LINGUISTIC ERRORS OF USING INDONESIAN IN FOREIGN LEARNERS ’ WRITINGS

This research was aimed at describing errors of using Indonesian in foreign learners’ writings and understanding causing factors of those errors. This research applied qualitativedescriptive approach method. The data were sixteen Indonesian writings written by foreign learners. The findings of this study reveal that there are such linguistic errors related to spelling, such as: errors in capitalization, error in writing affixed and root words, error in writing numbers, error in using punctuations, and error in writing borrowed word; related to morphology, such as: error in using the root, error in morphophonemic process, and error in using affixes; related to syntax, such as: errors in phrase structure and errors in sentence structure; and related to lexicon, such as: the use of pleonastic words, errors in word choice, and the use of unnecessary interrogative words. Moreover, the causing factors of those errors are linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Linguistic factors can be classified into three factors, they are interlingual factor, intralingual factor, and the daily use of Indonesian. Meanwhile, non-linguistic factors can be classified into two factors, they are imperfect language learning and learner’s community environment.


INTRODUCTION
Indonesian has been attracting attention of the world.Since Asian Economy Community (AEC) in 2015, many foreigners from various countries come to Indonesia to learn Indonesian.Because of this condition, there are many Indonesian courses for foreigners, approximately 45 educational institutions in Indonesia (Balai Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Pustaka, 2016).
The purposes of learning Indonesian are various and related to their needs.The purposes into two major purposes, they are general purpose and particular purpose.In general, foreigners learn Indonesian to commiunicate with Indonesian native speakers in daily interaction.Meanwhile, in particular, foreigners learn Indonesian to understand Indonesian culture (Suyitno, 2007: 63).
To accomplish their purposes, foreigners are supposed to master Indonesian Schmidt, 2002: 73).Corder pointed out positive values of identifying learners' errors.Error gives indication to the teacher about learners' learning progress and their difficulties in learning the target language.Then, the teaching strategies are able to be organized based on it.Besides, error is considered as a device for learners to test out their competence of target language rules and then find appropriate approach to improve their language competence (Corder, 1973).Foreign learners also make linguistic errors in their Indonesian writings.It can be seen in the sentence Saya ikut bahasa Indonesia kelas karna saya malas belajar sendiri.In noun phrase bahasa Indonesia kelas, the learner missordered the head and the modifier.Kelas is the head and bahasa Indonesia is the modifier.The learner applied English rule in ordering them, it is Modifier-Head.Meanwhile, the standard structure of noun phrase in Indonesian is Head-Modifier.Therefore, the correct noun phrase is kelas bahasa Indonesia.
Verb in that sentence above must be a transitive verb because it is followed by an object.In this case, affixes meng-/-i must be affixed step by step.First, suffix -i is affixed in the root ikut to form the complex base ikuti.Then, to form a transitive verb mengikuti, prefix mengis affixed in the complex base ikuti.
Besides, the learner made spelling error in writing noun conjunction karna.The learner is not familiar with the standard words and applied unstandard spoken language which is used by several speaker.In Indonesian dictionary, the standard writing of this conjunction is karena.
The learner also made error in word choice.It can be seen in the sentence Kita tinggal selama lima bulan di Indonesia tahun ini.In English pronoun that refers to first plural person is only we.Meanwhile, in Indonesian there are two pronouns that refer to first plural person, they are kami and kita.Pronoun kami is used when the person spoken to is excluded, while pronoun kita is used when the person spoken to is included.Therefore, the correct pronoun is kami.
Those errors complicate readers to understand the idea that want to be delivered by the writer.Therefore, an investigation of learners' errors, particularly foreign learners' errors of using Indonesian in writing, is important.Although this is a preliminary research and very simple, at least foreign learners' difficulties in learning Indonesian are able to be identified.Besides, the weaknesses of teaching Indonesian, particularly in vocational class, and other causing factors are able to be known.
Based on the background, this study attempted to answer the following questions.
1) What linguistics errors are made by foreign learners in Indonesian writing? 2) What are the causing factors of those errors?This study is aimed at identifying foreign learners' errors of using Indonesian in writing and investigating the causing factors of those errors.

METHOD
This study is a qualitative descriptive research which place emphasis on the categories of linguistic errors made by foreign learners in their Indonesian writings and the causing factors of those errors.
Data were taken from foreigners who learn Indonesian in Cinta Bahasa.Its head course is in Ubud, Bali and branch courses are in Sanur, Canggu, and Kuta.Cinta Bahasa cooperates with Balai Bahasa of Bali Province in language train-ing.It has Indonesian private and group classes for beginner, intermediate, and advanced.The teachers are Indonesian native speakers and they use Indonesian during teaching.
Participants of this research are intermediate learners who speak English as mother tongue.Learners were instructed to write two Indonesian writings individually by choosing some topics in the syllabus and did not look up dictionaries, online resources, etc.In the other words, they write it based on their own competence.By using a purposive sampling technique, sixteen writings were collected from fourteen learners as data in this research.Those writings show different categories of errors.
The writings were investigated to identify any ill-formed sentences.However, only seventy five ill-formed sentences are chosen as data.Each sentence contains a number of errors.Meanwhile, other ill-formed sentences which have same categories of errors are eliminated.Then, an analysis was done by classifiying the errors, describing them, and giving the well-formed sentences.Next, for finding out the causing factors of those errors, learners were interviewed and the questionnaires were answered by the teachers.

DISCUSSION
Having analyzed the whole data, the result indicates that foreign learners made linguistic errors in their Indonesian writings related to spelling, morphology, syntax, and lexicon.The classification of those errors is shown in the table.

Categories Sub Categories Spelling Errors
Errors in capitalization Error in writing affixed and root words Error in writing numbers Error in using punctuations, such as omission of full stop, comma, and hyphen, and addition of comma Error in writing borrowed word Morphological Errors Error in using the root Error in morphophonemic process Error in using affixes, such as the use of incorrect affix and omission of affixes (omission of prefix ber-, meng-, and se-, and affixes meng-/-kan, meng-/-i, di-/-kan, ter-/-kan, pe-/-an, and per-/-an) Syntactic Errors Errors in phrase structure, such as omission of preposition, error in word order, double marking of pluralization, errors in phrase expansion (the use of pattern yang + pelaku + aspek + kata kerja and omission of conjunction yang), omission of possessive pronoun, and the use of pattern Dimiliki + dari + Pemilik Errors in sentence structure, such as incompleteness grammatical functions (omission of subject, omission of predicate, and omission of object in transitive verb), double subject, error in passive voice, omission of conjunction Lexical Errors The use of pleonastic words Errors in word choice The use of unnecessary interrogative words Linguistics Errors 1. Spelling Errors Spelling is the writing of a word with the necessary letters and diacritics present in an accepted standard order and an arrangement of letters that form a word or part of a word.Spelling difficulties can lead to substantial problems in the literacy acquisition.Error identification : Sebelum Saya pindah ke sini, Saya berajar bahasa Indonesia 3 minggu di Wisma Bahasa, Jogjakarta.In the sentence above there are such spelling errors.First, the writing of personal pronoun saya must be written in lowercase letter, not in capital/uppercase letter, except if it is in the beginning of sentence.Next, the writing of number is incorrect because the number consists of one word and it is not used in sequence.Therefore, the number must be spelled out in words rather than numerical.
Besides, the learner made a morphological error by using affixed verb berajar.Based on morphophonemic rules, prefix berbecomes belwhen it is affixed in the root ajar.Therefore, the correct affixed verb is belajar.

Correction
: Sebelum saya pindah ke sini, saya belajar bahasa Indonesia tiga minggu di Wisma Bahasa, Jogjakarta.Another example of spelling errors can be seen in the sentence below.The learner made errors in using punctuation, particularly comma.Error identification : Pada akhir minggu, kami makan telur, babi dan tomat bakar untuk makan pagi.Adverb describes or gives more information about a verb, adjective, adverb, or phrase.It has various types which expresses some relations of manner or quality, place, time, degree, number, etc.In the sentence above pada akhir minggu is adverb of time.The attendance of adverb in the sentence is optional.Moreover, adverb is easily to be moved.It is able to be replaced in the beginning, in the middle, or in the end of the sentence.When adverb is in the beginning of the sentence, it is written without comma.
On the other hand, telur, babi, dan tomat bakar is details of the object in the sentence above.Therefore, comma must be used in between the details.Correction : Pada akhir minggu kami makan telur, babi, dan tomat bakar untuk makan pagi.

Morphological Errors
Morphology is related to the construction of words and parts of words.When the word is not modified based on the rules, it has an impact on the affixed word as the result of affixation related to its meaning, class, or grammatical function (Bloomfield, 1995:200).Error identification : Kalau ada anak lain, dia harus diberikan uang sebagai kompensasi juga, supaya tidak ada tengkar.Tengkar is dependent root.Dependent root is able to be used in the utterance after it is previously affixed, repeated, or combined with other words.Therefore, affixs per-/-an must be affixed all at once in the root tengkar.The affixation will form the affixed noun pertengkaran.

Correction
: Kalau ada anak lain, dia harus diberikan uang sebagai kompensasi juga, supaya tidak ada pertengkaran.The learner also made morphological errors by using incorrect affix as shown in the data below.The use of incorrect affix has an impact on the word class and grammatical function of the affixed word.Error identification : Saya harus latihan dan belajar dengan guru karena saya ingin memperbaiki bahasa Indonesia saya.The use of suffix -an in the root latih is incorrect because the function of suffixan is to form a noun.On the other hand, the sentence above requires an affixed verb which will function as predicate.The correct affix that must be affixed in the root latih is prefix berbecause the function of prefix beris to form an intransitive verb.

Syntactic Errors
Syntax is the study of the principles and process by which sentences are constructed in particular language.When the aspects of sentence are not constructed properly, the idea is not able to be conveyed completely or even it is not able to be understood (Chomsky, 1971:110).Error identification : Owen tidur sekitar jam delapan, kemudian, kami tonton televisi atau baca banyak buku-buku sampai kami capek.Noun phrase banyak buku-buku has double marking of pluralization.Meanwhile, based on Indonesian rules, it must has one marking of pluralization.There are two steps form the standard noun phrase.First, pluralization is marked by repeating the noun and the determiner which marks pluralization is eliminated as shown in the correction (1).Second, if the determiner which marks pluralization is used, the noun is not repeated as shown in the correction (2).
Besides, the learner also made morphological errors.Prefix mengmust be affixed in the root tonton and baca.Prefix mengturns into menwhen it is affixed in the root which is started by consonant /t/, such as tonton.In addition, consonant /t/ is assimilated by nasal of the prefix.Therefore, the affixation forms verb menonton.Meanwhile, when prefix mengis affixed in the root which is started by consonant /b/, such as baca, it turns into mem-.Therefore, the affixation forms the affixed verb membaca.
The learner made errors in word choice by using jam instead of pukul.The use of jam in the adverb of time jam delapan is incorrect because jam is used to indicate period of the time in hours.Meanwhile, pukul is used to point out the time in that moment.Therefore, pukul is the appropriate word for that adverb of time.The same error was also made by the learner by using capek instead of capai.The use of adjective capek is incorrect because capek is informal word used in daily conversation.It is not appropriate to be used in written language.The correct adjective is capai based on the standard Indonesian dictionary.Correction (1) : Owen tidur sekitar pukul delapan, kemudian, kami menonton televisi atau membaca buku-buku sampai kami capai.

Correction (2)
: Owen tidur sekitar pukul delapan, kemudian, kami menonton televisi atau membaca banyak buku sampai kami capai.Another example of error in phrase structure is shown in the sentence below.Error identification : Aktivitas yang saya tidak suka adalah rapat.The subject in that sentence, aktivitas, is expanded by personal pronoun passive clause.In that passive clause, yang is conjunction, saya is the author of an action (pelaku), tidak is auxiliary (aspek), and suka is verb (kata kerja).However, the pattern is incorrect.Based on Indonesian rules, the standard pattern of passive clause is (aspek) + pelaku + kata kerja as shown in the correction.
Besides, suffix -i must be affixed in the root suka.The function of suffix -i is to form a transitive verb which is able to be used to define the subject in the relative clause with pattern yang + aspek + pelaku + kata kerja.The affixation will form the affixed verb sukai.

Correction
: Aktivitas yang tidak saya sukai adalah rapat.The learner also made a syntactic error in the sentence below.Error identification : Satu tahun yang lalu kembali ke Australia.Based on Indonesian rules, a sentence consists of at least two grammatical functions, they are subject and predicate.However, the sentence above does not have a subject, it has only a predicate.Subject indicates what it is about or who/what performs the action.Subject in the sentence above can be fulfilled by pronoun kami.Pronoun kami is pronoun that refers to first plural person used when the person spoken to is excluded.Correction : Satu tahun yang lalu kami kembali ke Australia.

Lexical Errors
When words are chosen appropriately, the language structure will be held together.Moreover, the intended meaning is able to be conveyed clearly.On the other hand, when words are selected improperly and inaccurately, it will lead to the confusion and segmentation of meaning.Error identification : Waktu itu, Saya hanya berajar kata kata mudah saja, Saya belum bisa bicara.The use of two words or more which have same meaning or function is called pleonasm.It is shown in the use of words hanya and saja.Hanya and saja have same function, it is to place a limit on anything.Therefore, it is not correct to use all at once.Besides, the use of waktu itu is incorrect because it is not adverb of time.The appropriate adverb of time is pada saat itu.
The learner also made morphological errors.First, the learner used incorrect affixed verb berajar.Based on morphophonemic rules, prefix berbecomes belwhen it is affixed in the root ajar.Therefore, the correct affixed verb is belajar.Next, prefix bermust be affixed in the root bicara to form an intransitive verb.The affixation will form intransitive verb berbicara.In the sentence above there are such spelling errors.First, the writing of personal pronoun saya should be not written in capital/uppercase letter, except if it is in the beginning of sentence.It must be written in lowercase letter.Next, reduplicated word kata-kata is written without hypen.Hyphen is used to link reduplicated word.
The sentence above is a complex sentence which consists of two clauses, they are main clause and subordinate clause.However, there is no conjunction for combining those clauses.Therefore, conjunction sehingga must be added.The function of conjunction sehingga is to combine-describe the consequence of what has mentioned in the main clause.

Correction (2)
: Pada saat itu saya belajar kata-kata mudah saja sehingga saya belum bisa berbicara.In the sentence below the learner made lexical error by using unnecessary interrogative word.Error identification : Masakan Indonesia pakai banyak bumbu dan susah untuk tahu bumbu yang mana harus di pakai.Interrogative word is typically associated with a discourse function of questions that are used to seek information.However, the sentence above is not interrogative sentence.Therefore, the use of interrogative word yang mana is not appropriate and must be replaced by conjunction yang.Conjunction yang is used to give definition of the noun.
The learner also made an error in writing affixed word because the learner was not able to differentiate between prefix diand preposition di.Prefix diis affixed in the root which is a verb and written as a single word.Meanwhile, preposition di is used at the beginning of noun and written with a space in between.Because the root pakai is a verb, diis a prefix and it must be written as a single word with the root.
Besides, there are such morphological errors in the sentence above.Prefix mengmust be affixed in the root pakai.However, prefix mengturns into memwhen it is affixed in the root which is started by consonant /p/, such as pakai.Moreover, consonant /p/ is assimilated by nasal of the prefix.Therefore, the affixation forms verb memakai.Meanwhile, the root tahu is affixed step by step.First, suffix -i is affixed in the root tahu to form the complex base tahui.Then, prefix keis affixed in the complex base tahui to form the complex base ketahui.Next, prefix mengis affixed in the complex base ketahui.In this case, consonant /k/ is assimilated by nasal of the prefix.Therefore, the affixation will form verb mengetahui.