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Give a distinction between an overt error and a covert error

      

Give a distinction between an overt error and a covert error

  

Answers


Francis
An overt Error
According to Corder (1971) an overt error is clearly ungrammatical: a deviation from the TL and is easy to identify. For example the following sentence from a learner is clearly an overt error:
*Many peoples attended his funeral.

A covert error is grammatically well formed at the sentence level but it is not interpretable within the context of communication. It is one that appears well formed but which does not mean what the learner had in mind. For example, “I’m fine thank you” is grammatically correct at the sentence level but as a response to “who are you?” it is obviously an error (Brown D. H.1993)
In the case of both overt and covert errors if a plausible interpretation can be made of the sentences then one should form a reconstruction of the sentence in the target language, compare the reconstruction with the original idiosyncratic sentence and then describe the difference (ibid).
francis1897 answered the question on March 8, 2023 at 13:22


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