Everything about Contrastive Analysis totally explained
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.
Contrastive Analysis and Second Language Acquisition
Contrastive Analysis was used extensively in the field of
Second Language Acquisition (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 theories prevailing at the time, language learning was a question of
habit formation, 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
Lado's
Linguistics Across Cultures (
1957). In this book, Lado claimed that "
those elements which are similar to [thelearner's]
native language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult". While this wasn't 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. This 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 of 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 exerted a profound effect on
SLA curriculum design and language teacher education, and provided the theoretical pillars of
Audio-Lingual Method.
Criticism
In its strongest formulation, the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis claimed that all the errors made in learning and L2 could be attributed to 'interference' by the L1. However, this claim couldn't 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 couldn't predict learning difficulties, and was only useful in the retrospective explanation of errors. These developments, along with the decline of the behaviourist and structuralist paradigms considerably weakened the appeal of Contrastive Analysis.
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