AN ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL ERRORS FOUND IN STUDENTS’ ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

Abstract

The present study aims at describe, analyzing and calculate the percentage the types of lexical errors found in the writing argumentative essay produced by the fourth semester students of English Teaching Department of IAIN Batusangkar in 2017/2018 academic year. This method of the research is a qualitative research by using content analysis design. The subjects were the fourth semester students of English Teaching Department. The data of this research were obtained from 70 students', dokument of midterm test argumentative essay. The research instrument uses Chelimsky's (1989) theory of content analysis which includes six processes in conducting data analysis.The data were analyzed by using theories from james (1998)  and Llach (2011) about types lexical errors. The study found a total of 799 lexical errors in twelve types of lexical error. Misspelling was the most common lexical error with a total of 289 errors and the percentage is 36,17%.