Lexical and grammatical errors analysis on Indonesian-English translation of EFL students in Indonesia

Abstract

This current study aimed to find out lexical and grammatical errors in Indonesian to English translation texts made by Indonesian EFL learners in a private senior high school in Lampung. A qualitative case study design was adopted in this research. Documentation and literature review were used as the research instruments. To obtain the data, the researchers used 15 simple sentences and a short text in Indonesian. A total of 25 students participated as the sample in this research. The results suggested that there was a total of 402 errors made by the students and the students made more grammatical errors than lexical errors. Regardless of the discrepancy of students’ CEFR level, the most frequent errors found in students’ translation were omissions (24.13%), confusion of sense relations (18.16%), misformations (11.44%), and distortions (9.95%). After identifying the errors, the researcher also attempted to describe the possible sources of errors to fill the gap in previous studies. Based on the analysis, the possible factors influencing the errors were transfer of phonological system, transfer of lexico-semantic errors, transfer of morphological elements, transfer of grammatical elements, transfer of stylistic and cultural elements in interlingual errors and communication strategy-based errors and learning strategy-based errors in intralingual errors.