II.

PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON
- The study of transfer depends greatly on the systematic comparison of the languages provided by contrastive analyses - The essential criteria for sound contrastive analyses are easy to state, but the development of comparisons based n these criteria are difficult

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

1. Descriptive and . theoretical adequacy 2. Some problems in contrastive description 3. Structural and nonstructural factors 4. Comparison of performances

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

1. Descriptive and theoretical adequacy What is descriptive adequacy Descriptive adequacy is the satisfaction which shows how a language is actually spoken or written
Ex: - /d /: voiced, stop - [ li;d] devoiced

Theoretical adequacy

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

1. Descriptive and theoretical adequacy
- An ideal grammar would be both descriptively and theoretically adequate, and the same criteria apply to a contrastive analysis. Accurate and through descriptions are important.
- While

many contrastive analyses provide useful and sometimes highly perceptive information about languages they compare, none comes close '' to meeting in full the criteria of descriptive and theoretical adequacy.

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

1. Descriptive and theoretical adequacy
- Despite this lack of consensus, certain theoretical Approach have found much favor among contrastive analysts and students of second language acquisition. Chomskyan approaches have long been especially popular.

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

2. Some problems in contrastive description
- One of the most fundamental problems is IDEALIZATION

The characterization of the most important aspects of a language with the elimination of unneeded details.
-Idealization of linguistic data is unavoidable since there are many minute variations in the speech of individuals who consider themselves to be speakers of the same language. * EX: contrastive descriptions of Arabic speakers in Iraq and Egypt in pronunciation -Social variation can matter as much as regional variation in contrastive descriptions EX:

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

2. Some problems in contrastive description
- That linguistic difference is equivalent to linguistic difficulty. EX: Apprandre (French) &Teach, learn (English) -A fully developed contrastive analysis would include an accurate hierarchy of difficulty, that is, a definitive statement about which contrastive most and least likely to cause problems. That hierarchy would have to account for, among other things, those cases in which similarities between languages prove to be more troublesome than some differences.

EX: the resemblance between English embarrassed and Spanish emharazado (which means "pregnant") ( I am very pregnant # I am embarrassed)

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

2. Some problems in contrastive description
-Another challenge for any contrastive description is the INTERACTION OF 'SUBSYSTEMS. Psycholinguisfic research has demonstrated a strong interdependence among discourse, syntax, phonology, and other subsystems in the comprehension and production of language. EX: You are a teacher, arent you?

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

3. Structural and nonstructural factors
-the term structure is roughly synonymous with the term TAGMEME, a unity of form and function (Pike 1954). In other words, nothing is a structure unless it has both a form (some definite pattern) and a function (some definite use).
Ex: The baby bit Mary (SVO) -Discourse involves much more than what a purely structural analysis covers. 1 EX: Is he a good student? 2 3

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

3. Structural and nonstructural factors
- Another problematic factors is LANGUAGE DISTANCE, ( the degree of similarity between two languages.) EX: English-French- Eskimo - Spanish French - English -There are clear resemblances between languages whose historical relationships are not certain EX: Korean and Japanese

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

3. Structural and nonstructural factors
- Another problematic factors is LANGUAGE DISTANCE, - Objective measures of the distance between languages can be established through careful comparisons of structural similarities which would show Ex: - Lhopital (in French) - Hopital (in English)

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

4. Comparison of performances
- While a contrastive analysis is a necessary condition to establish the likelihood of transfer, it is not always a sufficient condition. By comparing the performances of speakers of at least two different native languages, researchers can better determine any effects of negative transfer Ex: I know the man that John gave the book to him

resumptive pronouns. (A contrastive analysis of a relative clause in Persian)

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

4. Comparison of performances
-In some cases the need for a formal comparison of performances is not very great. EX: the spelling of playing as blaying is more likely be the spelling error of an Arabic speaker than of a Spanish speaker EX: - He's after telling a lie - He's told a lie" The anomalous verb form found in HibernoEnglish sentences

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

4. Comparison of performances
While explicit comparisons are often desirable in determining negative transfer, they are indispensable in determining positive transfer. EX: :- Picture is very dark - cuadro ef muy oscuro. The contrastive of Spanish and English

( word- for- word- grammatical correspondence between That speakers of languages having articles tend to use Spanish & English) them more accurately than do speakers of languages not having articles (Oiler and Redding 1971)

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

4. Comparison of performances
- Having articles in the native languages will make articles in the target language easier to acquire"). It is likely chat more refined comparisons of learner performances would show even better evidence of positive transfer. Errors of article omission in the English of Spanish speakers appear to correspond closely - though not entirely to areas of contrast between English and Spanish: for example, where indefinite articles are used in English but not in Spanish

- The existence of differences in acquisition patterns seen in comparative studies may not in all cases be due to crosslinguistic influence alone

II. PROBLEMS OF COMPARISON

4. Comparison of performances
-Regardless of how much or how little any training in translation or other second language behaviors may encourage substratum transfer, there is strong evidence that different acquisition patterns are associated with different native language backgrounds. Not only articles but also other areas of second language performances have been the focus of comparative research.