Contrastive Analysis In The Second Language Acquisition

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Contrastive analysis ( CA ) is the systematic study of a pair of languages with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities between the first language and the target language . Contrastive Analysis was extensively used 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. Contrastive analysis is concerned with the comparison of two languages for the purpose of translation and foreign language teaching . The contrastive analysis Hypothesis claimed that all the errors made in learning the L2 could be related to interference by the L1 . CA has often been done for practical / pedagogical purposes …show more content…

According to the behaviourist theories, language learning was a question of habit formation, and this could be supported or prevented by existing habits. Therefore, the difficulty in dominating 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. The goal of contrastive analysis is to predict linguistic difficulties experienced during the acquisition of a second language; as formulated by Lado (1957), it suggests that difficulties in acquiring a new (second) language are derived from the differences between the new language and the native (first) language of a language learner.

Criticisms of Contrastive …show more content…

CA can be considered as a linguistic activity aimed at producing contrastive two-valued typologies . James ( 1980 ) advocates that " executing a contrastive analysis involves two steps : description and comparison " However , five different steps have been mentioned for comparing two languages , or two subsystems for that matter . These are mentioned below :

1. Selection
It can be based on the analyst 's teaching experience and bilingual intuition , if the teacher shares the same native language with the learners . In the process of selection , the analyst should decide what to compare with what . Also the principles compared and contrasted should be similar in some respect . 2. Description The linguist or language teacher , should explicitly describe the two languages in question . Scientific description has been the core of contrastive analysis .Some languages require the use of alternative models for their description

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