Fundamental Issues in CA

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Fundamental Issues in CASession 2


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Historical Linguistics

the end of the 18th century up to the middle of the19th

century, which is called the beginning of comparative

research;

the end of the 19th century the period of neogrammarian

studies, when linguists started comparing living languages;

the beginning of the 20th century up to the present the

period of structural and functional approaches to language.


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Comparative linguistics in Persian

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Types of comparative studies

Comparative typological linguistics: Group languagesaccording to their characteristics; synchronic studies.

Contrastive linguistics/Contrastive analysis systematic,synchronic comparison of two languages aiming at

establishing explicit similarities and differences expressed interms ofcorrespondence and equivalence between theelements of those languages.

Fisiak defines contrastive linguistics as a subdiscipline oflinguistics concerned with the comparison of two or more

languages or subsystems of languages in order to determineboth the differences and similarities between them (Fisiak1981 p.1).


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Types of CA

Fisiak (1981: 2-3) divides contrastive studies into theoretical

and applied:

Theoretical contrastive studies give an exhaustive account of the

differences and similarities between two or more languages, provide

an adequate model for the comparison, and determine how and whichelements are comparable

They are language independent, which means that they do

not investigate how a particular category or item present in

language A is presented in language B, but they look for the

realization of an universal category X in both A and B (Fisiak

1981 p.2).


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Types of CA

Applied contrastive studies belong to applied linguistics. Fisiak(1981: 2-3) explains that drawing on the findings of theoreticalcontrastive studies they provide a framework for the comparison oflanguages, selecting whatever information is necessary for aspecific purpose

The main focus of applied contrastive studies is the problem ofhow a universal category X, realized in language A as Y, is renderedin language B, and what may be the possible consequence on thisfor a field of application (Fisiak 1981 pp.2-3).

They are also concerned with the identification of probable areasof difficulty in another language where, for example, a givencategory is not represented in the surface and interference is likelyto occur (Fisiak, 1981 p.3).


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Pedagogical Contrastive Analysis

SLA Why some features of the target language are more difficult to acquire

than others.

Behaviorist psychology and structural linguistics It viewed learning as habit formation brought about by repeated patterns

of stimulus, response and reinforcement. For language teaching this fitted in nicely with the pedagogues piece of

folk wisdom that practice makes perfect.

Audio-lingual method

Lados Linguistics Across Cultures 'individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings, and the distribution

of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreignlanguage and culture' (Lado, 1957, p.2)

'a system of habits' (Lado, 1957, p.57) based on 'laws of language learningsuch as 'exercise', 'familiarity of response', etc (Lado, 1964, p.45).


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Contrastive analysis and errors

Cross-linguistics influence: going from compound bilinguals inWeinreichsterms in contradistinction to co-ordinate bilinguals

For the foreign language learner, the usual direction of theinfluence will be from the mother tongue to the foreign language Atthe phonological level, this will produce typical foreignpronunciations.

Bright and McGregor (1970 p.236), for example, maintained thatthe grammatical apparatus programmed into the mind as the first

language interferes with the smooth acquisition of the second.

Lenneberg suggested that there is a critical period for languageacquisition, which ends at puberty, that foreign accents cannot beovercome easily after puberty and that automatic acquisitionfrom mere exposure [...] seems to disappear after this age(Lenneberg 1967 p.176)


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Strong version of CA

The strong version of the contrastive analysis hypothesis isassociated with Charles Fries and Robert Lado. It predicts thatsecond language learners will have difficulty with aspects(structures, or vocabulary) which differ from their first

language, and conversely no problems with aspects which aresimilar in their first language.

Another linguist supporting the strong version of the CAH wasFries. In his opinion, the most effective [teaching] materialsare those that are based upon a scientific description of the

language to be learned, carefully compared with paralleldescription of the native language of the learner (Fries 1945p.1).


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Strong version of CA

A brief outline of the procedure used, as Ellis (1994 p.307)

mentions it:

The procedure involved four stages:

1. description (i.e. the two languages were formally described)

2. selection (i.e. certain items or areas were selected for comparison)

3. comparison (i.e. finding similar and different items)

4. prediction (i.e. in which areas the errors will most probably occur)

5. Verification (i.e. find out whether the predictions made about errors

and difficulties actually materialize or not


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The Weak version of CA

The weak version does not imply the a priori prediction of

certain fine degrees of difficulty.

It recognizes the significance of interference across languages,

the fact that such interference does exist and can explain

difficulties, but it also recognizes that linguistic difficulties can

be more profitably explained a posteriori after the fact

(Brown 1980).

Thus it has rather explanatory power, helping the teachers of

foreign languages understand their students sources oferrors.


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The moderate version of CA

In the 1970s, Oller and Ziahosseiny proposed a compromisebetween the two versions of the CAH and called it amoderate version.

Their theory was based on their research of spelling errors in

learners of English as L2 which showed that spelling errorswere more common among those learners who used a Romanscript in their native language (e.g. Spanish or French) thanamong those who used a non-Roman script (e.g. Arabic orChinese).

However, the strong version of the CAH would predict thecontrary, i.e. more difficulties on the part of the learners whohad to acquire a new writing system (Brown 1980).


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Important studies in CA

Brown (1980 p.159) concludes that interference is more likely tooccur when there is similarity between the items to be learned andalready known items than in the case of learning items which areentirely new to the learner. He also points to the fact that most of the errors committed by L2 learners

are intralingual errors, i.e. errors which result from L2 itself and not fromL1.

Whitman and Jackson carried out a study in which predictionsmade in four separate contrastive analyses by different linguistswere used to design a test of English grammar which was given to2,500 Japanese learners of English as L2.

They came to the conclusion that contrastive analysis, asrepresented by the four analyses tested in this project, isinadequate, theoretically and practically, to predict the interferenceproblems of a language learner (Whitman and Jackson 1972 p.28)


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Problems with the versions

Besides the problem of inappropriate predictions, Towel andHawkins (1994: 18-19) state two other problems.

One of them is that not all areas of similarity between an L1and an L2 lead to immediate positive transfer (1994 p.19).

Towel and Hawkins support this argument by the findings ofOdlinsstudy in which L1 Spanish learners of L2 English omitted the copulabe at the early stages of learning regardless the fact that Spanish alsohas a copula verb adequate to English be and thus the positivetransfer was possible.

However, it didnt happen.

The other problem, they argue, is that only a small number oferrors committed by L2 learners could be unambiguouslyattributed to transfer from L1.


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Problems with the versions

Thus, the strong version of the CAH has been proved inadequate,except for the phonological component of language, where it isquite successful in predicting the interference between the L1 andL2 in pronunciation in the early stages of L2 acquisition.

Dulay, Burt and Krashen similarly conclude that present researchresults suggest that the major impact the first language has onsecond language acquisition may have to do with accent, not withgrammar or syntax (1982: 96).

The weak version is not satisfactory because it is only able to offeran explanation for certain errors.

The only version which remains acceptable is the moderate version.However, its findings as presented by Oller and Ziahosseiny are incontradiction with Lados original idea.


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Linguistic levels of analysis

Phonology": It is the study of the patterns of language. It is concernedwith how sounds are organized in a language. It examines what occurs tospeech sounds when they are combined to form a word and how thesespeech sounds interact with each other it endeavors to explain what thesephonological process are in terms of formal rules.

The Phonemes of particular language are those minimal distinct units of

sound that can distinguish meaning in that English .e.g in English the /p/sound is phoneme b/c it is the smallest unit of sounds of bill, till or drillmaking the word pill. The vowel sound of pill is also a phoneme b/c itsdistinctness in sound makes pill, which means one thing, sound differentfrom pal, which means another.

Morphology: It is study of word formation and structure. It studies how

words are put together from their smaller parts and the rules governingthis process. The elements that are combining to form words are calledMorpheme. A morpheme is the smallest unit of syntax you can have inlanguage the cats e.g contains the morphemes cat and the plurals.


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Lexicology: It is study of words. We study word-formation andworld classes. Lexeme is the smallest unit of Lexis.

Syntax: It is the study of sentence structure. It attempts todescribed what are grammatical rules in particular language. Theserules detail an underlying structure and a transformational process.The underlying structure of English e.g would have a subject -verb -object sentence order. For example: John hit the ball

The transformational process would allow a change of word order, whichcould give us something like, the ball was hit by John.

Semantics: It is the study of meaning in language. It is concerned

with describing how we represent the meaning of word in our mindhow we use this representation in constructing sentence. It is basedlargely on the study logic in philosophy.


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Pragmatics: It studies the factors that govern our choice of

language in social interaction and the affects of our choices on

others. In theory, we can say any thing we like. In practice we

follow a large no. of social rules (some of then unconsciously)

that constrain the way we like we speak e.g there is now lawthat says we must not tell jokes during a funeral, but it is

generally not done.

Discourse: It is the study of stretches of spoken and written

language above the sentence or The way sentences work insequence to produce coherent stretches of language.


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Hierarch of Difficulty for Persian speakers

Transfer - no difference [general word order, cardinal vowels (

u:, z, b, f,].

2. Coalescence - one item covering two in L1 [ ].

3. Underdifferentiation - absence [/X/ ].

4. Reinterpretation - different application of existing item [/v/

vs. /w/].

5. Overdifferentiation - new item [Stick and stones my break

my bones, but words; they never hurt me]

6. Split -two items covering one in L1 [ for his/her].


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Markedness theory

Greenberg (1966) assigns the designations marked and

unmarked to opposing structural entities that exhibit a

consistently asymmetric relationship in term of distribution

and/or syntagmatic structure and or paradigmatic complexity.

The one of the two entities that is consistently more widely

distributed and/or simpler is called unmarked; its

complement is the marked members of the opposition.


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Markedness theory

Those areas of the target language which differ from the

native language and are more marked than the native

language will be difficult.

The relative degree of difficulty of the areas of the target

language which are more marked than the native language

will correspond to the relative degree of markedness.

Those areas of the target language which are different from

the native language, but are not more marked than the native

language will not be difficult. The door was closed.

The door was closed by the janitor.

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Fundamental Issues in CA