SYNTACTICAL INTERFERENCE FOUND IN EFL STUDENTS ’ ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The purpose of this study is to analyze syntactical interference found in EFL Students’ English composition of IAIN Salatiga. The objectives are to find out type of interference, frequency of each type, the most dominant type, and the factors contribute to language interference in EFL students’ composition. This is a descriptive-qualitative research. The data were taken through elicitation technique, and then analyzed by using theory of language interference. The findings of this study showed that EFL students made five categories of interference error that belong to syntactical interference: the use of L1 structure in target language, the use of L1 structure in English noun phrase, literal translation in negation of verbal sentence, literal translation in negation of nominal sentence, and literal translation in nominal sentence of affirmative form.


INTRODUCTION
In foreign language learning, EFL students will always encounter some difficulties/problems in mastering it.When they are learning a foreign language, they often make mistakes whether in their speaking or writing.These problems are exactly caused by the different systems of mother tongue and those of foreign language especially English.Foreign language learners sometimes get difficulty in mastering English.It happens because of the interference of first language into English.So, what they find difficult will depend on the degree and maturity of what they have obtained on English.There are many factors which influence the problems in learning English; one of them is because of interference of first language.
Every country has different language used as a mother tongue or language which is used daily.Every language has different structure or grammar, likewise Indonesian and English.Both of them have different grammar in composing a sentence.In English every action is always related to the time when it happens and the time determines the correctness of sentence based on English grammar rule.While Indonesia language whenever action happens, it doesn't influence the correctness of sentence because it has no time difference in determining a deed.
As EFL country, Indonesia, English is learnt as the first foreign language.Learning a foreign language requires accuracy, especially when both native and foreign languages have different structure.The differentiation of structure may cause errors or mistakes in learning a foreign language.In learning a foreign language learners are usually interfered by the elements of first or native language.Interference happens most of the time, and it has a big role in foreign language learning.
Interference is the change of language system used in other element of language which is regarded as a mistake because it deviates from the rules of language used (Chaer and Agustina, 1995, p.158).Weinreich (in Napitupulu, 1994, p.14), asserts interference is the deviation of language norm in usage as the effect of bilingual toward another language.The term of interference is firstly used by Weinreich to name the existence of different language system spoken by bilingual speaker in using a language.Interference happens when the speaker uses second language and ones which is interfered into second language is the first language or mother tongue.
According to Dulay et al (1982, p.98) interference is the automatic transfer, due to habit, of the surface structure of the first language onto the surface of the target language.Interference is the deviation of target language as a result of their familiarity with more than one language.They differentiate interference into two parts, the psychological and sociolinguistic.The psychological refers to the influence of old habits when new ones are being learned, whereas sociolinguistic refers to interactions of language when two language communities are in contact.Therefore students will find it difficult in mastering the second language due to the interference, which is influenced by old habit, familiar with mother tongue and interaction of two languages in the communities.
This study is conducted to answer the following questions: Based on the result of the research, she concluded that errors are found in students' writing caused by both interlingual and intralingual interference.It is clearly understood that writing errors are assumed as being not only a result of the native language interference habits to the learning of second language or foreign language, but also inadequate acquisition of the target language.This is because writers depend on the structures of their own native language and transfer those structures to produce their written language.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Language interference has become one of crucial discussions on language learning.Many language scholars have conducted a research on mother tongue interference.It has become one of major issues in learning a second language or foreign language since foreign language learners are highly dependable the structure of second language on the structure of first language.
There are some definitions of interference promoted by language scholars.The term of interference is firstly used by Weinrich to name the existence of different language system spoken by bilingual speaker in using a language.According to Weinrich (1994, p.14) interference is the deviation of language norm in usage as the effect of bilingual toward another language.
More specifically, Weinreich says interference is defined as a deviation to the norm of both languages which occurs in the speech of a bilingual speaker.Interference appears on all language levels: phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical.Numerous examples can be quoted to show how interference works.It is always present when a bilingual speaker includes elements of another language into the one he is speaking, mostly not being aware of it.The two language systems interfere with one another on the part of the listener this is perceived as a foreign intonation or accent, a wrong inflection, an unusual word order or an unfamiliar metaphor.
According to Dulay et al (1982, p.98) interference is the automatic transfer, due to habit, of the surface structure of the first language onto the surface of the target language.Interference is the deviation of target language as a result of their familiarity with more than one language.They differentiate interference into two parts, the psychological and sociolinguistic.The psychological refers to the influence of old habits when new ones are being learned, whereas sociolinguistic refers to interactions of language when two language communities are in contact.Therefore students will find it difficult in mastering the second language due to the interference, which is influenced by old habit, familiar with mother tongue and interaction of two languages in the communities.
Meanwhile, according to Hayi (1985, p.8) referring to Valdman's point of view in 1966 theorized that interference is an obstacle as a result of speaker's habits on first language (L1) in the study of language acquisition of second language (L2).Consequently, there are some transfers of negative elements from the mother tongue into the target language.In other word, the speaker uses negative elements of first language in target language or second language.Nababan (1991, p.35) says interference only happens to speakers when they use second or foreign language in their speaking or writing.It can be receipted interference (the use of second language receipted by the elements of first language) and productive interference (the use of first language by using element and structure of second language), exactly when they use both languages.A person who is bilingual may be said to be one who is able to communicate, to varying extents in a second language.
While Ellis (1997, p. 51) refers to interference as 'transfer', which he says is the impact that the learner's native language exerts over the acquisition of target language.He asserts that transfer is governed by learners' perceptions about what is transferable and by their stage of development in target language learning.He raises the need to distinguish between errors and mistakes and makes an important divergence between the two.He says that errors reflect gaps in the learners' knowledge; they occur because the learners do not figure out what is right.Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occur because, in a particular instance, the learners are unable to perform what they know.
Basically, the emergence of interference occurs to the level of bilingual interpreter especially oral interpreter, how far he or she knows and masters source of language and target language well and correctly, and how often he or she uses and changes from one language into another.It causes interference.The main factor of interference is because of the difference of grammar or structure between source of language or first language and target language or second language (Yusuf, 1994, p.70).
Lott (1983, p.256) defines interference as errors in the learner's use of the second language or foreign language which can be traced back to the mother tongue or first language.In other word, language learners use the structure of first language in target language.According to Lott (1983, p. 258 -259) there are three factors that cause language interference as follows: a.The interlingual factor.Interlingual transfer is a significant source for language learners.This concept comes from contrastive analysis of behavioristic school of learning.It stresses upon the negative interference of mother tongue as the only source of errors.The construction 'I like to read' is uttered as 'I read to like' by many Hindi speakers.In Hindi, the verb is pre-positioned while in English it is post positioned.This type of error is the result of negative transfer of first language rules to target language system.b.The over extension of analogy.
Usually, a learner has been wrong in using a vocabulary caused by the similarity of the element between first language and second language, e.g. the use of cognate words (the same form of word in two languages with different functions or meanings).The example is the using of month and moon.Indonesian learners may make a mistake by using month to say moon in the space.c.Transfer of structure.There are two types of transfer according to Dulay et.al (1982, p.101), positive transfer and negative transfer.
Negative transfer refers to those instances of transfer, which result in error because old habitual behavior is different from the new behavior being learned.On the contrary, positive transfer is the correct utterance, because both the first language and second language have the same structure, while the negative transfer from the native language is called interference.The definition above means that qualitative research has focus on multi methods that comprise an interpretive and naturalistic approach to its subject matter.It means that those who conduct a research using qualitative method study the things in their natural setting and try to interpret the meaning based on phenomenon people bring.Qualitative research involves some varieties such as personal experience, introspective, life story, interview and so on to explain about problematic moment and meaning in individuals' lives.

RESEARCH METHOD
The subject of this research is English Foreign Language (EFL) students of IAIN Salatiga.They are second semester students.The writer used technique of random sampling.The writer took thirty students randomly, eleven boys and nineteen girls, as the subject of this research.
The object of this research is first language interference found in EFL students' English composition of State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Salatiga.The interference is classified into two types, namely lexical interference and syntactical interference.Then both types of interference are broken down into several kinds of interference errors based on mistakes made by students.However, the writer just discussed the interference at syntactical level.
In this research, the data were taken from the wrong sentences because of interference made by English Foreign Language (EFL) students in their English composition.The wrong sentences were taken from students' English composition in the form of essays or paragraphs on thirty sheets of paper.The data sources were from EFL students' composition of Salatiga State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN).
Having all the data been collected, first the writer displays all the data found in English Foreign Language (EFL) students' composition and then analyzes them by identifying and criticizing the mistakes of the interference.After that he explains and classifies the type of interference.The writer then corrects the mistake based on English rules commonly used in detail.It aims at classifying the types of interference frequently happen in learning a foreign language.The last, the writer draws conclusions.

Frequency of Each types of Interference
There are five categories of interference error, the use of L1 in target language, the use of L1 in English noun phrase, literal translation in negation of verbal sentence, literal translation in negation of nominal sentence, and literal translation in nominal sentence of affirmative form.For more detail, look at the table below: The table above shows that English Foreign Language (EFL) students of IAIN Salatiga made mistake at syntactical interference with the detail; the use of L1 structure in target language 25,27%, the use of L1 structure in English noun phrase 10,98%, literal translation in negation of verbal sentence 20,90%, literal translation in negation of nominal sentence 18,68%, and literal translation in nominal sentence of positive form 24,17%. So, the most frequent interference error made by EFL students of IAIN Salatiga is in the case of the use of L1 structure in target language (25,27%).

The Most Dominant Type of Interference Error
Based on the result of data analysis described in the table above, in can be known that EFL students of IAIN Salatiga made interference error at syntactical level.Syntactical interference consists of the use of L1 in target language, the use of L1 in English noun phrase, literal translation in negation of verbal sentence, literal translation in negation of nominal sentence, and literal translation in nominal sentence of affirmative form.
Based on the frequency of each type of interference error shown in the table above, there are five types of interference errors made by EFL students of IAIN Salatiga.And the most frequent type is the use of L1 structure in target language.Thus, the most dominant type of interference error is the use of L1 structure in target language which belongs to syntactical level.

Factors Contribute to Language Interference
There are many factors contribute to language interference.According to Weinreich (1970) in his study, there are five factors; they are speaker's bilingualism background, disloyalty to target language, limited vocabularies of target language mastered by language learners, need of synonym, and prestige and style.According to Lott (1983) in his research, there are three factors contribute to language interference; they are interlingual error, over extension of analogy, and transfer of structure.While according to Jianhua (2007) there are two factors of language interference; language and cultural differences and modes of thinking.
Having analyzed all the data of this research, the writer could draw the conclusion of factors contribute to language interference.Based on the data found in EFL students, and the underlying theory, the writer has assumption about factors contribute to language interference made by EFL students of IAIN Salatiga as follows: First, some EFL students seem to still have supercial linguistic knowledge since they are still at the beginning of their study.Second, students seem to still have limited vocabulary, so they cannot distinguish between verb and noun such.Third, some students may have different modes of thinking.Many of EFL students seem to think in Indonesian style when they make English sentences, so many of them made English sentences with Indonesian structure, they used prepositions by translating literally from first language into target language, they made adverb of manner and comparative degree just by translating literally word by word, and they made English sentences by translating literally from first language into target language word by word.Fourth, students are disloyal to the rules of target language.

CONCLUSION
In accordance with research finding and discussion elaborated above, it can be concluded that: There are five categories of interference error that belong to syntactical interference, they are: the use of L1 structure in target language, the use of L1 structure in English noun phrase, literal translation in negation of verbal sentence, literal translation in negation of nominal sentence, and literal translation in nominal sentence of affirmative form.
The frequency of each type of interference errors are: the use of L1 structure in target language 25,27%, the use of L1 structure in English noun phrase 10,98%, literal translation in negation of verbal sentence 20,90%, literal translation in negation of nominal sentence 18,68%, and literal translation in nominal sentence of positive form 24,17%.
The most dominant type of interference error is the use of L1 structure in target language which is about 25,17%.
Factors contribute to language interference are: First, some EFL students seem to still have supercial linguistic knowledge since they are still at the beginning of their study.Second, students seem to still have limited vocabulary.Third, some students may have different modes of thinking.Fourth, the students are disloyal to the rules of target language.