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    Contrastive Analysis Week 1

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    Trần Hương Quỳnh
    Ca Hanu English studies

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    Contrastive Analysis Week 1

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    Trần Hương Quỳnh
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    Ca Hanu English studies

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    Ca Hanu English studies

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    5 views38 pages

    Contrastive Analysis Week 1

    Uploaded by

    Trần Hương Quỳnh
    Ca Hanu English studies

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 38

    Contrastive Analysis

    Week 1

    By Thuy-Thanh Nguyen, Ph.D.


    English Department
    Hanoi University
    Overview

    ● Linguistic comparison & Contrastive Analysis

    ● Contrastive Phonetics & Application

    ● Contrastive Phonology & Application

    ● Mid-term test (towards the end of the course)


    Linguistic Comparison & Contrastive
    Analysis

    ● The role of linguistic comparison in branching Linguistics

    ● History of CA

    ● Grounding theories for CA


    Linguistic comparison
    Linguistic Comparison

    → Typology
    Language Categorization
    1. Genetic (Genealogical) Classification

    Language Families: on their common ancestry.

    For example:

    ● Indo-European Family: Includes languages like English, Spanish, Hindi, and Russian.
    ● Sino-Tibetan Family: Includes languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, and Burmese.
    ● Niger-Congo Family: Includes languages like Swahili, Yoruba, and Zulu.
    ● Afro-Asiatic Family: Includes languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Amharic.

    Subfamilies and Branches: Within a language family, languages can be further categorized
    into subfamilies or branches, which reflect more recent common ancestors.

    For example, within the Indo-European family, the Germanic branch includes English,
    German, and Dutch.
    Language Families - How to
    Categorize?
    Step 1: Data collection (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical information)

    Step 2: Identification of Cognates


    Cognates are words in different languages that have a similar form and meaning

    → Compare vocabulary

    Step 3: Establish sound correspondences

    → Identify regular patterns of sound changes

    Step 4: Reconstruction of Proto-Languages

    → Reconstruct Proto-forms
    Language Families - How to
    Categorize?

    Step 5: Group languages into Families

    → Identify common ancestry → Form language families and sub-families

    Step 6: Validation through historical and cultural evidence


    It should align with historical knowledge about migration, trade, and cultural exchanges.

    Step 7: Classification and Naming

    → Define language families → Create family trees


    Language Categorization
    2. Areal Classification: the process of grouping languages based on geographical proximity and
    shared linguistic features that arise due to language contact.

    → Language Contact (close proximity) and Convergence (similar features)

    Areal features can include:

    ● Phonological similarities: Similar sound patterns (e.g., tones, consonant clusters, vowel
    systems).
    ● Grammatical structures: Shared word order, case systems, or verb conjugation patterns.
    ● Lexical borrowings: Vocabulary borrowed across languages, such as shared words for
    cultural items, technology, or trade.
    ● Pragmatic patterns: Similar ways of expressing politeness, greetings, or discourse markers.
    Areal Classification

    A Sprachbund (German for "language union" or "linguistic area") = a region where


    languages, despite their different genetic origins, exhibit a high degree of similarity due
    to contact and convergence.

    ● Geographical Proximity: Languages within the same geographical area.


    ● Shared Features: Significant similarities that are not due to common ancestry.
    ● Historical Evidence of Contact: Trade, migration, political alliances, or
    colonization that might explain the convergence.
    ● Degree of Integration: The more features shared by languages in an area, the
    more robust the case for a Sprachbund.
    Explore!
    Language Categorization
    3. Typological Classification: based on shared structural features, such as
    grammar, phonology, morphology, and syntax → uncover general principles that
    govern the structure of all human languages.

    Purpose of Typology

    ● Identify Patterns: → what kinds of structures are typical or rare.


    ● Language Universals: → properties or patterns found in all or most languages (e.g., all
    languages have nouns and verbs).
    ● Understand Language Diversity: → different ways languages solve similar
    communicative problems.
    ● Compare and Contrast: → a framework for comparing languages to understand both
    cross-linguistic similarities and unique features.
    Language Categorization

    ● Morphological Typology:

    how words are formed and how they convey grammatical


    information

    ● Syntactic Typology:

    sentence structure, especially word order

    ● Phonological Typology:

    the sound systems of different languages


    Language Categorization
    Morphological Typology:

    ○ Isolating Languages: Words typically consist of a single morpheme (e.g.,


    Vietnamese, Chinese).
    ○ Agglutinative Languages: Words are formed by stringing together
    morphemes, each representing a single grammatical function (e.g.,
    Turkish, Finnish).
    ○ Fusional Languages: Morphemes within words may encode multiple
    grammatical features and are less clearly separable (e.g., Spanish,
    Russian).
    ○ Polysynthetic Languages: Words often consist of many morphemes,
    sometimes forming entire sentences (e.g., Inuit, Mohawk).
    Language Categorization

    ● Syntactic Typology:
    ○ Subject-Verb-Object (SVO): English, Mandarin.
    ○ Subject-Object-Verb (SOV): Japanese, Turkish.
    ○ Verb-Subject-Object (VSO): Classical Arabic, Irish.
    Syntactic typology
    Phonological Typology

    ● Phoneme Inventory: the range of sounds used in a language.


    ● Tonal Languages: Use pitch to distinguish between meanings of
    words.
    ● Stress and Intonation Patterns: the use of stress (emphasis on
    syllables) and intonation (variation in pitch across phrases) for
    meaning.
    Guiding Questions: E-V
    Morphological typology questions

    1. How do English and Vietnamese form words, and what morphological types do they
    represent?
    2. Do English and Vietnamese use inflectional morphology (e.g., verb conjugations, pluralization),
    and if so, how?
    3. How are tense, aspect, and mood expressed in English and Vietnamese?
    4. What are the primary ways of forming new words (e.g., derivation, compounding) in English
    and Vietnamese?

    Syntactic typology questions

    5. What is the basic word order of English and Vietnamese, and how does it affect sentence
    structure?
    6. How do English and Vietnamese handle the placement of adjectives, adverbs, and other
    modifiers in a sentence?
    7. Do English and Vietnamese use articles, and if so, how do they function?
    8. How do English and Vietnamese form questions and negatives?
    Guiding Questions: E-V

    Phonological typology questions

    9. What are the main phonological differences between English and Vietnamese, particularly in
    terms of vowel and consonant systems?
    10. Does either language use tone, and how does this affect word meaning?
    11. How do syllable structures compare between English and Vietnamese?
    12. What are the typical stress and intonation patterns in English and Vietnamese?
    Which type?

    ● Comparing how present tense is expressed in English, French,


    and Japanese.
    ● Comparing Old English and Modern English to trace the
    evolution of grammar and vocabulary.
    Branches of Linguistics

    ● Subject matter: Human language → structure &

    functions

    ○ Structures: morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics

    ○ Functions: how humans use and manipulate the language

    → Micro Linguistics & Macro Linguistics


    Contrastive Analysis (CA)

    ● History

    ● Assumptions

    ● Transfer
    CA - History

    1. Early Development and Background (1930s-1950s)


    - The systematic study of languages
    + Charles C. Fries: a structural analysis of languages could be
    used to design effective teaching methods.
    + Leonard Bloomfield: the importance of understanding
    language structure, which laid the groundwork for comparative
    studies
    - World War II
    + The U.S. Army Specialized Training Program → teaching
    languages through pattern drills and practice = The Army
    Method (= the audio-lingual method)
    CA - history

    2. Emergence of Contrastive Analysis (1950s-1960s)

    + Robert Lado (1957): by comparing the linguistic structures of a


    learner's native language (L1) and the target language (L2), teachers
    could predict areas where learners might encounter difficulties.
    CA - History

    3. The Strong and Weak Versions of the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis


    (1960s-1970s)

    - Strong Version: all errors in L2 learning could be predicted by analyzing


    the differences between L1 and L2.
    - Weak Version: → using contrastive analysis to explain errors after they
    occurred, rather than predicting them in advance.
    CA - History

    4. Criticism and Decline of Contrastive Analysis


    (1970s-1980s)

    5. Revival and Modern Perspectives (1990s-Present)


    Key Contributions and Figures

    ● Charles C. Fries: → comparing languages for teaching purposes.


    ● Leonard Bloomfield: → structural analysis
    ● Robert Lado: → the foundational principles of contrastive analysis in
    "Linguistics Across Cultures" (1957).
    ● Stephen Pit Corder: → concepts of interlanguage and error analysis.
    ● Carl James: → refining the weak version of contrastive analysis and
    integrating it with error analysis.
    CA - Assumptions

    ● L1 acquisition & L2 learning = totally different

    ● L1 & L2 have different linguistic systems → learning a

    new language is to add to the current system a new one

    ● Similarities = support learning; Differences = hinder

    learning
    CA - Transfer

    ● Language transfer refers to the use of the first language


    (or other languages known) in a second-language
    context.” (Gass & Behney, 2013, p. 47)

    ● “The experience or performance on one task influences


    performance on some subsequent task” (Ellis, 1965, p. 3).
    CA - Transfer

    The Iceberg Model of

    Language Interdependence

    by Cummins (1980)
    Language Transfer and Representation (Gass & Behney,

    2013, p. 37)
    Language Transfer and Interference (Brown, 2006, p.

    109)

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