Interlingual and Intralingual Interference in Omani EFL Students

Writing
Glyn B. Gabano-Magbanua, PhD
Dulce Imelda Mercado
Carol Abule
Vanessa Joy Dayag

Al Musanna College of Technology

Oman

Abstract
The proposed research will look into paragraphs and essays written by
Omani college students at the Al Musanna College of Technology to identify
errors committed at the discourse level. Additionally, it will attempt to
classify the errors into either interlingual or intralingual in nature. A total of
300 paragraphs and essays written by students from across three levels
(level 2, Level 3 and Level 4) will be examined. Implications for classroom
teaching and research will be discussed.

Introduction
Did you want visit Salalah. Did you went see a good Place
in Oman. Lend me afew menet of your time I tell You more
Information about the best Place in the Summer. Spiclily wather
Scareny and festival. this is three reason to make Salalah a good
place. (sic)
-

sample student writing

As students move from one level to the next in education, they are
expected to manifest a general improvement of their skills. In the EFL
context, as students move from school to college, they are also increasingly
expected to be able to express themselves and what they know about
different subjects through the four macro skills, namely: listening, speaking,
reading and writing. Of the four, writing seems the most complex as
students

will

have

to

struggle

to

learn

the

language

and

write

simultaneously. Thus, it is not that surprising to hear teachers discussing

their students writing problems and comparing the students writing errors.
At this point it is essential to define error and to differentiate it with
mistake. Corder (1981) gave a clear illustration of the distinction between
these two terms. According to him, mistakes are unsystematic performance

errors like slips of the tongue or the shift from formal to informal
grammatical patterns in informal contexts. These are usually committed by
native English speakers who think in their own language. Thus, these
unsystematic performance errors can be self-corrected and are therefore
more appropriately referred to as mistakes. On the other hand, errors are
systematic violations of the linguistic patterns of the language to which nonnative speakers (in this case, the Omani students) have been exposed to (in
this case, English). These errors are likely to occur repeatedly and not
recognized by the learner. Hence, only the teacher can locate them, the
learner cant (Gass and Selinker, 1994). It is in this context that the word
error is used in this study.
In the Omani EFL context, students are exposed to the language as
early as when they begin school. Belonging to the umbrella term Arab
learners on the basis of their first language, these students share many of
the weaknesses and language problems with other Arab students from other
Arab states. Although these problems are not concentrated on just a single
macro skill, research into Arab EFL learners reveal that many of these
problems occur in students writing outputs. Jdetawy (2011) found out that
Arab

EFL

learners

specifically

commit

errors

in

syntax,

semantics,

morphology, pronunciation and spelling. With the exclusion of pronunciation,

all the problems mentioned exist primarily in writing. Earlier in 2010, AlKhasawneh indicated that even Arab EFL postgraduate students face

problems in carrying out their writing tasks. These problems include

vocabulary, grammar, organization of ideas, spelling and referencing.
Over the last three decades, with the increasingly rapid advances in
the field of error analysis, colleges and universities in the Gulf region have
undertaken their own research on errors in their students writings. As such
analysis is needed to attain an adequate understanding of how to reduce
errors in writing, and to hopefully improve students writing outputs in terms
of both fluency and accuracy, the researchers decided to undertake this
study.
Considering the problems mentioned, this study attempts to:
1. Identify, classify and explain Omani students writing errors at the
discourse level;
2. Identify fossilized errors (those errors that persist across levels);
3. Examine the interlingual and intralingual interference as possible sources
of errors;
4. Provide implications of the findings in the teaching of writing to EFL
students;
5. Propose future areas of research.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Error Analysis
It is inevitable that learners make errors. Stark (2001) views errors as
normal and inevitable features of language and as such, are essential
conditions of learning. Olasihende (2002) likewise believes that errors are
unavoidable and a necessary part of the learning curve. As students make
errors, Corder (1975) suggests that teachers do a periodic and detailed error
analysis to identify systematic errors that should be targeted for corrective
feedback.
Error Analysis has been defined in many ways. As it is concerned with
the analysis of errors committed by L2 learners, it is carried out by
comparing the learners acquired norms with the target language norms and
explaining the errors (James, 1988). It was also James, in 2001 (p.62) who
referred to error analysis as the study of linguistic ignorance, the
investigation of what people do not know and how they attempt to cope with
their ignorance. For Crystal (1999), EA in language teaching is the study of
unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a language, especially a
foreign language. These unacceptable forms are what Brown (2012) called

the deviations of the rules of the second language. These deviations are
observed, analyzed and classified to reveal the systems operated by the
learner.
For Corder (1974) error analysis simply focuses on the errors learners
make. It consists of a comparison between the errors made in the Target
Language (TL) and the TL itself. It has two objects: theoretical and applied.
The theoretical object elucidates what and how a learner learns when he
studies a second language while the applied object serves to enable the
learner to learn more efficiently by exploiting our knowledge of his dialect for
pedagogical purposes. Sercombe (2000) identified three purposes of error
analysis: (1) to find out the level of language proficiency the learner has
reached; (2) to obtain information about common difficulties in language
learning; and (3) to find out how people learn a language. Additionally,
Vahdatinejad (2008) considers error analysis as an important component of
language teaching because it can be used to determine what a learner still
needs to be taught as it provides the necessary information about what is
lacking

in

the

Consequently,

learners

error

competence

analysis

provides

and

thus

valuable

needs

remediation.

information

to

three

beneficiaries: teachers, researchers and students themselves. For teachers,

errors identified clues them on the progress of the students; for researchers,
it provided evidence as to how language is acquired or learned; and, for
learners, it gives them resources in order to learn (Corder, 1967).

Sources of Writing Errors

Errors, according to Brown (2000) mainly come from two sources,
namely, interlingual and intralingual errors. He states that interlingual errors,
also referred to as transfer errors, are those that are traceable to first
language interference and are attributable to negative interlingual transfer.
Wilkins (1972), identifies a transfer as negative when the transfer is
unjustified because both the first language and the target language are very
different in structures. When this case happens, the first language then
interferes with the performance of the target language learner (Lado,
1964). These interference which include L1 habits (patterns, systems or
rules) then prevent the learner, to some extent, from acquiring the patterns
and rules of the second language (Corder, 1971).
Selinker (1972) who first coined the term interlanguage to refer to
the systematic knowledge of an L2 which is independent of both the
learners L1 and the target language, reported five sources of errors (in
Richards, 1974). These include: (1) language transfer, (2) transfer of
training, (3) strategies of second language learning, (4) strategies of second
language communication, and, (5) overgeneralization of target language
linguistic material. In 1998, James identified four sources of errors: (1)

native language transfer or the use of a rule or pattern from the native
language; (2) developmental error which is an intralingual error thats
made by all learners of a given language regardless of their native language;
(3) induced errors, caused by the way a teacher or textbook presented or
explained a given form; and, (5) communication strategies which is used by
the learner to get meaning across even though he/she knows the form used
is not correct.
Richards (1971) on the other hand, differentiates three sources of
error: (1) interference error which results from mother tongue interference,
(2) intralingual error which reflects the incorrect generalization of the rules
within the target language; and, (3) developmental error which occurs when
the learners hypothesize about the target language based on their limited
knowledge. However, Schacheter and Celce-Murcia (1977) found intralingual
and developmental errors to be closely related and thus proposed that both
errors be considered to be in the same category intralingual and
developmental errors which then refer to the errors that occur when a
learner has not really acquired a significant knowledge of the target
language.
In a paper entitled The Study of Learner English, Richards and
Simpson (1974) identified seven sources of errors:

(1) Language transfer to which can be attributed one-third of sentence

error from learners.
(2) Intralingual interference which is further categorized into: (a)
overgeneralization which happens when the learner creates a deviant
structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in the target
language; (b) ignorance of rule restrictions or applying rules to context to
which they do not apply; (c) incomplete application of rules; and, (d)
semantic errors such faulty comprehension of distinctions in the target
language.
(3) Sociolinguistic situation like motivation and the setting for learning
which may affect second or foreign language learning.
(4) Modality which may include modality of exposure and modality of
production.
(5) Age: learning capacities vary with age.
(6)

Successions

of

approximate

systems

which

recognize

the

circumstance variations of language learning which happens from person to

person and which may also happen with the acquisition of new lexical,
phonological and syntactic items.
(7) Universal hierarchy of difficulty which refers to the inherent
difficulty for a learner, no matter what his background is, to learn certain

language items or structures as some forms may be inherently difficult to

learn than others.

Error Analysis of Arabic EFL Learners Writing Outputs

Error analysis has received considerable attention in the field of
research. In the Gulf region, errors in learners writing outputs have been
analyzed in various ways. Recent studies of a wider scope include that of
Zawahrehs (2012) analysis of tenth-grade student essays in Jordan, and
Houranis (2008) analysis of common grammatical errors in essays of male
students in the eastern coast of UAE. Ridha (2012) also explored the effect
of mother tongue to Iraqi EFL learners writings in English and Fahreh (2013)
dealt with macrolinguistic errors in Arab EFL learners essays. Moreover, Al
Buainain (2006) conducted a case study of students writing errors in Qatar.
On a narrower, more specific scope, Saigh and Schmitt (2012) explored
Arabic ESL learners difficulties with vocabulary word form at the King
Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. Al-Mekhlafi (2013) studied the question
formation in English writing of Omani EFL learners. Alshayban (2012)
likewise conducted a research on copula omission by EFL Arab learners and
way back in 1986, Aadeljawad conducted a linguistic analysis of spelling
errors made by Jordanian university students.

Characteristics of the Arabic Language

Arabic is the language of the Koran, the sacred book of Islam. Arabic is
of two types, standard and colloquial. Standard Arabic is the formal language
of literature and written expression while the colloquial version is the
ordinary familiar language used in everyday conversation among Arabic
speakers. The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters although it can be
extended to ninety elements by writing additional shapes, marks, and
vowels (Tayli and Al-Salamah, 1990).
Spoken in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United
Arab Emirates and Yemen, Arabic is one of the worlds most widely used
languages in the world (Hourani, 2008). Sofer and Raimes (2002) provides a
comprehensive list of the characteristics of the Arabic language:
1. The written language
Arabic is written from right to left. The spelling is phonetic and there is
no distinction made between the upper and lower case.
2. Sentence structure and word order
Under the influence of the Quran, writers aim at rhythmical balance
and coordination, with the split between subject and predicate occurring

midway in a sentence. Arabic favors coordination over subordination and

sentences often begin with And and So. The basic word order in Classical
Arabic is V-S-O i.e. the verb precedes the subject. For example Arab
speakers would often write in English: Hoped the committee to solve the
problem. However, Colloquial Arabic follows the S-V-O pattern but uses a
that clause where English uses infinitive as in the sentence: I want that you
say.
3. Nouns and pronouns
Personal pronouns are often added to verbs and students would often
write My mother she bakes delicious cakes. Moreover, relative pronoun
makes no human/nonhuman distinction, and pronoun object is retained in a
restrictive relative clause as This is the teacher which you met her last
month. Lastly, a singular noun is used after a numeral above ten like They
have thirty-five teacher in the department.
4. Verbs and Verbals
Many of the characteristic English verbs and verbals are absent in the
Arabic language. For instance , there is no equivalent of the auxiliary do in
Arabic (You have a brother?). Also, there is no verb be in the present tense
(They going to the movie or Where the post office?). Likewise there are no
modal verbs, no gerunds and no infinitive forms. Moreover, the perspective
of tense and time is very different from English. For example, in the past

perfect tense, the be verb is added. Thus, a sentence is written as They

were eat instead of They had eaten. Reported speech retains the tense of
the original utterance (He said he is going) and the simple present tense
covers the meaning of simple and progressive in English (She driving
now/She driving every day).
5. Adjectives and adverbs
In Arabic, the adjective follows the noun. For example, instead of a
blue car, Arabic writers often write car blue or halwa delicious instead of
delicious halwa.
6. Articles
Another characteristic of the Arabic language is the absence of the
indefinite article. Thus students write I saw woman beautiful instead of
writing I saw a beautiful woman. Interestingly, the definite article is used for
days of the week, some months, some place names and in many idiomatic
expressions so it is not surprising to find sentences like I visit the Salalah in
the Kharif, The fastival (sic.) starts in the January and In the Monday I
absent.

METHODOLOGY
1. Data Collection
Researchers have worked out a procedure for gathering the needed
data for EA. Following Corder (1975) and Ellis (1995) the present study will
start with selection of a corpus of language, identification of errors,
classification and explanation.
To gather the corpus of the language, the researchers will analyze
randomly selected LEE (Level Exit Exam) writing papers of 10 students each
from three different levels at the Al-Musanna College of Technology, Oman:
Level 2 (Elementary), Level 3 (Pre-Intermediate) and Level 4 (Advanced).
The researchers will then proceed to the identification and classification of
errors using a modified model from AbiSamra (2003) and Kaweera (2013).
2. Error Identification and Classification
Errors will be classified as:
a. morphological errors (errors in singular/plural morphemes, tenses,
prepositions, articles, adjectives, irregular verbs, possessives)
b. lexical errors (errors in word choice)

c. syntactic errors (sentence structure, word order)

d. mechanics errors (spelling, punctuation, capitalization)
e. organizational/discourse errors (topic sentence, thesis statement,
support sentences, restatement of the thesis)
3. Data Analysis
Data will be analyzed and explained through existing literature on
Error Analysis.

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Corder, S.P. (1973) Introducing Applied Linguistics. London: Penguin
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Corder, S.P. (1993) Introducing Applied Linguistics. London: Penguin.
Brown,

R.

(1973)

First

Language.

Cambridge,

MA:

Harvard

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Lado, R. (1964) Linguistics Across Cultures. Ann Arbor, MI: University
of Michigan Press.
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S.P.

(1971)

Idiosyncratic

Dialects

and

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