The article is devoted to studying the language of second language learners, the problems of comparison of the linguistic system of two or more languages, the main difficulties in learning a new language that caused by interference from the first language.
Key words:contrastive analysis, chunk, interlanguage pragmatics, second language, contrastive rhetoric, expansion, translation.
Статья посвящена изучению языка изучающих второй язык, проблемам сопоставления языковой системы двух и более языков, основным трудностям в изучении нового языка, вызванным помехой от первого языка.
Ключевые слова. контрастивный анализ, чанк, межъязыковая прагматика, второй язык, контрастивная риторика,расширение, перевод.
Knowing more about the development of learner language helps teachers to teach procedures in the light of what they can reasonably expect to accomplish in the classroom. As we will see, some characteristics of learner language can be quite perplexing if one does not have an overall picture of the steps learners go through in acquiring features of the second language. In presenting some of the findings of second language research, we have included a number of examples of learner language as well as some additional samples to give you an opportunity to practice analyzing learner language.
Of course, researchers analyze learner language all the time. They try to determine whether students have learned what has been taught and how dozily their language matches the target language. But progress cannot always be measured in these terms. Sometimes language acquisition is reflected in a decrease in the use of a correct form that was based on rote memorization or chunk learning. New errors may be based on an emerging ability to extend a particular grammatical form beyond the specific items with which it was first learned. [1] In this sense, an increase in error may be an indication of progress. For example, like first language learners, second language learners usually learn the irregular past tense forms of certain common verbs before they learn to apply the regular simple past -ed marker. That means that a learner who says 'I buyed a bus ticker' may know more about English grammar than one who says 'I bought a bus ticket'. The one who says 'buyed' knows a rule for forming the past tense and has applied it to an irregular verb. Without further information, we cannot conclude that the one who says 'bought' would use the regular past -ed marker where it is appropriate, but the learner who says 'buyed' has provided evidence of developing knowledge of a systematic aspect of English. [1] Teachers and researchers cannot read learners' minds, so they must infer what learners know by observing what they do. We observe their spontaneous language use, but we also design procedures that help to reveal more about the knowledge underlying their observable use of language. Without these procedures, it is often difficult to determine whether a particular behavior is representative of something systematic in a learner's current language knowledge or simply an isolated item, learned as a chunk.
Like first language learners, second language learners do not learn language simply through imitation and practice. They produce sentences that are not exactly like those they have heard. These new sentences appear to be based on internal cognitive processes and prior knowledge that interact with the language they hear around them. Both first and second language acquisition are best described as developing systems with their own evolving rules and patterns, not as imperfect versions of the target language. we saw that children's knowledge of the grammatical system is built up in predictable sequences. [1] For instance, grammatical morphemes such as the -ing of the present progressive or the -ed of the simple past are not acquired at the same time, but in sequence. Furthermore, the acquisition of certain grammatical features is similar for children in different environments. As children continue to hear and use their language, they are able to revise these systems so that they increasingly resemble the language spoken in their environment. Are there developmental sequences for second language acquisition? How does the prior knowledge of the first language affect the acquisition of the second {or third) language? How does instruction affect second language acquisition? Are there differences between learners whose only contact with the new language is in a language course and those who use the language in daily life?
Until the late 1960s, people tended to see second language learners' speech simply as an incorrect version of the target language. According to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH), errors were often assumed to be the result of transfer from learners’ first language. However, not all errors made by second language learners can be explained in terms of first language transfer. [2]
A number of researches show that many errors can be explained better in terms of learners’ developing knowledge of the structure of the target language rather than an attempt to transfer patterns of their first language. Furthermore, some of the errors are remarkable similar to those made by young first language learners. For example, the use of a regular –ed past tense ending or the use of –s or –es present simple tense ending. [3]
A simplified version of the CAH would predict that, where differences exist, errors would be bi-directional, that is, for example, Uzbek speakers learning English and English speakers learning Uzbek would make errors on parallel linguistic features. Malla Ochilov observed that this is not always the case. For example, in English, direct objects, whether nouns or pronouns, come after the verb ('The dog eats the cookie. The dog eats it.'). In Uzbek, direct objects that are nouns follow the verb. However, direct object pronouns precede the verb.
Eric Kellerman and others also observed that learners have intuitions about which language features they can transfer from their first language to the target language and which are less likely to be transferable. For example, most learners believe that idiomatic or metaphorical expressions cannot simply be translated word for word. As a result of the finding that many aspects of learners' language could not be explained by the CAH, a number of researchers began to take a different approach to analyzing learners' errors. This approach, which developed during the 1970s, became known as 'error analysis' and involved detailed description and analysis of the kinds of errors second language learners make. [3] The goal of this research was to discover what learners really know about the language. As Pit Corder said in a famous article published in 1967, when learners produce 'correct' sentences, they may simply be repeating something they have already heard; when they produce sentences that differ from the target language, we may assume that these sentences reflect the learners' current understanding of the rules and patterns of that language. 'Error analysis' differed from contrastive analysis in that it did not set out to predict errors. Rather, it sought to discover and describe different kinds of errors in an effort to understand how learners process second language data. Error analysis was based on the hypothesis that, like child language, second language learner language is a system in its own right--one that is rule- governed and predictable. [4]
Larry Selinker gave the name interlanguage to learners’ developing second language knowledge. Analysis of a learner's interlanguage shows that it has some characteristics influenced by previously learned languages, some characteristics of the second language, and some characteristics, such as the omission of function words and grammatical morphemes, that seem to be general and to occur in all or most interlanguage systems. lnterlanguages have been found to be systematic, but they are also dynamic, continually evolving as learners receive more input and revise their hypo- theses about the second language. [5] The path through language acquisition is not necessarily smooth and even. Learners have bursts of progress, then seem to reach a plateau for a while before something stimulates further progress. Selinker also coined the term fossilization to refer to the fact that, some features in a learner's language may stop changing. This may be especially true for learners whose exposure to the second language does not include instruction or the kind of feedback that would help them to recogntze differences between their interlanguage and the target language. The first language may influence learners' interlanguage in other ways as well. The phenomenon of 'avoidance' that Jacquelyn Schachter described appeared to be caused at least in part by learners' perception that a feature in the target language was so distant and different from their first language that they preferred not to try it.
Contrastive analysis still remains a useful tool in the search for potential sources of trouble in foreign language learning. CA cannot be overlooked in syllabus design and it is a valuable source of information for the purposes of translation and interpretation. Today, the scope of contrastive analysis has gradually widened, along with the an overview of contrastive analysis hypothesis expansion of researchers’ interests beyond the confines of the sentence for instance, to interlanguage pragmatics or contrastive rhetoric.
References:
- 1 Ellis, Rod. 1986. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. 2nd, improved edition. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
- Celce-Murcia, M & Hawkins, B (1985). Contrastive Analysis, error analysis, and interlanguage analysis in M. Celce-Murcia
- James C. (1980) Contrastive Analysis, Singapore, LongmanKachru Y, in Cook G and Seidlhofer B (eds) (1995), Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics
- JW, Ziahosseiny SM. 1970. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and Spelling Errors. Language Learning
- Connor, U (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language writing, CUP
