The Linguistics of CA

Session 3

Overview
Macro and Micro Linguistics

Linguistics

Contrastive analysis

Goal Mean Levels

Framework

Categories Models

Contrastive analysis
Contrastive Analysis
Goal: The examination of L2 Learning related to the field of psychology Means: The description of languages related to the field of linguistics

Microlinguistics vs. Macrolinguistics

According to the microlinguistic view, languages should be analyzed for their own sake and without reference to their social function, to the manner in which they are acquired by children, to the psychological mechanisms that underlie the production and reception of speech, to the literary and the aesthetic or communicative function of language, and so on. In contrast, macrolinguistics embraces all of these aspects of language. Various areas within macrolinguistics have been given terminological recognition: psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, dialectology, mathematical and computational linguistics, and stylistics.

Macrolinguistics
Semantics: the study of meaning, changes in meaning and the principles that govern the relation ship between sentences or words and their meanings. Sociolinguistics: a descriptive study of the effects of any and all aspects of society on the way language is used and the effects of language used on society. Ethnomethodology: It refers to the analysis and interpretation of every spoken interaction Discourse Analysis: It is concerned with how we build up meaning in the larger communicative rather than grammatical units, meaning in a text, paragraph, conversation, etc rather than a single sentence. Speech-act Theory: an approach to the meaning of language which stresses the use made of language, rather than the literal meaning of the combined words. Emphasis what we do with language rather than what we say.

Focus of CA
Originally, the main emphasis of CA was on grammar and phonology for the obvious reason that the close systems of grammar and phonology lend themselves better to systematic CA then the more elusive areas of lexis and culture, but the general absence of contrastive lexical and cultural studies also reflected where the emphasis lay in linguistics in the old days.

Framework
Framework

Levels

Phonology Grammar

Lexis
Unit Structure Class System

Categories
Models

Structural or Taxonomic Transformational generative Contrastive generative Case

Levels of Language
Levels of Language
Level of phonology Level of lexis Level of morphology Level of syntax

Procedure for description of levels

Phonology, then morphology, and then syntax

Mixing Levels
Nowadays mixing is sometimes necessary to account for some fact of language.
Slow cars held up.

Steps in CA
1. Description 2. Juxtaposition for comparison Interlingual level shift
State where a lexical distinction in one language is expressed through another, say grammatical level in another language.
Poems vs. I agree vs.
I am agree with you

Categories of grammar
There are four categories : unit, structure, class and system. They are universal , that is they are necessary and sufficient as a basis for the description of any language.

Unit
The Units of grammar are:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Sentence Clause Phrase Words Morphemes

In CA a single sentence in L1 correspond on a one-to-one basis with a single sentence in L2. CA is concerned with the possibilities of maintaining 1:1 correspondence of units at ranks below sentence

Example
We can never go back again, that is certain
Sentence Clause Phrase Words Morpheme

English Persian

1 1

2 3

2 2

9 9

9 13

Structure
A structure is an arrangement of elements ordered in places (Halliday) He turned off the TV
subj + verb + indirect object

Object + prep. + verb + subj.

Class
There are restrictions on which units can operate at given places in structures These comprise shifts from one part of speech to another. An example is carelessly at first where the English verb changed into a noun in Farsi (

Structure
Each language allows its speaker choices from sets of elements which are not determined by the place which the element occupies in the structure. CHOICE: The selection of one particular term at one particular place on the chain in preference to another term or other terms which are also possible at that place Systems operate over the domains of units: systems of sentences, of clauses, of groups, of words and of morphemes.

Structure
These are shifts that take place when the SL and TL possess approximately corresponding systems but where the translation involves selection of a non-corresponding term in the TL system (Catford, 2000, p. 146). An example is the English histories where the Farsi translation is .

Microlinguistics - Comparing elements of language systems

Systemic contrasting implies :
Contrasting units Contrasting classes Contrasting structures Contrasting systems

Contrasting units
Absolute correspondence
[m], [n], etc. : these phonemes exist in both English and Persian languages

Partial correspondence
there can be no partial correspondence at the units level: either the language possesses a unit, or not

Zero correspondence
[K] in English exists at the unit level it is a phoneme of the English language , whereas [X] exists as a phoneme in Persian but not in English

Contrasting classes
Absolute correspondence in word classes
Common nouns
Computer:

Partial correspondence
Faux amis Arabic: literature; Persian: politeness, good upbringing, for literature we say Arabic: university; Persian: society

Zero correspondence : article system in English/Persian

Structures - Absolute correspondence

I sat on a chair

that

Partial correspondence
I sat on a chair

that

Zero correspondence
Zero correspondence of branching diagrams is very rare in languages (confirms the universality thesis)