers carrying over word order.
  • Intralingual: overgeneralization of target rules (goed), incomplete application, false hypotheses.
  • Induced: caused by materials or teaching.

Procedure (Corder, Ellis)

(1) Collect learner data, (2) identify errors, (3) describe them (omission, addition, substitution, ordering), (4) explain causes, (5) evaluate and plan teaching. Korean-language research focuses on particles, connective and sentence-final endings, and similar grammar patterns.

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Criticism and later work

It looks only at errors, missing correct output, and cannot detect avoidance of difficult structures (Schachter, 1974). It led to Selinker's interlanguage theory and learner corpus research.

References

  1. Corder, S. P. (1967). The significance of learners' errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 5(4), 161-170.
  2. Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10(3), 209-231.
  3. Schachter, J. (1974). An error in error analysis. Language Learning, 24(2), 205-214.
  4. Ellis, R. (2008). The Study of Second Language Acquisition (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
  5. James, C. (1998). Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis. Longman.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

There are no materials dedicated to this theory yet, but you can search related reports in the CampusDown library (Korean).

Find more reports · Search '오류 분석' on CampusDown →
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This article was last updated on October 15, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.