Native Language Interference in Learning a Second Language

The purpose of the research is to identify and investigate grammatical errors of the theses which are written by students’ Department of English Literature at one of the State Universities, Jakarta, Indonesia. The research approach is descriptive qualitative with descriptive analysis. There are five theses that are used as data sources. The data sources are the fourth chapter of the thesis that every chapter contains a conclusion and a suggestion. The study uses a non-contrastive approach by Richards to error analysis. Based on data sources, the authors found 84 errors, which can be divided into 17 types of grammatical errors. There are 29.80% of article errors, 11.90% of punctuation errors, 8.30% of unnecessary words, 6% of spelling errors, 8.30% of spacing errors, 4.80% of subject-verb agreement errors, 6% of parallel structure errors, 1.20% of word order errors, 4.80% of plural errors, 1.2% of word choice errors, 1.2% of preposition errors, 3.6% of missing words errors, 4.8% of run-on sentence errors, 4.8% of to infinitive errors, 1.2% of passive voice errors, 1.2% of capitalization errors, and 1.2% of auxiliaries errors. The results indicate that students make common grammatical errors encouraged or influenced by their first language (L1).


INTRODUCTION
English is a foreign language that has long been rooted in Indonesia. Indonesian students have studied English from elementary school to university. Although Indonesian students have experienced a long-term learning process, they lean to still make errors, especially in written form.
Generally, one of the skills in English is writing. In the writing, students must apply some features' language, for instance, vocabulary, grammar, general knowledge, etc. Writing also considered very substantially in each university curriculum, especially in the English department. Because this subject can be seen as tools for critical thinking and for language development. Most subjects depend on writing, so writing is the most important part; for example, writing reports, essays, theses, and so on. Besides, writing can grow the student's skills in obtaining the necessary strategies such as to present data, analyze, and conclude data's study (Bacha, 2002).
Lado claims that students who learn foreign languages (English) will find some features quite easy and difficult. When elements are similar to their mother tongue, it will be simple for them. Then, the elements are different from their native language, it will be difficult (Kramsch , 2007).
Related to this research, there is a current study that deals with the analysis of grammatical errors. Previous research was first carried out by Suzanne (Suzanne, 2017) her research found that grammatical errors were deeply affected by the speakers' first language. Suzanne's research was conducted to recognize prepositional errors made by learners while speaking English. In another research, the research was conducted by Aziz (Aziz, 2016). In the research, the researcher is to identify presenters' utterances as the object of the research. However, most studies analyze grammatical errors made by learners in spoken language.
Furthermore, many studies that have been investigated regarding errors in grammar have been carried out such as (Febriyanti & Sundari, 2016;Heryanti et al., 2017;Sanu, 2016;Sukarno, 2016). Generally, the studies are more viewed from the perspective of essays and narrative paragraph writing. On the other hand, this research focuses on grammatical errors, especially in the published theses. Because research that examines grammatical errors in the thesis is still rarely found. So, this research will be concentrated on errors in the published theses. There some reasons why we choose it, for instance, first, From four English skills like reading, speaking, listening, and writing, writing is the most difficult skill in English (Irawati, 2015;Nunan, 1989;Phuket & Othman, 2015;Sermsook et al., 2017;Shahhoseiny, 2015). As stated by Hague (Hague, 2008) that Academic writing requires certain skills such as sentence structure, organization, grammar, punctuation, and so on. She also believes that excellent writing includes planning, reasoning, writing, and modifying because excellent writing is more than just "to talk" on a blank of paper. The second reason is the translation process. The translation is also a cause of the error. This often happens when the student's first language is translated into the target language. It is in line with what was found by Hasyim (Hasyim, 2002).
The third reason is that the bridge between the reader and the writer is writing. If the authors can express their ideas clearly and precisely, then it can be a beneficial communication to provide some facts to the reader. So that readers are able to comprehend it without confusion and ambiguity due to grammatical errors. As Norrish said (as cited in (Khansir, 2012)), "an error as a systematic deviation that occurs when a student has not learned something and consistently get(s) it wrong." The fourth reason is that spelling and grammar errors are able to weaken the trustworthiness and authority of the theses. So that, it ruined the whole value of the theses. This is based on Beede and Mulnix (Beede & Mulnix, 2017) findings that grammar and spelling error rates carry on in digital news. Grammar and spelling errors can also undermine news sources' credibility and authority. Finally, it can damage the value of the media brand.

METHOD
Generally, the aim of the research is to find, to categorize, and to fix the grammatical errors of the theses which are written by students' Department of English Literature, State Universities in Jakarta, Indonesia, based on common grammatical rules. There are five theses that are used as data sources. The data sources are the fourth chapter of the thesis that every chapter contains a conclusion and a suggestion. Then the data were investigated using descriptive methods.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
As mentioned above, this research focuses on grammatical errors that are generally done by students in a thesis. Based on the scope of the study, grammatical errors are classified. Thus, it found from the students' writing in theses published that are still various grammatical errors. Based on data sources, the author found 84 errors, which can be divided into 17 types of grammatical errors. Here is the errors' chart made by the students:  Figure 1 is the result of grammatical errors from five theses that used as the data. There are 29.80% of article errors, 11.90% of punctuation errors, 8.30% of unnecessary words, 6% of spelling errors, 8.30% of spacing errors, 4.80% of subject-verb agreement errors, 6% of parallel structure errors, 1.20% of word order errors, 4.80% of plural errors, 1.2% of word choice errors, 1.2% of preposition errors, 3.6% of missing words errors, 4.8% of run-on sentence errors, 4.8% of to infinitive errors, 1.2% of passive voice errors, 1.2% of capitalization errors, and 1.2% of auxiliaries errors. The first thesis was written by Taufik (Taufik, 2016) titled "The Illocutionary Acts in Fast & Furious 7 Movie". In this thesis, we can find two article errors, one parallel structure error, one-word order error, two spelling errors, two punctuation errors, one subject-verb agreement error, one plurality error, four unnecessary words, and one preposition error. The second thesis is titled "The Translation Strategy of Slang Expression in Comic Entitled The Punisher" by Santika (Santika, 2015). This Thesis contains eight article errors, two punctuation errors, two missing words, one plurality error, one run-on sentence, one to infinitive error, two subject-verb agreement errors, and one spelling error. The third thesis was written by Fachrizal (Fachrizal, 2018) titled "The Translation Strategy of Idiomatic Expression in English Indonesian Subtitle of The Infiltrator Movie." There are two unnecessary words, four punctuation errors, three article errors, one to infinitive error, and two plurality errors. The fourth thesis is titled "Compensation Strategy of Idiom Translation in Novel "The Runaway Juri (Juri Pilihan)" by Putra (Putra, 2016). In this thesis, we will find ten article errors, four parallel structure errors, three spacing errors, three run-on sentences, one missing word, two punctuation errors, and one subject-verb agreement error. "Material Cultural Words Translation Procedure and Meaning Equivalence in The Revenant Novel by Michael Punke" by Nuraini (Nuraini, 2018) is the last thesis of data sources. The thesis contains one capitalization error, two spelling errors, one article error, one unnecessary word, one passive voice error, three spacing errors, one auxiliaries error, and one to infinitive error.
The errors are categorized into 17 types of grammatical errors. Here are the details and the corrections of the errors.

Articles
The first type of grammatical error is articles. There are 25 errors of 84 errors. Here are the errors from the data. "The purpose of this research is to describe the types of illocutionary acts in the dialogues of movie…" "The purpose of this research is to describe the types of illocutionary acts in the dilagoues of the movie…" 2. "The researcher finds the four types of slang expression in the SL but informality and intimacy…".
"The researcher finds the four types of the slang expression in the SL but informality and intimacy…".
3. "The researcher also concludes from the three strategies in translating slang expression".
"The researcher also concludes from the three strategies in translating the slang expression".
From table 1, we can see the errors and the possible corrections based on the basic rules of grammar. In grammatical rules, a noun must be followed by a suitable article before the noun itself. In this case, the errors contain the lack of articles and the inexact articles.

Punctuations
The second type is the punctuations. There are ten errors of 84 errors. Here are the errors from the data.
The errors that shown in the table are punctuation errors. Some errors are mostly about lack of punctuations after the OP (object of preposition) and before the conjunctions. Another problem of the error is the use of a punctuation before present participle.

Unnecessary words
The third type of error is unnecessary words. There are seven errors of 84 errors.
Here are the errors. From all of the errors, there are wordsincludes conjunction -that unnecessary or unneeded to place in the form of the sentence.

Spelling
The fourth type of error is spelling errors. There are five among 84 of spelling errors from all of the data. The errors are listed in table four.

1.
"The writer has explained in the theoritical framework …".
"The writer has explained in the theoretical framework …".

2.
"In this analysis the writer concluded that there are nineteen data of illocutionary acts which is used by characters in fast farious 7 movie…".
"In this analysis the writer concluded that there are nineteen data of illocutionary acts which is used by characters in fast and furious 7 movie…".
"Successful understanding means successful translation".

4.
"…the researcher has analzyed the data using translation procedure theory offered by Peter Newmark and Nida and Taber's meaning equivalence".
"…in the previous chapter, the researcher has analyzed the data using translation procedure theory offered by Peter Newmark and Nida and Taber's meaning equivalence".

5.
"The other procedures such as functional equivalent, synomymy, and notes are probably applied due to the target language…".
"The other procedures such as functional equivalent, synonymy, and notes are probably applied due to the target language…".
Those words are identified as spelling errors because the words are written incorrectly.

Spacing
The fifth type of error is spacing. Based on the data, we can find seven errors of 84 errors. Here are the errors listed in table 5. By seeing the table, the author found an extra spacing and a lack of spacing in the form of the sentences.

Subject-Verb Agreement
The sixth type of error is the subject-verb agreement. The errors of this type are found about four errors of 84 errors. Here are the errors listed on the table. "In this analysis the writer concluded that there are nineteen data of illocutionary acts which are used by characters in fast farious 7 movie…".

2.
"Therefore, the researcher suggest for the translator to widen the knowledge about slang expression…".
"Therefore, the researcher suggests for the translator to widen the knowledge about slang expression…".

3.
"Since the slang expression will always changing over the time, the researcher also suggest to keep update …".
"Since the slang expression will always changing over the time, the researcher also suggests to keep update …".

"This thing can assist the translator or the people who wants to be a translator …".
"This thing can assist the translator or the people who want to be a translator…".
The errors are identified as subject-verb agreement errors because the subjects and the verbs are not balance. The plural subject must have the plural verb, and the singular subject must have the singular verb.

Parallel Structure
The seventh type of errors based on the data is parallel structure. There are five errors of 84 errors, and here are the parallel structure errors, including in the data. The errors are caused by the unbalance of the parallel structure between the types of words, phrases, or sentences.

Word Order
The eighth type of errors is called word order. There is one error of 84 errors that can be found.
Buletin Al-Turas Vol. 26 No. 1 January 2020, pp. 173-188 | 181 A simple error might be occurred because of the lack of some words such as prepositions.

Plurality
On this type of error, we will find four errors of 84 errors. The errors occur because of the uncertain nominal of something written in words or sentences. In those errors, the nouns are served with singular nouns.

Word Choice
There is one error of 84 errors include as this error type. The errors happen when there are inapposite words used in the form of sentences. "And the politeness here took a more positive from seeking opportunities from comity in order to make a pleasure relationship".
"And the politeness here took a more positive from seeking opportunities from comity in order to make a pleasant relationship".
In this case, a word "pleasure" seems inapposite for being an adjective of relationship.

Prepositions
The eleventh type of data errors is prepositions. The is only one error of 84 errors from the data sources. The error is caused because of the unrelated preposition in a grammatical form. The error is listed on table 11. "After analyzing data, the writer has some suggestions to anyone who wants to make the same analysis as the writer".
"After analyzing data, the writer has some suggestions for anyone who wants to make the same analysis as the writer".
From this error, "to" and "for" are prepositions. The preposition "to" is followed by the verb and "for" is followed by the noun.

Missing Words
On missing words, there are three errors of 84 errors that can be found. This error happens when there are unwritten wordsinclude conjunctions and prepositionsin the form of the phrase or the sentence. The errors are listed on table 12. "However, in translation, the researcher finds out all slang expression has no direct lexical meaning and it causes the translation are using daily used word or colloquial".
"However, in translation, the researcher finds out (that) all slang expression has no direct lexical meaning and it causes the translation are using daily used word or colloquial".

2.
"However, in translation, the researcher finds out all slang expression has no direct lexical meaning and it causes the translation are using daily used word or colloquial".
"However, in translation, the researcher finds out all (of) slang expression has no direct lexical meaning and it causes the translation are using daily used word or colloquial".

3.
"Learning culture of SL is the one solution to solve any constraints that will be found doing translation, except using the strategies that have many types choosen by the translator appropriating to the need and the constraint that he finds".
"Learning culture of SL is the one solution to solve any constraints that will be found (in) doing translation, except using the strategies that have many types choosen by the translator appropriating to the need and the constraint that he finds".

Run-On Sentence
On this type of error, there are four errors of 84 errors from the data sources. Run-On Sentence can be identified when there are more two sentences which are combined incorrectly. Here are the errors.

To Infinitive
There are four errors of 84 errors that categorized as infinitive errors. To infinitive is the form of a grammatical rule that contains particle "to" and an infinitive (verb 1). The table below is shown the errors of "to infinitive" errors.

Passive Voice
On passive voice, there is one error of 84 errors that is identified as the passive voice error. The form of passive voice contains "to be" followed by verb three (past participle). Here is the passive voice error.

Capitalization
On this sixteenth type of errors, there is one error of 84 errors. Capitalization is the form of a word that the first letter of it is written as uppercase, and the rests are written as lowercase. Capitalization is used for the first word of a sentence and other reasons such as the name of places, names of persons, or etc. The error is identified as the capitalization error because the first letter of "in" is not capitalized.

Auxiliaries
On the last type of data errors, there is one error of 84 errors. The followed verb after modal must be verb one. In this case, modal is followed by the gerund.
Various theories of errors have been put forward by experts. In this case, this study uses a non-contrastive approach by Richards to analyze the error. Richards (Richards, 1971) classifies causes of error into 1) overgeneralization, 2) incomplete application of rules, 3) false concepts hypothesized, and 4) ignorance of rule restriction.
Richards (Richards, 1971) identified that "the systems of the contact languages themselves have sometimes been contrasted, and an important out-come of contrastive studies has been the notion that they allow for prediction of the difficulties involved in acquiring a second language." Then, he said that in learning a second language such as English, interference from the student's first language causes grammatical errors. Second, overgeneralization where a distorted structure was created by the student based on his experience of other structures (Indonesian) in the target language (English), for instance, she can hits, they are hope, it is happens, she arrive. Moreover, some features that can cause errors, for instance, incomplete application of rules, false concepts hypothesized, ignorance of rule restrictions and etc.
The results show that errors are dominated by article errors. Students may still be confused in using grammar. There are many inconsistencies in the use of the article in the five theses, for example, "The researcher also concludes from the three strategies in translating the slang expression." As explained by Azar and Hagen (Azar, B., & Hagen, 2007) that a speaker uses the when the speaker and listener have the same thing or person in mind. In other words, the is used when the speaker mentions a noun for a second time.
Buletin Al-Turas Vol. 26 No. 1 January 2020, pp. 173-188 | 185 This indicates that the students' lack of understanding of the basic theories related to the article. Research by Herniti (Herniti, 2017) has shown writing activities really require extensive knowledge and a logical mindset. Writing is an advanced skill that is quite complex.
Other related errors are in the form of spelling. 11.90% of punctuation errors in the five theses like in the sample data "In this analysis, the writer concluded that there are nineteen data of illocutionary acts …". This shows that the lack of accuracy of students in the use of spelling. Even though, Hogue (Hogue, 2008) claims that place most listingorder transition signals at the beginning of sentence and put a comma after them. In addition, this indicates that students lack an understanding of this theory. Similar to Qhadafi (Qhadafi, 2018) found that errors made by students in writing are caused due to lack of understanding of students in the use of good and correct spelling. Moreover, the results prove that punctuation is still considered a minor error. Likewise, Burt and Kiparsky (as cited in (Adiantika, H. N., & Floranti, 2019) state that most grammatical errors are dominated by minor errors compared to major errors, for instance, in the form of words, phrases or sentences. This particular does not affect the overall meaning and interpretation of the sentence; as a result, minor errors have no impact (confusion) in the reader's mind. The reader can still make accurate guesses about the meaning in a piece of writing.
The third most common errors found is the subject-verb agreement. The errors of this type are found about four errors of 84 errors. The results showed that the most obvious difference in the English article is determined by general and specific ideas, while Indonesian does not have the same concept. Thus, the influence of the first language can be an indicator of low second language acquisition (Krashen, 1981). He added that it not surprisingly; the errors are most often found in learning English (L2). Second, opportunities to interact significantly less (environmental factors), unlike in their native tongue. The point in the second language is different from the first language, which is quite easy to obtain. On the contrary, Newmark (1966 as cited in (Krashen, 1981) argues that "interference is not the first language "getting in the way" of second language skills. Rather, it is the result of the performer "falling back" on old knowledge when he or she has not yet acquired enough of the second language." Brown (Brown, 2000) demonstrated that in the process of learning a second language, there is a transfer process. Transfer is a general term that describes previous knowledge (L1) for learning a second language (L2). Positive transfer occurs when prior knowledge is useful when L1 is applied correctly to second language subject matter (L2). Negative transfers occur when previous performance interferes with performance (L2). That can be called interference. Interference is one of the annoying factors when learning a second language. It is not surprising that native language interference is clearly the most obvious source of errors when the second language learning process as described on the tables above.
In brief, the results showed student mistakes arise from the inability: (1) to fulfill the rules; (2) to recognize the limitations of the rules; (3) to understand the concept of rules. The most important reason is the interference. The interference is one of the annoying factors when learning a second language.

CONCLUSION
Based on the finding and discussion, the highest percentage of the errors is the article. It means that the authors of the theses are less concerned about the importance of using articles. These show that the learners' first language can affect the target language in making sentences. It can affect negatively. Besides that, errors in spelling and grammar can make credibility and grade on a thesis go down. So that, it ruined the whole value of the theses itself. Then, the role of lecturers, especially supervisors, is very important to assist, guide, and lead the improvement of learners in learning English. Hopefully, this research can help the readers more understand and more concerned about the grammatical errors in writing.