SYNTACTIC INTERFERENCE IN INDONESIAN-GERMAN TRANSLATION: AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF VERBSTELLUNG AMONG B1- LEVEL LEARNERS

Abstrak

This study examined syntactic interference in the translation of Indonesian texts into German produced by B1-level learners. Previous studies have identified various syntactic errors in learners’ writing, however, limited research has investigated syntactic interference in translation activities that activate two linguistic systems simultaneously. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the forms of syntactic interference occurring in Indonesian-to-German translations. The study employed a qualitative descriptive research design based on Corder’s error analysis framework. The data were obtained from Indonesian-to-German translation tasks completed by B1-level learners. The analysis focused on errors related to Verbstellung, a crucial aspect of German sentence structure that often causes difficulty due to mother tongue interference. The findings revealed three types of syntactic errors: misformation, omission, and misordering. Misformation was the most frequent error (40%), followed by omission (33%) and misordering (27%). These results indicate that syntactic interference significantly influenced learners’ translations.