Errors in Language Learning and Use is an up-to-date introduction and guide to the study of errors in language, and is also a critical survey of previous work. Error Analysis occupies a central position within Applied Linguistics, and seeks to clarify questions such as `Does correctness matter?', `Is it more important to speak fluently and write imaginatively or to communicate one's message?' Carl James provides a scholarly and well-illustrated theoretical and historical background to the field of Error Analysis. The reader is led from definitions of error and related concepts, to categorization of types of linguistic deviance, discussion of error gravities, the utility of teacher correction and towards writing learner profiles. Throughout, the text is guided by considerable practical experience in language education in a range of classroom contexts worldwide.

General editor's prefaceAuthor's prefaceAbbreviations1. Definition and DelimitationHuman errorSuccessive paradigmsInterlanguage and the veto on comparisonLearners and native speakersThe heyday of Error AnalysisMounting criticism of Error AnalysisData collection for Error Analysis2. The Scope of Error AnalysisGood English for the EnglishGood English for the L2 learnerThe native speaker and the power dimensionThe Incompleteness hypothesis3. Defining 'Error'IgnoranceMeasures of devianceOther Dimensions of Error: Error and MistakeError: Mistake and Acquisition: Learning - An Equation?Lapsology4. The Description of ErrorsError detectionDescribing errorsError ClassificationError TaxonomiesCounting errorsProfiling and Error AnalysisComputerized Corpora of Errors: ICLE - COALA5. Levels of ErrorMedium errorsText errorsLexical errorsClassifying Lexical errorsGrammar errorsDiscourse errors6. Diagnosong ErrorDescription and diagnosisIgnorance and avoidanceMother tongue influence: Interlingual errorsTarget language causes: Intralingual errorsLearning-strategy based errorsCommunication strategy based errorsInduced errorsCompound and ambiguous errors7. Error Gravity and Error EvaluationEvaluationCriteria for error gravity8. Error CorrectionWhat is correction?Whether to correct: pros and consHow to do error correction: some options and principlesNoticing error9. A Case StudyElicitation and registrationError identificationCategorizing the errorsStatus: error or mistake?DiagnosisBibliographyIndex