Tiểu luận Contrastive Linguistic - Linh [PDF]

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Question 1: What is Contrastive Linguistics? Is it the same as Comparative Linguistics? How are they different? Contrastive linguistics was first developed in the 1950s. It was based on the ideas of linguistic structuralism and was initially aimed not at linguistic studies, but at helping foreign language teachers. This aim was intended to make it easier to understand learning a second language and how to teach it most effectively. Contrastive linguistics led to large-scale linguistic projects across Europe in the 1970s before moving into academia. The study of contrastive linguistics follows four basic procedures. The first is to identify the two languages being studied. The second requires a full description of the characteristics of each language. Third, the scholar looks for juxtaposition; bonds between the two languages. In the fourth, the scholar compares the two languages to see how they correspond with one another. Both comparative and contrastive linguistics look at similar areas of a language. This includes the vocabulary or words used by the language and how those words are affected when they are pluralized or inflected. They also examine how a language uses syntax to form sentences, grammar to organize words and sentences, phonology and also how culture creates idioms. However, they have some differences as following. Contrastive linguistics is a practice-oriented linguistic approach that seeks to describe the differences and similarities between a pair of languages (hence it is occasionally called

"differential linguistics"). Contrastive linguistics is part of applied linguistics and seeks to establish the similarities and differences between a language learner's first language and the target language (= the one being learned) in order to attempt to predict where learners will have difficult and make mistakes. For example, languages like Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin do not have articles ('the' and 'a'). We can predict, then, that speakers of these languages will have difficulty learning articles when they learn English. Such is the case. Note, however, that contrastive linguistics is not as straightforward in its ability to predict mistakes as the example I've given. It is most powerful when predicting difficulties in pronunciation, but many types of grammar errors in second language learning occur in areas that contrastive linguistics cannot explain. For example, Spanish speakers have personal endings on verbs (e.g. duerm-o 'I sleep' and duerm-a 'she sleeps'), but they frequently omit the -s in English present tense forms like 'eats' or 'sleeps.' Contrastive analysis would not predict this problem since the -s in English parallels Spanish inflection. Meanwhile, comparative linguistics is part of historical linguistics and refers to the process of establishing family relationships and reconstructing protolanguages (= ancestral languages). For example, if we compare English, Dutch, and German, we can find a number of cognates, that is, words that are similar in phonetic form and in meaning such as English 'book' Dutch 'boek' and German 'Buch.' If we compare the equivalent words in French 'livre' Spanish 'libro' and

Italian 'libro,' it's clear that English, Dutch, and German are similar to each other and that French, Spanish, and Italian are similar to each other. This suggests that English, Dutch and German belong to a language family distinct from that which French, Spanish, and Italian belong to. The former is called proto-Germanic; the latter is known to have been Latin. In another word, comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. To maintain a clear distinction between attested and reconstructed forms, comparative linguists prefix an asterisk to any form that is not found in surviving texts. A number of methods for carrying out language classification have been developed, ranging from simple inspection to computerised hypothesis testing. Such methods have gone through a long process of development. Therefore, comparative linguistics is that branch of one, which deals with the study of languages in terms of their history, relatedness, families and construct new forms. It can be seen that contrastive linguistics seeks to study and explain any two languages. This includes listing the differences and similarities between them. Contrastive linguistics has also been called differential linguistics and is a subsection of comparative linguistics that is separated by its studying of only two languages at any one time. This area studies languages in order to discern how they developed as they did and what other languages they are historically related to. For example, comparative linguistic studies of Hungarian show its earliest links to

Chinese and Korean, then how it was influenced by Mongolian, Turkish and other languages as the Magyars moved west across Siberia and eventually into Europe. Such studies have also shown how and when Hungarian split from its closest language partner, Finno-Estonian. There are many subdivisions of comparative linguistics and, therefore, also of contrastive linguistics as they use similar techniques. The discipline is traditionally broken down into two main groups: general comparative linguistics and specialized comparative linguistics. General comparative linguistics is broken down into descriptive, typological and historical linguistics, while specialized comparative linguistics is broken down into generic comparative, the theory of linguistic contact and areal linguistics. The theory of linguistic contact becomes more important during contrastive linguistic studies. It looks at the relationship of two languages. Not all languages studied in contrastive linguistics are related or have had contact with one another, but it allows the linguist to look at possible changes one language has influenced in another such as transfers and interference. This is known as the theory of bilingualism and includes the creation of creoles and translation. In contrastive analysis, there are the terms “to compare” and “to contrast”. These two terms sometimes confused as all comparison process. However, they quite differ and the most different point of both can be recognized as followed. “To compare” is like a clarifying process whose objects are comparative. In this

process, we try to find out the similarities and differences of the two. In another way, contrasting process seeks for the differences or unlikeness, the opposite natures of the studied objects on comparison. In another words, to contrast means to distinguish. As a matter of fact, the range of things to compare is much larger than to contrast. We can compare lots of things, norms, people, objects, etc. However, fewer situations are contrastable. In contrastive linguistics, we can contrast two languages or even make a contrast in different components within a language. Take the example of phonology with two phonemes \p\ and \b\ in English. They are even contrastive in the two words “big” and “pig”.

Question 2: To the best of your knowledge and experiences, can you give examples for illustration for the question mentioned above to show how you can apply it/them in your teaching institution? Contrastive analysis includes all fields of linguistics such as phonology, semantics, syntax, morphology and pragmatics. It even seems that contrastive studies should rather be regarded as an approach, not as a branch of general linguistics. Most authors tend to distinguish between the so-called microlinguistic and macro-linguistic features, the former comprising mainly the grammatical level and thus treating the sentence as the largest analysable unit, and the latter studying language in situation and context with emphasis on the communicative function. Throughout the history of contrastive studies great

attention was paid to grammar and lexicon, whereas, the cultural aspects were largely neglected. Because of its characteristics, contrastive linguistic is considered as a useful learning tool for students or even for teachers who seek for better proficiency in foreign language study. Knowledge and understanding of languages is increasingly important, and this course focuses on how such knowledge can be applied. It helps learners know more clearly and finding similarities and differences between them, there by detecting errors, which bilingual learners often make, and how to fix. This assignment is based on contrastive linguistics. It uses many methods, especially contrastive method and surveys on grammatical aspect of these words. This study uses one-way transfer.  We find a lot of two languages’ differences which may be make errors in structure and semantics. It is useful for bilingual learners to find mistakes which they can meet. Contrastive linguistic gives a comparative method to translate a learner’s thinking in an informed way and give structure to his/her intuitive relationship to the language. This bilingual approach in cl saves the students’ infinite time and labor. It has been proven that students learn faster and more effectively using it. Since it is our nature to compare, Contrastive Linguistics is the technique that clarifies our understanding of the language. For students, similarities between languages cause no difficulties, while differences cause interference to learning. Through Contrastive Linguistics we can

target and resolve the typical difficulties and Common Mistakes of our students. We can examine aspects that would not normally be noticed without such comparison. Bi-lingual comparative courses overlap in fruitful collaboration with other approaches. They clear away students’ deep-rooted mistakes and empower teachers with the answers to many of their students' doubts. Contrastive analysis in the classroom usually implies certain methods and strategies that are notoriously »forbidden«, such as the use of the mother tongue and translation. My view of this approach, and it seems appropriate to call it an approach, is broader than this: contrastive analysis refers to all previous language experience of the learner and is a natural process in every learning situation. According to this view it is not only the native language of the learner that is a very powerful factor in foreign language learning, but rather all languages and language situations that the learner has ever encountered. Especially in trying to understand a new grammatical or lexical element, the learner would scan all his previous knowledge in order to find similarities (Skela, 1994). Try as we would, this »habit« cannot be eliminated from the process of learning, so perhaps it is time to find ways of using it to our and the learner’s advantage. In other words Marton (1981) pointed that “ The question then suggests itself whether it isn’t better to use this habitual transfer in some way rather than desperately trying to fight it and eradicate it, or even to deny its existence. I think that using contrastive analysis in the classroom

would go a long way towards controlling this powerful tendency and making an ally of what has long been considered our greatest enemy.” If we now agree that contrastive analysis can and should be used in the classroom, several questions come to mind: When do we choose to compare a certain language item to the mother tongue or to another foreign language already mastered by the students? Which segments of language lend themselves to comparison or contrasting? Should we concentrate on the similarities or the differences? Can this approach be used in all age groups and levels? What purpose do we have in mind and what results can we expect from using contrastive analysis? Perhaps these questions should be dealt with one at a time. As for the general decision about when to compare or contrast a certain language item, the only possible answer is: whenever we feel it appropriate. Once again, the teacher should rely on his/her own resourcefulness and follow the eclectic approach. If we take Slovene learners of English, there are many grammatical structures and phrases that are conspicuously different from Slovene, but does that mean that we should point out all the differences we encounter on the way? This brings us to the field of error analysis. In the seventies experts believed to have found the ultimate key to predicting and explaining errors - contrastive analysis. Still, years of experience have shown that negative transfer is by no means the only source of errors and that the use of contrastive analysis in the classroom

failed to bring the expected results. So disappointing was this fact that experts decided to ban contrastive studies from the classroom altogether, which accounts for their neglected status in the past two decades. Perhaps the best strategy is to »wait« for a certain error to occur, and then - if the reason was indeed negative transfer - point out the difference and illustrate it with examples. As for the question whether to concentrate on the similarities or differences between two languages, there is no universal answer. If there is a similarity between the mother tongue and the foreign language, we usually need not point it out, because the students will intuitively sense it. What we do need to point out are the cases where the apparent similarity is misleading, as is the case with false friends: sympathetic vs. simpatièen, local vs. lokal, etc. The question whether contrastive analysis could or should be used at all levels and for all age groups remains under-researched. Since I wasn’t able to find any clear guidelines regarding this decision, I can merely state some of my personal observations from my teaching experience. It seems that both age and level of language knowledge are very important factors for deciding whether to provide the learners with some contrastive examples or not. With very young learners the teacher often uses the mother tongue, provided that he or she speaks it and that it is a monolingual classroom. Still, any contrasting of grammatical structures would be out of place, because the learners have not yet reached the level of abstract thinking. Some simple techniques of translation, and translation is considered to be

one of contrastive techniques, may however be used successfully also at this level, but moderately. As soon as the learners have reached the level of abstract thinking and are able of conscious generalisation of grammatical rules, contrastive analysis may be used to point out certain conspicuous differences or explain mistakes. Generally speaking, contrasting grammatical features makes the most sense with those learners who already have some experience with foreign language learning and are thus already used to comparing languages and language items. Most contrastive techniques are not appropriate for very young learners and elementary stages. The rest is basically a matter of personal taste and experience if the teacher believes contrastive analysis to be useful, he or she will undoubtedly find ways of using it. A detailed study of existing contrastive techniques unfortunately cannot be included in this paper. Here I briefly mention some: Contrasting grammatical or lexical items during the presentation,

contrasting

idioms, proverbs, set phrases etc., translation and contrastive pragmatics. In teaching and learning English as second language, contrastive analysis is really helpful for both the teachers and the students, because we will know the differences and similarities between source language (L1) and target language (L2). Therefore, it is easy for us to learn and adjust to the target language. Therefore, we do not incorporate the system of our source language to the target language, because each language has distinct system. In applying contrastive analysis in the

classroom, the teacher can use linguistics aspects, they are: Phonology, Syntax (phrase, sentence, tense, etc) Take phonology as an example. Phonology is the study of sounds distribution in a language and the interaction between those different sounds. The aim of contrastive phonology is to contrast the phonetic sets of both languages and establish the differences. These may lie in the pronunciation of a phoneme that occurs in both languages. Examples: Vietnamese vowels

English vowels

a i

Long                                      Short i: – cream, seen            ɪ – bit, silly

e

ʒ: – burn, firm             ɛ – bet,

o

head

 

ɑ: – hard, far               æ . cat, dad

 

ɔ: – corn, faun            ɒ – dog, rotten U: – boob, glue          ʌ – cut, nut ʊ – put, soot ə – about, clever

In linguistics, syntax means the study of the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Syntax is one of the major components of grammar. In contrasting the syntactic structures of two languages as different as Vietnamese and English, the former being case-based and the latter word-order-based, we inevitably encounter so many differences that an analysis without our having a particular purpose in mind hardly seems reasonable. The position of complements in an English sentence is fixed, but not so in Vietnamese, since grammatical relations can be expressed through the use of inflections, which accounts for many structural differences between the two languages. The comparison in phrases between the two languages as follow: Vietnamese Ngôi nhà lớn

English Big house

Mẹ tôi

My mother

  In English phrases, adjectives precede nouns. Therefore, the law applied is MD (modifier-determiner). In the phrase ‘big house’ house is determiner and big is modifier, while Vietnamese is vice versa, the law applied is DM (determinermodifier). In the phrase “ngôi nhà lớn” the word ‘lớn’ modifies ‘ngôi nhà’.  In general, contrastive analysis is a very broad field, which does not necessarily include any specific language item, but rather focuses on the basic social and cultural conventions that rule communication in a certain context or situation.

Some very important skills should be taught in the school also, which often have nothing to do with language but with non-verbal means of communication. What is the typical head movement indicating agreement or disagreement? Do we shake hands when introduced to somebody? Which interjection do we use to express disgust and what facial expression goes with it? Of course a foreign language can be taught and learned without referring to the mother tongue (or L2). But if some of these techniques can facilitate learning or even make it more interesting, why not use them. These are but a few aspects of contrastive analysis and its possible uses in the classroom. The reason why I am in favour of occasional contrasting of languages is not just the fact that it may help to predict, explain or prevent mistakes, but rather that it provides a different and long-neglected insight into how languages work and how we can understand and consequently remember their features better. As Nation (1978) points out “It is worth mentioning two other possible effects. Exclusion of the mother tongue is often seen by the learners as a criticism of the mother tongue as a language, thus making it seem like ‘a secondgrade language’. The effects of this degrading of the mother tongue are not beneficial to the mother tongue and to the people who use it. Secondly, learning a foreign or second language provides an opportunity for learning about the nature of language, how a language works, how different languages organise the world and

experience in different ways. Comparison between the mother tongue and the foreign language is a good way of doing this.”

REFERENCES

1. Abdi, Nasril. Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis. Article. Language Department. 2. Lado, Robert. (1968) Linguistic Across Culture: Applied Lingustic for Language Teacher. An Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 3. Marton, W. (1981) Contrastive Analysis in the Classroom. J. Fisiak (ed.): Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 4. Nation, I.S.P. (1978) Translation and the Teaching of Meaning: Some Techniques. ELT Journal 32/1: 171-175. 5. Skela, J. (1994) Materin[èina v uèenju in pouèevanju tujega jezika: zmota, potreba ali pravica? Uporabno jezikoslovje (Applied Linguistics), 3/1994, Ljubljana.