Explaining error

Evaluating error

Error & academic English

Academic discourse

Errors, mistakes, and things academic

The distinction I am now about to offer you between ‘error’ and ‘mistake’ is not one you will find in a dictionary.  But I suggest that you will find it useful nonetheless.

 An error in language is the use of a language form which differs from the target language form in some way.  It is based on a rule which is either not fully analyzed, or is only imagined.

 A mistake is a once-off slip of the tongue or the pen (or the finger, in the case of the keyboard).

 We cannot afford to ignore either mistakes or errors, but the attitude we adopt towards both can make the difference between effective learning or finding ourselves stuck in a rut from which we are unlikely to escape.  Let’s take it that ‘mistakes’ are the result of faulty production for any one of a dozen reasons – carelessness, tiredness, distraction, surrounding noise and consequent mis-hearing of something, slip of the finger, and so on.  We accept that and if we become conscious of the mistake immediately we can repair or correct it, or just let it go. 

Errors as defined above are a goldmine for us to quarry.  Holy Mother Church means something entirely different, no doubt, when it sings on Easter Night,  ‘O happy fault of Adam’ but there is a sense in which the errors of language committed by descendents of the ‘first couple’ can also be happy for the learner!  [return to top]

 Locating and describing errors

If you wish to begin being systematic about something, then your errors are a good place to begin.  If you are accustomed to using a computer, then perhaps you have heard of WYSIWIG or, What You See Is What You Get.  This refers to the fact that a screen will show exactly what you expect to see when you print it out.  Start with a WYSIWIG approach to error:

 List what actually happens on the surface in the following way – 

 * Three of these ‘error’ forms are to be found frequently in some varieties of Pacific English – which also helps make the point that ‘error’ is not an absolute thing.  It is something different from whatever is the standard form for the situation.  I could use the last question quite comfortably and appropriately in everyday speech around the Pacific.

 The above process is a beginning.  It will help you determine the frequency of certain errors or kinds of error.  It will not tell you much about why the error is made.

 Since we are agreed that errors can throw light on the particular system we (implicitly) have in mind for the language, it may then be helpful to ask yourself these three questions: 

1. Was I aware of a particular rule when I made that error?  If not, it is a random error, maybe even a mistake.
2. Was it a case of applying the wrong rule?  This is a systematic error .
3. Did I in fact know the correct rule but apply it wrongly?  Could be a mistake also.

 On the basis of these three questions I might decide that ‘Where you are going now?’ is a case of No. 3 for me.  I know the Standard English rule for framing questions after all. [return to top]

 Explaining errors

The real challenge is to be able to offer an explanation for the error once we have identified it or described it.  This requires some expertise, and recourse to a teacher is obviously helpful.  But you can work out some things for yourself.

 It is often the case that you have transferred a form from your mother tongue either consciously or unconsciously.  Could you translate the English form directly into your mother tongue?  If so, then the error is a ‘transfer’ or ‘interference’ one.  If you attempted to apply a rule on the basis of something you already thought you knew about the language, then this is an ‘interlanguage’ error.  If you are just too far ahead of yourself, trying to say something in the new language but with limited experience of how that language deals with that form, then it is a case of a ‘developmental’ error.  And it might help you to know that no matter how hard you try, if you are too far ahead of your development stage, no rule will stick.  You have to be ready to learn it and that’s it.  Don’t try to hurry language learning faster than it can go.

 Of course, it is also possible that the error was not your fault.  Teachers do their best and try to explain a rule, but they may fail to point out the exceptions or where the rule is applied a little differently.  If I had told you that in spelling you could usually replace final –ed by  –t, then you may have produced ‘turnt’ instead of ‘turned’.  My fault, not yours!  I should have told you that it depends on the initial sound of the word.  In cases of words beginning with /l/ sound, final –ed can be replaced by –t.  That does not apply to all other initial sounds . [return to top]

Evaluating errors

Whatever your success in describing errors, in the end only two things really matter – that you can identify an error and that you can evaluate how important it is for you.

 A good rule of thumb for you is to consider the difference between a ‘local’ and a ‘global’ error, and then to ask the simple question – does this error impede someone from understanding what I have just written or said?  Actually those two factors are closely connected.  A global error affects the whole sentence or passage, and is likely to affect meaning.  A local error is just that – it has little other effect on what is around it.

 Local errors can occur at almost every level of the language.  We know that many speakers of Pacifican languages will not be able to easily distinguish the /p/ sound from the /b/ sound.  If it comes to pronouncing the word ‘bother’, then it really doesn’t matter if I hear /p/ instead of /b/.  That is a local error.  But if it was the word ‘pin’ and I heard /bIn/ instead, in the sentence ‘Please bring me that pin’, then it is an error which could lead to wrong consequences.

 Wrong word order, over-generalizations, central words left out – all these are more likely to produce global errors and affect comprehension.  When I am trying out an other tongue, my first aim is to make sure my readers or listeners can understand me.  I am less concerned about whether or not the version I produce is ‘acceptable’ compared to the standard.   [return to top]

 Errors and academic English.

You are wondering where all this leaves you when it comes to writing an essay for assessment purposes.  Will mistakes and errors be tolerated?  Here you are at the mercy of the opinion of the assessor.  It is a good idea to assume that the assessor would like you to be aiming for a target-like (native) production at all times.

 I can only tell you what my own attitude to this matter is.  I begin by looking at the whole text, the whole piece of discourse.  All errors are evaluated in that context.  In the context of the whole piece, a small local error may be overlooked, or at best I will point out the first instance with an appropriate symbol, then put that symbol in the margin wherever the error is repeated.  Global errors cannot be overlooked if they impede meaning or cause undue irritation.  If the item to be assessed is spoken, then I consider that in all cases of speech, including those by native speakers, pause, false starts, repairs and corrections are common-place and to be overlooked unless they cause excessive irritation.  Meaningless items (global errors or wrong choice of word) will need to be noted however.

I am not so tolerant of mistakes in writing, or of errors committed after specifically and recently attempting to point them out.  After all, it is the learner’s responsibility, not the assessor’s, to get things right.

 I think you can also see, in the light of the opinions expressed in the previous chapters, that I would be more likely to be lenient with forms and utterances that I believe should eventually be included in an academic English based on a Pacific English standard.  [return to top]

Academic discourse

There is much debate about ‘academic discourse’.  The term ‘discourse’ as used by linguists refers to elements of communication that eventually include all the language  systems that go to make up a language.  This means phonology  (sounds ), morphology (the word shapes, endings), syntax (the order of words in phrase and sentence), semantics (the meaning of words), and finally all wrapped up in discourse or rules governing the larger unit, the conversation, the speech, the complete text.  The term then is both specific and general.

 When people talk about academic discourse they largely mean that something should be formed correctly according to the perceived standard (e.g. Standard Written English ), and they have a certain argument form in mind.  But we have to be a bit careful.  For a century or more now, the scientific way of thinking has dominated the academic world, as has the Western way of thinking.  For many, too many perhaps, scientific discourse is what they have in mind when they speak of ‘academic discourse’.  Would that apply to history?  Writing history appears to be a question of developing an argument.  Scientific discourse rules can apply in that case.  But writing history is also writing narrative, and different discourse rules apply to narrative.

 What kind of discourse does theology demand?  Is it scientific discourse, historical discourse, both of those or something different again?  Surely some guidance has to be given about this by those who teach and assess theology.  Learning ‘methodology' can become quite complicated.  There is a general methodological approach which most disciplines can agree on – but that might be restricted to matters like the standards to be adopted for footnoting, bibliographies  and the like.  Just as important is the language style and discourse approach demanded by, say, anthropology as against dogmatic theology.     [return to top]

Referencing

The traditional target skill for referencing is to know how to layout the reference markers, where to place them, how to integrate quotes, how to prepare a bibliography.  But over and above that there is also a real world referencing discourse which needs to be understood – how one presents an idea, develops it with references, then redirects the discourse to the line of thought.  These skills may well go under the heading of Essay Planning.  It doesn’t matter what we call it, so long as we learn it.  It involves learning how much information is to be included in a point, how to formulate headings and sub-headings appropriately.

 The question arises as to whether there are also Pacific discourse  patterns which have a place in academic discourse.  My sense of things is that there are, and any Pacific English Grammar, to be complete, would make some reference to such an area.

 Discourse, as described earlier, is less a case of some specific item, some specific rule about a written or spoken utterance.  It is more like the glue that holds the whole together.  It is, if you like, the very life that exists across utterances (including written ones) and between participants, especially if ‘participant’ can include the social context.  For this reason, then, I believe that we cannot exclude aspects of Pacific discourse patterns.  They are likely to give life to something written by Pacificans, help them determine the local identity of what is written, or help them express their own Pacific identity.  That, surely, is important.

 We are a long way here from looking at certain phrases or formations in what I have been calling Pacific English.  Academic discourse is more than a discussion about good grammar.  It must include discussion of features like information structure, the strong oral background, rather than literary background, of Pacific cultures, the rules concerning reference to elements outside the immediate context.  It is a legitimate question to ask if writing or (since writing has only a 150 year history in the Pacific) speech-making is writer-responsible or reader-responsible (or speaker-responsible versus listener-responsible).  In other words, are some things to be left to the reader/listener to work out, or should everything be explicitly referred to and explained by the writer-speaker?

 English academic discourse is writer-responsible.  Japanese academic discourse tends to be reader-responsible.  The features of reader-responsible discourse are observable: