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Contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a pair of languages with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities. Historically it has been used to establish language genealogies.


Second language acquisition

Contrastive analysis was used extensively in the field of
second language acquisition Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning — otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific dis ...
(SLA) in the 1960s and early 1970s, as a method of explaining why some features of a target language were more difficult to acquire than others. According to the
behaviourist Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual ...
theories prevailing at the time, language learning was a question of
habit formation A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.
, and this could be reinforced or impeded by existing habits. Therefore, the difficulty in mastering certain structures in a second language (L2) depended on the difference between the learners' mother language (L1) and the language they were trying to learn.


History

The theoretical foundations for what became known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis were formulated in Robert Lado's ''Linguistics Across Cultures'' (1957). In this book, Lado claimed that "those elements which are similar to
he learner's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
native language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult". While it was not a novel suggestion, Lado was the first to provide a comprehensive theoretical treatment and to suggest a systematic set of technical procedures for the contrastive study of languages. That involved describing the languages (using structuralist linguistics), comparing them and predicting learning difficulties. During the 1960s, there was a widespread enthusiasm with this technique, manifested in the contrastive descriptions of several European languages, many of which were sponsored by the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC. It was expected that once the areas of potential difficulty had been mapped out through contrastive analysis, it would be possible to design language courses more efficiently. Contrastive analysis, along with behaviourism and
structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...
exerted a profound effect on SLA curriculum design and language teacher education, and provided the theoretical pillars of the audio-lingual method.


Criticism and its response

In its strongest formulation, the contrastive analysis hypothesis claimed that all the errors made in learning the L2 could be attributed to 'interference' by the L1. However, this claim could not be sustained by empirical evidence that was accumulated in the mid- and late 1970s. It was soon pointed out that many errors predicted by Contrastive Analysis were inexplicably not observed in learners' language. Even more confusingly, some uniform errors were made by learners irrespective of their L1. It thus became clear that contrastive analysis could not predict all learning difficulties, but was certainly useful in the retrospective explanation of errors. In response to the above criticisms, a moderate version of the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) has developed which paradoxically contradicts Lado's original claim. The new CAH hypothesizes that the more different the L2 is with one's L1, the easier it is for one to learn the target language. The prediction is based on the premise that similarities in languages create confusion for learners. With the help of technological advancement, contrastive analysis has adopted a more efficient method in obtaining language data, a corpus-based approach, which generates vast amount of juxtapositions of language differences in various fields of linguistics, for example
lexis Lexis may refer to: * Lexis (linguistics), the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon *Lexis (Aristotle), a complete group of words in a language *LexisNexis, part of the LexisNexis onl ...
and
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
.


Applications

There are multiple fields in the realms of linguistics to which Contrastive Analysis (CA) is applicable: * Historical linguistics, a former application of CA, which is subsumed under the name
comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...
, a branch in linguistics not to be confused with CA. *
Second language teaching Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: ...
: Despite CA's limitation in the prediction of L2 learners' errors, it provides insights to at least some of the major mistakes that are frequently made by L2 learners irrespective of their L1. Hence, more tailor-made language design can be adopted; examples include awareness raising teaching method and hierarchical learning teaching curriculum. * Second language learning: Awareness raising is the major contribution of CA in second language learning. This includes CA's abilities to explain observed errors and to outline the differences between two languages; upon language learners' realization of these aspects, they can work to adopt a viable way to learn instead of rote learning, and correct fossilized language errors. *
Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...
,
psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...
,
bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
, pragmatics and others cultural-related areas: CA is, in itself, a cross-linguistic/cross-cultural study, and its ability to apply both linguistic and non-linguistic features is one of its major merits. This permits a better linguistic-cultural understanding, which is essential for learning a language in its entirety. * Translation: CA provides better understanding of linguistic difference between two languages and therefore may be applied to the field of translation. Primarily, CA certainly lays a foundation for translation as it is integral that translators and interpreters have a thorough understanding of not only the languages they work between, but of the differences between them as well. Also, it might balance the word-for-word vs. sense-for sense debate by developing strategies to overcome the linguistic hindrance. Moreover, it may avoid awkward translations such as translationese and
Europeanization Europeanisation (or Europeanization, see spelling differences) refers to a number of related phenomena and patterns of change: *The process in which a notionally non-European subject (be it a culture, a language, a city or a nation) adopts a number ...
. *
Language therapy Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
: Distinguishing the difference between language disorder patients from non-standard dialect speakers. This is essential in identifying speech pathology and their corresponding treatment. * Criminal investigation: CA research offers insight to subtle differences among languages. Language patterns can be used as clues to investigate criminal activities, for example analyzing phishing texts designed to deceive users into giving away confidential information.


See also

*
Comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...
* Contrastive linguistics *
Pseudoscientific language comparison Pseudoscientific language comparison is a form of pseudo-scholarship that aims at establishing historical associations between languages by naïve postulations of similarities between them. While comparative linguistics also studies the historical ...

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References

*Connor, Ulla M. (1996)
Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Ellis, R. 1994. ''The Study of Second Language Acquisition'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Lado, R. (1957). ''Linguistics across cultures: Applied linguistics for language teachers''. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor. *Stern, H.H. 1983. ''Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{SLA topics Discourse analysis