An error analysis on the understanding of Elliptical constructions by the first semester students of English Department of Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya, academic year 2003/2004

Ellipsis which is commonly found in daily communication both written or spoken should be understood as a whole meaning. Ellipsis means that there are words or clauses that are omitted in the delievered sentences as the reader or listener will understand what the speaker or writer means. On the other hand, whether or not the users of the ellipsis actually understand how to correctly construct or complete the sentence, and what kinds of errors they may make in completing sentences are still big questions. These conditions arouse the writer’s curiosity on the understanding of elliptical constructions by the first-semester students of English department of Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya. Those students are of the academic year 2003/2004. By using the research method of descriptive qualitative, the writer conducted this thesis. The instrument used was a test. Concerning that ellipsis was a broad topic, the writer divided the test into three parts: Part A, completion of sentences using elliptical pro-forms; part B, completion of sentences in isolated clausal ellipsis; and part C, completion of sentences based on dialogue contexts. It was first tried out to two of five classes (55 students) and the writer got the result that the test was reliable then the writer continued to administrated the test to the remaining three classes (80 students), as the subjects of this study. From the data the writer found that in part A, there were errors of auxiliary (47%), errors of elliptical pro-forms (31.91%) and errors of copula (16.94%). In part B, the students made errors of auxiliary (25.45%) and errors of verb phrase (20.68%). While in part C, they made errors of verb phrase (31.75%), and errors of noun phrase (2.30%). As English is a foreign language that is taught in Indonesia, it is important to teach basic English grammar to the students correctly. The Indonesian students should realize the English structure which are different from the Indonesian structures. This is important, as many students tend to transfer the structures of their native language to the English language the learners are studying. The students need to be trained well before they are expected to teach English when they graduate from the English department