Contrastive analysis

This article is about contrastive analysis in second lan- eect on SLA curriculum design and language teacher
guage acquisition. For contrastive analysis in historical education, and provided the theoretical pillars of Audio-
linguistics, see comparative linguistics. Lingual Method.

Contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a pair of

languages with a view to identifying their structural dif- 1.2 Criticism
ferences and similarities. Historically it has been used to
establish language genealogies. In its strongest formulation, the Contrastive Analysis Hy-
pothesis claimed that all the errors made in learning the
L2 could be attributed to 'interference' by the L1. How-
1 Contrastive Analysis and Second ever, this claim could not be sustained by empirical evi-
dence that was accumulated in the mid- and late 1970s.
Language Acquisition It was soon pointed out that many errors predicted by
Contrastive Analysis were inexplicably not observed in
Contrastive Analysis was used extensively in the eld of learners language. Even more confusingly, some uni-
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in the 1960s and form errors were made by learners irrespective of their
early 1970s, as a method of explaining why some features L1. It thus became clear that Contrastive Analysis could
of a target language were more dicult to acquire than not predict all learning diculties, but was certainly use-
others. According to the behaviourist theories prevailing ful in the retrospective explanation of errors.
at the time, language learning was a question of habit for-
mation, and this could be reinforced or impeded by exist-
ing habits. Therefore, the diculty in mastering certain 1.3 Latest Trend of Contrastive Analysis
structures in a second language (L2) depended on the dif-
ference between the learners mother language (L1) and In response to the above criticisms, there has been an ad-
the language they were trying to learn. vocate of a moderate version of the Contrastive Analy-
sis Hypothesis (CAH), which paradoxically contradicts
Lados original claim. The new CAH hypothesizes that
1.1 History the more dierent the L2 is with ones L1, the easier it
is for one to learn the target language. The prediction is
The theoretical foundations for what became known as based on the premise that similarities in languages create
the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis were formulated in confusion for learners.
Robert Lado's Linguistics Across Cultures (1957). In this
book, Lado claimed that those elements which are sim- With the help of technological advancement, Contrastive
ilar to [the learners] native language will be simple for Analysis has adopted a highly ecient method in ob-
him, and those elements that are dierent will be di- taining language data, namely a corpus-based approach,
cult. While it was not a novel suggestion, Lado was the which generates vast amount of juxtapositions of lan-
rst to provide a comprehensive theoretical treatment and guage dierences in various elds of linguistics, for ex-
to suggest a systematic set of technical procedures for the ample lexis and syntax. That allows error analysis to
contrastive study of languages. That involved describing thrive in the context of Contrastive Analysis.
the languages (using structuralist linguistics), comparing
them and predicting learning diculties.
1.4 Applications
During the 1960s, there was a widespread enthusiasm
with this technique, manifested in the contrastive de-
There are multiple elds in the realms of linguistics to
scriptions of several European languages, many of which
which Contrastive Analysis (CA) is applicable.
were sponsored by the Center for Applied Linguistics in
Washington, DC. It was expected that once the areas of
potential diculty had been mapped out through Con- Historical Linguistics: this is a former applica-
trastive Analysis, it would be possible to design language tion of CA, which is subsumed under the name of
courses more eciently. Contrastive Analysis, along Comparative Linguistics, a branch in linguistics not
with Behaviourism and Structuralism exerted a profound to be confused with CA.

1
2 3 REFERENCES

Second language teaching: Despite CAs limitation 3 References

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 learn-
ing. This includes CAs abilities to explain observed
errors and to outline the dierences 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.
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 Ac-
quisition Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN
0-19-437189-1
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures: Ap-
plied linguistics for language teachers. University of
Michigan Press: Ann Arbor.
Stern, H.H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Lan-
guage Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-437065-8

Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Bilingualism,

Pragmatics and others cultural-related areas: CA
is, in itself, a cross-linguistic/cross-cultural study,
and its applicability on both linguistics and non-
linguistics features is one of its major merits. This
permits a better understanding linguistic-cultural
understanding, which is essential for learning a lan-
guage in its entirety.
Translation: CA provides better understanding of
linguistic dierence between two languages and
therefore may be applied to the eld of translation.
Firstly, CA certainly lays a foundation for trans-
lation as it is an integral element for interpreters
to have a thorough understanding of not only the
two languages, but the dierences between them.
Also, it might balance the word-for-word vs. sense-
for sense debate by developing strategies to over-
come the linguistic hindrance. Moreover, it may
avoid awkward translations such as translationese
and Europeanization.
Language Therapy: Distinguishing the dierence
between language disorder patients from non-
standard dialect speakers. This is essential in iden-
tifying speech pathology and their corresponding
treatment.
Criminal Investigation: CA research oers insight
to subtle dierences among languages. Language
patterns can be used as clues to investigate criminal
activities, for example analyzing phishing texts de-
signed to deceive users into giving away condential
information.

2 See also
Comparative linguistics
Contrastive linguistics
Pseudoscientic language comparison
 3

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