An Analysis of Indonesian Language Interference in English Writing Through Contrastive Error Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61722/jssr.v4i4.11020Keywords:
Contrastive Error Analysis; Indonesian Language Interference; English WritingAbstract
This study investigated Indonesian language interference in students’ English writing through the use of Contrastive Error Analysis. The study aimed to identify the forms of Indonesian language interference, analyze its influence on students’ writing, and describe the types of errors found in the data. A descriptive qualitative research design was employed, and the data consisted of 15 English sentences collected from students’ written assignments. The data were analyzed using Error Analysis and Contrastive Analysis procedures to identify and explain the errors. The findings revealed four types of errors: misformation, omission, misordering, and addition. Misformation was the most dominant error type, with 8 occurrences, followed by omission (4), misordering (2), and addition (1). The analysis also showed that intralingual errors (10 occurrences) were more frequent than interlingual errors (5 occurrences). The study concludes that students’ writing errors were influenced by both Indonesian language interference and incomplete mastery of English grammar, although intralingual factors were more dominant.
References
Berzak, R., Dehghani, N., Levy, R., & Katz, B. (2016). Interlanguage transfer and the acquisition of English as a second language. Language Learning, 66(3), 1–25.
Bowen, G. A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27–40. https://doi.org/10.3316/QRJ0902027
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Sage Publications.
Dalimunthe, H., Utama, L. P., Sundana, D., Hasibuan, S. H., & Ismahani, S. (2025). Contrastive and error analysis of Indonesian influence on English academic writing. Linguistics and Literature Journal, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.33365/linguistics_and_literature.v6i2.1021
Dulay, H., Burt, M., & Krashen, S. (1982). Language two. Oxford University Press.
Ellis, R. (1997). Second language acquisition. Oxford University Press.
Faraj, A. K. A., & Karim, S. M. (2020). Error analysis and its implications for English language teaching. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 11(4), 1–10.
Hamdani, M. S., Thohir, L., Putera, L. J., & Saputra, A. (2025). Analysis of students’ errors and writing flow in descriptive paragraph written by the first semester students of English Department at the University of Mataram, Academic Year 2024/2025. Journal of Authentic Research, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.36312/jar.v4i2.3633
Ismahani, S., Nasution, S., Nasution, R. U. T., Harahap, I. P., & Harahap, G. R. (2024). Contrastive and error analysis of Indonesian learners’ tense and aspect usage in English writing. Jurnal Pendidikan dan Sastra Inggris (JUPENSI), 4(3), 47–58. https://doi.org/10.55606/jupensi.v4i3.6299
Kazazoğlu, S. (2020). The impact of L1 interference on foreign language writing: A contrastive error analysis. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 16(3), 1168–1188. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.803621
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures: Applied linguistics for language teachers. University of Michigan Press.
Nangle, B. M., Venslovaitė, J., & Vengalienė, D. (2024). An analysis of the most common L1 interference grammar, vocabulary and syntax errors of Lithuanian learners in written English. Sustainable Multilingualism, 24(1), 79–105. https://doi.org/10.2478/sm-2024-0004
Richards, J. C. (1974). A non-contrastive approach to error analysis. In J. C. Richards (Ed.), Error analysis: Perspectives on second language acquisition (pp. 172–188). Longman.
Ulviani, M., & Kemala, R. (2025). Linguistic challenges in Indonesian academic writing: An error analysis perspective. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17149120
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 JOURNAL SAINS STUDENT RESEARCH

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.











