contrastive analysis (CA)

A general approach to the investigation of language (contrastive linguistics), particularly as carried on in certain areas of APPLIED LINGUISTICS, such as foreign-language teaching and translation. In a contrastive analysis of two languages, the points of STRUCTURAL difference are identified, and these are then studied as areas of potential difficulty (INTERFERENCE or ‘negative transfer’) in foreign-language learning. The claim that these differences are the source of difficulty in foreign-language learning, and thus govern the progress of the learner, is known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis. Although strongly influential (motivating audio-lingual methods of language teaching), by the 1980s the validity of the hypothesis had been seriously questioned, especially following research into the nature of INTERLANGUAGE and into the cognitive contribution which individuals themselves bring to the learning task. Contrastive analyses are SYNCHRONIC; analogous ‘contrastive’ studies of two states in the history of a language would be grouped under a different heading, such as COMPARATIVE or HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS.