Lecture 1.

Оrigins of contrastive study of languages and their methods of

research used. Basic concepts of contrastive linguistics, its object and subject
matter.

Plan:

1. Comparative studies of languages and methods of research used.

2. Contrastive linguistics as a science and an academic discipline: its subject
matter and tasks.
3. Contrastive analysis as a method of research.
4. The problem of language etalon for comparison (tertium comparationis).

Contrastive Grammar is a linguistic discipline, in particular, a part of

Contrastive linguistics, which became a separate branch in the middle of the 20th
century. Thus, to understand the object and subject of Contrastive Grammar, it is
crucial to turn first to the origins of contrastive studies in general, its place among
other disciplines in Contrastive Linguistics, its methods and most important concepts.

CL originated in the field of applied linguistics since it was assumed that the
most effective teaching materials were those based upon a scientific description of
the target language carefully compared with a parallel description of the native
language of the learner. The development of Contrastive Linguistics has long history
and dates back to the beginning of the 19thcentury, when the first attempt was made
to compare languages.

Comparative studies of languages and methods of research used.

Comparative studies of languages and methods of research used. CL springs
from General comparative linguistics, which is subdivided into Descriptive
Synchronic Comparative Linguistics (DSCL) and Historical Comparative
Linguistics (HCL).

Historical Comparative Linguistics (HCL) was the first to emerge and a

synthesis of its most basic ideas could read as this. Some languages are related to
each other and form language families. Their vocabularies and grammars show
remarkable similarities that exclude random coincidences. Indo-European languages
are the archetype of such a linguistic family. The development of these ideas has
a long history.

The primary goal of HCL is to classify the languages of the world, to

sort them out and to assign them to genetic families and thus to ascertain the
kinship between related languages and description of their evolution in time and
space. Language families are generally shown as trees each branch being the
divergent continuation of a given state of language.

HCL was the first trend of thought that put comparison on scientific
grounds. It originated in Germany at the beginning of the 19thcentury and is
connected with names of F. Bopp, J. Grimm as well as Dutch linguist Rasmus
Kristian Rask, Russian linguist A. Kh. Vostokov and many others. The method
used by them was historical comparative method.

Synchronic Comparative Linguistics (SCL) includes typological and

contrastive linguistics. Within typological dimension the approach is synchronic:
languages are typologically grouped according to their present-day characteristics,
no reference being made to the histories of languages, not even to their historical
relatedness.

Languages grouped together in the same typological group need not be

genetically (historically) related. For example, English and Chinese which are not
genetically related, share a large number of grammatical properties, such as
relatively fixed and grammatically constrained word order, paucity of
inflections, and prominence of function words. These shared features place the two
languages quite close in the typological groupings in spite of the genetic
distance separating them.
Typological Linguistics (TL). The interest that linguists took in the
differences between languages shifted to the common elements of all languages.
This led to the attempt of establishing a set of laws that govern all languages, a set of
universal features of language, generating the hypothesis of linguistic universals.

The list of linguistic universals varies from one researcher to another, from
one point of view to another Method of typological linguistics – contrastive
typological method deals with various linguistic phenomena.

Any of these phenomena may be contrasted synchronically or diachronically.

The final aims of typological investigations are as follows: to identify and classify
accordingly the main convergent and divergent features of the languages under
research;

to draw from these features respectively the isomorphic regularities and the
allomorphic singularities in the l. contrasted;

to establish on the basis of obtained isomorphic features the typical l.

structures and the types of languages;

to perform on the basis of the obtained practical data a truly scientific

classification of all languages of the world;

to establish on this basis the universal features which are pertaining to each
single language of the world.

Specialized Comparative Linguistics is subdivided into: Genetic Comparative

Linguistics, Theory of Language Contact, Areal Linguistics.

Genetic Comparative Linguistics uses the terminology borrowed from

family relationships: a „proto-language” can be the „mother-tongue”, and its
descendants, can be „daughter-tongues”. In time the „daughter-tongue” may
become a „mother-tongue”, and it would divide in several dialects, that would
hold remarkable distinctions between them. These dialects would evolve
independently, and would be considered as separate but related languages. Thus, the
genealogy tree that represents the relations between languages may become very
complex.

Contrastive linguistics as a science and an academic discipline: its subject

matter and tasks. Another subdiscipline of comparative synchronic linguistics is
concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of
languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between
them. The comparison of two or more linguistic systems as they exist today (i.e., a
synchronic comparison) is known as Contrastive Linguistics.

HCL, TL and CL refer to multilingual disciplines. But they differ in several

aspects. First of all, sets of languages which present the objects of multilingual
spheres of research, like language families, aerial communities of languages,
language types are given (exist) in the reality. Two or more languages put
together in CL research are intentionally grouped by the linguist into one object
of research proceeding from the applied task (foreign language teaching,
translation etc.).

Furthermore, comparative-historical, areal and typological studies are aimed

at making corresponding classifications of languages. CL does not set itself such
tasks. Finally, comparative-historical, areal and typological studies direct their
attention at discovering those things which bring languages together, id est, make
the basis: a) of genetic correlations explained by primary kinship; b) of secondary
kinship as the product of language contacts; c) of structural similarity.

N.I. Andreichuk defines CL as a hybrid linguistic enterprise: it is not

concerned with classification, and as the term contrastive implies, more
interested in differences between languages than in their likeness. And finally,
although not concerned either with language families, or with other factors of
language history, it is not sufficiently committed to the study of ‘static’ linguistic
phenomena to merit the label synchronic.
CL takes primary interest in those things that make contrasted languages
different and that can turn out to be factors determining interlingual
interference.

CL digresses from diachronic aspects and is neither concerned with

historical developments nor with the problem of describing genetic
relationships. CL is purely synchronic in its orientation and a comparison
between the vowel systems of German and Finnish or between the form, meaning
and use of reflexive markers in English and Mandarin Chinese is just as relevant as
the corresponding comparisons between relevant systems in genetically related
languages. In addition to purely synchronic orientation CL also differs in scope from
HCL since it is typically concerned with a comparison of corresponding subsystems
in only two languages.

In spite of these differences CL and HCL may overlap if two

genetically related languages are examined for shared structures and contrasts.
In that case CL can be built on the findings of HCL, which also provides the relevant
explanation of the contrasts as a result of geographic separation, contact with
other languages and inbuilt drifts. A contrastive analysis will then often
resemble a description of contrasts between two consecutive stages in the
historical development of two languages.

Contrast and comparison of languages or contrastive analysis (CA) can be

conducted on four levels: phonetic, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic. Thus, we
have Contrastive Phonetics, Contrastive Grammar, Contrastive Semantics and
Contrastive Pragmatics. There is also the subdivision of CL into 3 subdisciplines by
Johansson (2000): 1) theory of translation; 2) error analysis; 3) contrastive analysis.

All branches of CL are closely connected not only with one another but also
with the other branches of linguistics: Phonetics, Lexicology, Stylistics, General
Linguistics, History of the Language, Cognitive linguistics, Sociolinguistics.
Contrastive analysis as a method of research. The procedures of the
contrastive analysis were formulated by Robert Lado in his book Linguistics Across
Cultures: Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers (1957). That involved
describing the languages (using structural linguistics), comparing them and predicting
learning difficulties. R. Lado’s point of view is that learning a 2d language constitutes
a very different task from learning the 1st language. The basic problems arise not
only out of any essential difficulty in the features of the new language but primarily
out of the special ‘set’ created by the 1 st language habits. He was the first to grasp
the significance of these facts. His recipe of how to achieve progress in mastering a
foreign language is comparison of 2 languages +comparison of 2 cultures to
discover and describe the problems that the speakers of one of the language will
have in learning the other.

According to James, 1980 CA involves two steps: description and

comparison (James,1980). Description is done via methods of linguistic analysis, like
IC analysis, transformational analysis, componential analysis. Description is the
stage at which the selected material is linguistically described and it is substantial
that description is done within the same theory.

There have also been mentioned 5 steps in the literature for comparing and
contrasting two languages: selection, description, comparison, prediction and
verification. Firstly, certain areas of difficulty in target language (TL) are selected
based on analyst’s prior teaching experience and bilingual intuition or based on the
analysis of learner’s errors. Secondly, after selection of a certain linguistic items,
rules or structures the two languages are explicitly described. Scientific parallel
description has always been the core of CA. The 2 languages should be described
through same model or framework. If certain aspects of grammar of L1 are described
through Generative- Transformational Grammar the same model for the description
should be applied for L2. Thirdly, the subsystems of two languages are juxtaposed in
order to find similarities and differences between them. Linguistic features of two l.
are compared on 3 levels: form, meaning and distribution of forms. Next, predictions
are made about difficulties learners may come across in acquiring L2. Similarities
and difficulties found through comparison are judged to see if they are problematic
for the learners or not. Predictions are made through the formation of hierarchy of
difficulty. Finally, it is being found out whether predictions made actually materialize
or not.

The problem of language etalon for comparison (tertium comparationis).

Two bases of CA are usually mentioned by the linguists. CA is termed unilateral
when languages are compared on the basis of one of the analysed languages and one
of them is used as a model.
Unilateral CA is widely used in the analysis of foreign languages
comparing them with the learner’s native language.

CA according to which both compared languages are studied from the

point of view of some third language system, is termed bilateral.

This third language may be: a living language which may function as an
intermediary in communication; a dead language which is fixed in invariable
state (Latin, Ancient Greek); an artificial language applied in the process of
typological analysis of a number of languages; a special metalanguage created to
ensure most objective and exact description of other languages.

Formal correspondence and semantic equivalence can serve as tertia

comparationis for certain types of contrastive studies such as syntactic and
lexical. A bilateral method is most commonly applied for theoretical studies and
unicentral method – for educational purposes.

Sometimes the native language is used as a basis for comparison with foreign
language and this can easily reveal some contrasts. Also: certain differential
characteristics, grammatical rule, semantic field, certain methods, etc. All these
contemplations, nevertheless, presuppose that regardless of the theory of
language that is taken as the basis for contrastive research, there has to be
determined the ground for comparison, i.e. tertium comparationis. And having
defined tertium comparationis it is possible to speak of equivalence, as Yu. O.
Zhluktenko claims that equivalence is the criterion for comparability [Жлуктенко
1977, С. 5 – 13].
The deep structure contrastive analysis is based on a universal model of
language. Some linguists such as Noam Chomsky and Charles Fillmore initiated the
hypothesis that all sentences have a surface structure and a deep structure. By
applying the notions of deep structure and surface structure, the fact that the crucial
contrast area is the one that lies between the deepest structure and the most surface
one, becomes evident. The differences between languages can be observed at any
level that lies between the deep structure and the surface structure. In this way, we
can even quantify similitudes between languages.
To sum up, as Yu.A. Zhluktenko asserts in his article “Contrastive analysis
as a method of speech investigations” the main requirements for contrastive
investigations are: the choice of the most important and effective language
elements for the analysis; the choice of an adequate and reliable basis for comparative
analysis; taking into consideration interlanguages equivalence, which as a rule is
not connected with the equality of form [Жлуктенко 1979].
Основна література:
1. Жлуктенко Ю.О. Порівняльна граматика англійської та української мов:
Посіб. – К.: Радянська школа, 1960. – 160 с.
2. Корунець І.В. Порівняльна типологія англійської та української мов.
Навчальний посібник. (Korunets’ I.V. Contrastive Typology of the English and
Ukrainian languages). – Вінниця: Нова книга, 2003. – 464 с.
3. Сучасна українська мова: Підручник/ за ред. О.Д.Пономарева. – К.: Либідь,
2001. – 400 с.
4. Andreichuk N. Contrastive Linguistics: study manual /N. І. Andreichuk. – Lviv:
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv Publishing Centre, 2015. – 342 P.
5. Greenbaum S., Quirk R. A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. – L.:
Harlow: Longman, 1991. – 490 p.
6. Karamysheva І. Contrastive Grammar of English and Ukrainian Languages :
textbook / Iryna Karamysheva. — Third edition, revised. — Vinnytsia : Nova Knyha
Publishers, 2017. — 336 p.
Додаткова література:

1. Жлуктенко Ю.О. Контрастивний аналіз як прийом мовного дослідження //

Нариси з контрастивної лінгвістики. – К.: Наукова думка. – 1979. – С. 5-11.
2.Джеймс К. Контрастивный анализ // Новое в зарубежной лингвистике. – М.,
1989. – Вып. XXV. Контрастивная лингвистика.
3. Сосюр Фердінанд де. Курс загальної лінгвістики: Пер. з фр. А.Корнійчук,
К.Тищенко. – К.: Основи, 1998. – 324 с.
4. Bickel B. Typology in the 21st century: Major current developments. Linguistic
Typology11. – 2007. – p.239-251.
5.Crystal D. An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. – Oxford:
Blackwell Reference, 1993. – 428 p.
5. Krzeszowski T.P. Contrasting Languages: The Scope of Contrastive
Linguistics // Trends in Lingusitics. Studies and Monographs, 51. – Berlin: De
Gruyter Mounton, 2011. - 286p.
5. Leech G., Svartvic J. A Communicative Grammar of English. – L.-N.Y.: Longman,
1994. – 423 p.

1. What are the tasks and methods of HCL?

2. How does TL differ from CL? What is its method?
3. What is the difference between HCL and CL?
4. What are the methods and tasks of CL? What are its main subdisciplines?
5. What is contrastive analysis?
6. Name the possible tertia comparationis for the comparison of 1)two
languages and 2)two grammatical structures.