* Contrastive Linguistics, Comparison

of Linguistic Systems at
Phonological, Grammatical, Lexical
and Cultural Levels

Dr. VMS
 *Contrastive linguistics
* contrastive linguistics can be regarded as a branch of
comparative linguistics that is concerned with pairs of
languages which are ‘socio-culturally linked’.
* Two languages can be said to be socio-culturally linked
when
* (i) they are used by a considerable number of bi- or
multilingual speakers, and/or
* (ii) a substantial amount of ‘linguistic output’ (text, oral
discourse) is translated from one language into the other.
 *Contrastive linguistics
* More broadly defined, the term ‘contrastive linguistics’ is
also sometimes used for comparative studies of (small)
groups (rather than just pairs) of languages, and does not
require a socio-cultural link between the languages
investigated.
* On this view, contrastive linguistics is a special case of
linguistic typology and is distinguished from other types
of typological approaches by a small sample size and a
high degree of granularity.
* Accordingly, any pair or group of languages can be
subject to a contrastive analysis.
 * History of Contrastive Linguistics

* The programme of contrastive linguistics was instigated

by Charles Carpenter Fries from the University of
Michigan in the 1940s.
* Fries (1945: 9) contended that “[t]he most effective
materials [in foreign language teaching] are those that
are based upon a scientific description of the language to
be learned, carefully compared with a parallel
description of the native language of the learner”.

* Some years later, this project was put into practice by

Fries’ colleague Robert Lado (1957).
 *Contrastive Hypothesis

*The assumption that foreign

language teaching can be improved
by comparing the learner’s native
language with the language to be
learned came to be known as the
“Contrastive Hypothesis”.
 * König & Gast 2009

* First language acquisition and foreign language learning

differ fundamentally, especially in those cases where the
foreign language is learnt later than a mother tongue and
on the basis of the full mastery of that mother tongue.
* Every language has its own specific structure. Similarities
between the two languages will cause no difficulties
(‘positive transfer’), but differences will, due to ‘negative
transfer’ (or ‘interference’). The student’s learning task
can therefore roughly be defined as the sum of the
differences between the two languages.
 * König & Gast 2009

*A systematic comparison between mother tongue

and foreign language to be learnt will reveal both
similarities and contrasts.
*On the basis of such a comparison it will be
possible to predict or even rank learning
difficulties and to develop strategies (teaching
materials, teaching techniques, etc.) for making
foreign language teaching more efficient.
 *comparability
*pairs (or groups) of languages that are socio-
culturally linked, can rely on a substantial amount
of bilingual output (translations, parallel
corpora).
*‘comparability’ does of course not mean
‘equivalence’: It is part of a contrastive analysis
to determine the degree of equivalence between
(comparable) categories from different languages
(‘non-equivalence’, ‘partial equivalence’, ‘near
equivalence’,).
 *Haspelmath 2010
*Comparative concepts are universally
applicable, and they are defined on the
basis of other universally applicable
concepts: universal conceptual-semantic
concepts, universal formal concepts,
general formal concepts, and other
comparative concepts” .
 *contrastive analyses
types
* (i) comparison based on form
* (ii) comparison based on the
mapping from form to function and
* (iii) comparison across functional
domains
 * Comparison based on form

* A typical example of comparison based on form alone is

provided by contrastive analyses in the domain of phonology.
* Let us consider the consonant inventories of English and
German for illustration. A framework of comparison is
provided by a classical structuralist analysis which is based on
articulatory features of typical allophones instantiating the
relevant phonemes (‘place of articulation’, ‘manner of
articulation’ and ‘voicing’).
* Both the English phoneme /l/E and the German one /l/G can
thus be regarded as instantiating the comparative concept
‘voiced alveolar lateral’.
 * Comparison based on the mapping from
form to function
* Most parameters of comparison investigated in contrastive studies
are not purely formal but concern the mapping between form and
function. As is well known from typological studies, this mapping is
typically (perhaps universally) many-to-many, i.e. each ontological
category can be expressed using various linguistic categories, and
each linguistic category covers a certain range of functions. Still,
the mapping from function to form is not entirely arbitrary.
* Roughly speaking, the domains of meaning covered by a given
linguistic category must be semantically similar. In the ‘semantic
map’ approach developed in linguistic typology (e.g. Haspelmath
1997, van der Auwera & Plungian 1998), semantic similarity is
represented as proximity in an n-dimensional space. Such cross-
linguistic models of form-function mapping can also serve as
comparative concepts in contrastive analyses.
* comparison across functional domains
*In specific cases, a given comparative concept can be
used to make generalizations across functional domains. A
relevant example is provided by the two phenomena of
relative clause formation and Wh-question formation in
English and German (cf. Hawkins 1986).

*From a functional point of view, these operations must be

kept apart (nominal modification vs. elicitation of a value
in an open proposition). However, in English and German
both operations can be described in terms of the same
comparative concept.
 *Language structure
* Each pattern, each structure, contrasts not just with one other
pattern but with many others. It is a complex net of these
contrasts which constitute a system for each language.
* He showed us the light house.
* He showed us the house light.
* He showed us a house light.
* He showed us the light houses.
* She showed us the light house.
* He has to show us the light house.
* He‟ll show us the light house.
* He shows us the light house.
* Show us the light house.
* Don‟t show us the light house.
* Who showed us the light house?
 *Grammatical Structure
* In practical terms we understand that the use of a grammatical
structure by a speaker depends heavily on habit.
* Problems in Learning a Foreign Grammatical Structure
Transfer.
* The student tends to transfer the sentence forms, modification
devices, the number, gender, and case patterns of his native
language.
* It is important to add that every structure has distribution,
that is, it occurs in certain situations or environments and does
not occur in others. Ex. In English, the –s plural occurs in noun
heads as in books, telephones, etc., but it does nor occur in
modifiers of noun heads as good in good books, or telephone in
telephone books.
 *Grammar

*Grammar is a system composed of many

interconnected components that ensure
accuracy and meaning. It is the art of
writing and speaking a language correctly. It
is “the mental system of rules and
categories that allows humans to form and
interpret the words and sentences of their
language
 *Grammar
* Grammar differs from one language to another and from one
person to another. Non-native English speakers may presume
that the English language has less complicated grammar in
comparison to French or Spanish and that grammar, as a
concept, to a Spanish speaker, may not be the same to a
German or a Japanese speaker.
* Nevertheless, grammar, from a linguistic point of view, is the
same in terms of complexity in all languages and they all
share the same universal components. Although the
grammatical structure or the arrangement of words would
differ, yet its role remains imperative and instrumental in all
languages.
 *Approaches of Grammar
1. Descriptive approach.
An approach to grammar that is concerned with reporting the
usage of native speakers without reference to proposed norms of
correctness or advocacy of rules based on such norms.
2. Prescriptive approach.
An approach to grammar that is concerned with establishing norms
of correct and incorrect usage and formulating rules based on these
norms to be followed by users of the language.
3. Generative approach.
It provides instructions for the production of an infinite number of
sentences in a language. establishing a set of explicit, formalized
rules that specify or generate all the possible grammatical
sentences of a language, while excluding all unacceptable
sentences.
 *Structure and similarity
*Similarity and difference as determiners of ease and
difficulty.
*Structures that are similar will be easy to learn because
they will be transferred and may function satisfactorily in
the foreign language.
*Structures that are different will be difficult because
when transferred they will not function satisfactorily in
the foreign language and will therefore have to be
changed.
 *L2 Culture
* Recent studies focus on the seamless relationship
between L2 teaching and target culture teaching,
especially over the last decade with the writings of
scholars such as Byram (1989; 1994a; 1994b; 1997a;
1997b) and Kramsch (1988; 1993; 1996; 2001).
*It has been emphasized that without the study of culture,
teaching L2 is inaccurate and incomplete.
* For L2 students, language study seems senseless if they
know nothing about the people who speak the target
language or the country in which the target language is
spoken.
 *L2 Culture
*Acquiring a new language means a lot more than the
manipulation of syntax and lexicon.

*According to Bada (2000: 101), “the need for cultural

literacy in ELT arises mainly from the fact that most
language learners, not exposed to cultural elements of the
society in question, seem to encounter significant hardship
in communicating meaning to native speakers.”

*In addition, nowadays the L2 culture is presented as an

interdisciplinary core in many L2 curricula designs and
textbooks (Sysoyev & Donelson, 2002).
 *Language and Culture
* The mutual relation between language and culture, i.e. the
interaction of language and culture has long been a settled issue
as witnessed in the writings of prominent philosophers such as
Wittgenstein (1980; 1999), Saussure (1966), Foucault (1994),
Dilthey (1989), Von Humboldt (1876), Adorno (1993), Davidson
(1999), Quine (1980) and Chomsky (1968).
* These are the names first to come to mind when the issue is the
relation between language and culture. Yet, the most striking
linguists dealing with the issue of language and culture are Sapir
(1962) and Whorf (1956). They are the scholars whose names are
often used synonymously with the term “Linguistic Relativity”
(Richards et al, 1992).
* The core of their theory is that a) we perceive the world in terms
of categories and distinctions found in our native language and b)
what is found in one language may not be found in another
language due to cultural differences.
Thank You