[RM] Coding errors

[Richard]

My father a businessman. He have own company. His company it sells jewellry. He drive his car to work everyday. He leaves early morning and gets to home in evening. He works diligently.

How many errors are there is this text? (It is possible to identify 14 errors, but most people identify around 10)
What are the errors?
How might you categorise these errors?
What is your justification for these categories?

[ronnakritong]

Grammar mistakes (though I am not a grammar junkie): redundancy, S/V agreement, every day, get to home, blah blah.
Error for communication: 0 (I understood all of them)

[Richard]

Ong makes a good point here, implying that whether something counts as an error or not depends on the standard you're judging it against. Issues like S/V agreement, 'get to home' are only errors when judged against a very strict native speaker standard (this is one of the key points made by English as a Lingua Franca advocates).

When Ong judges based on intelligibility, he identifies no errors. I agree that the whole text is easily understandable, but should something be judged as an error when 1. it is definitively wrong; or 2. when it could be improved. For example, while not explicitly wrong, starting every very short sentence with the same subject (He, He, He) sounds childish and inarticulate, and is a point that could be easily improved. Even if we're judging the text against ELF norms, could this repetition be considered an error?