Contrastive analysis theory
1 Introduction
Narrowly defined, contrastive analysis investigates the differences between pairs (or small sets) of languages against the background of similarities and with the purpose of providing input to applieddisciplines such as foreign language teaching and translation studies. With its largely descriptive focuscontrastive linguistics provides an interface between theory and application. It makes use of theoreticalfindings and models of language description but is driven by the objective of applicability. Contrastive
studies mostly deal with the comparison of languages that are ‗socio
-
culturally linked‘, i.e. languages whose
speech communities overlap in some way, typically through (natural or instructed) bilingualism Contrastive analysis and foreign language teaching
Different approaches to the phenomenon of language, different linguistic theories and schools of thoughtinfluence our methods of teaching. Structural linguistic and the behaviouristic movement in psychologyresulted in the audio lingual method. The transformational approach, with its stress on the analyticalelement in language learning, reintroduced rational, cognitive methods, but regardless of our view of language, we must somehow solve a whole series of problems in the process of teaching a foreign language.
One of these problems is the relationship between the L1 (the learner‘s native language) and L2 (the
language to be learned).Contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a pair of languages with a view to identifying their structuraldifferences and similarities. Contrastive Analysis was extensively used in the 1960s and early 1970s as amethod of explaining why some features of a Target Language were more difficult to acquire than others.According to the behaviourist theories, language learning was a question of habit formation, and this could be reinforced by existing habits. Therefore, the difficulty in mastering certain structures in a secondlanguage depended on the difference between the learners' mother language and the language they weretrying to learn. The theoretical foundations for what became known as the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
were formulated in Lado‘s Linguistics across Cultures (1957). In this book, Lado claimed that "
thoseelements which are similar to the learner's native language will be simple for him, and those elements thatare different will be difficult". While this was not a novel suggestion, Lado was the first to provide acomprehensive theoretical treatment and to suggest a systematic set of technical procedures for thecontrastive study of languages. This involved describing the languages (using structuralise linguistics), comparing them and predicting learning difficulties acquisition, January 25th 2011). Thus, the languagescomparison is aimed at assisting language learning and teaching. The goals of Contrastive Analysis can bestated as follows: to make foreign language teaching more effective, to find out the differences between thefirst language and the target language based on the assumptions that: (1) foreign language learning is basedon the mother tongue, (2) similarities facilitate learning (positive transfer), (3) differences cause problems(negative transfer/Interference), (3) via contrastive analysis, problems can be predicted and considered inthe curriculum. However, not all problems predicted by contrastive analysis always appear to be difficultfor the students. On the other hand, many errors that do turn up are not predicted by contrastive analysis.
Larsen, et al (1992: 55) states ―predictions arising from were subjected to empirical tests. Some errors it did predict failed to materialize, i.e. it over predicted.‖ This prediction failure leads to the criticism to the
Contrastive Analysis hypothesis.The criticism is that Contrastive Analysis hypothesis could not be sustained by empirical evidence. It wassoon pointed out that many errors predicted by Contrastive Analysis were inexplicably not observed inlearners' 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 learning difficulties, and was onlyuseful in the retrospective explanation of errors. These developments, along with the decline of the behaviourist and structuralise paradigms considerably weakened the appeal of Contrastive Analysis.Fisiak (1981: 7) claims that Contrastive Analysis needs to be carried out in spite of some shortcoming because not all Contrastive Analysis hypotheses are wrong. To overcome the shortcoming of contrastiveanalysis, it is suggested that teachers accompany contrastive analysis with error analysis. It is carried out byidentifying the errors actually made by the students in the classroom. Contrastive Analysis has a usefulexplanatory role. That is, it can still be said to explain certain errors and mistakes. He further explains
―…error analysis as part of applied linguist
ics cannot replace Contrastive Analysis but only supplem
ent it.‖
Schackne (2002) states
―rese
arch shows that contrastive analysis may be most predictive at the level of phonology and least predictive at the
syntactic level.‖
A counter-theory was error analysis, which treated second language errors as similar to errors encounteredin first language acquisition, or what the linguists referred to as "developmental errors." By the early 1970s,this contrastive analysis theory had been to an extent supplanted by error analysis, which examined not onlythe impact of transfer errors but also those related to the target language, including overgeneralization(Schackne, 2002). 3 Conclusion
We may conclude that the aim of contrastive studies is not only a better understanding of the linguisticstructure, but also applied deductions, meant to raise the entire teaching activity above the empirical andoccasional practice, to outline fundamental teaching programs based on the scientific knowledge of thelanguage. Contrastive analysis has laid the emphasis on error analysis as a way to study the difficultiesencountered by foreign
–
language learners. The findings of such studies can be very helpful in setting upteaching devices. Contrastive analysis and error analysis are complementary to one another, in the sense thatthe results obtained and the predictions made by the contrastive studies are to be checked up and corrected by the results obtained in the error analysis.