The Linguistics of CA Session 3

Overview

Lin

guis

tics

Macro and Micro

Linguistics

Contrastive analysis

Goal

Mean

Framework

Levels

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

Categories Unit

Structure

Class

System

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. شعر

• I agree vs. من موافقم

– 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. Sentence

2. Clause

3. Phrase

4. Words

5. 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

برگردیم نمیتوانیمهرگز دیگر ماکه اینستمسلم حقیقت•

Sentence Clause Phrase Words Morpheme

English 1 2 2 9 9

Persian 1 3 2 9 13

Structure

• A structure is an arrangement of elements ordered in “places” (Halliday)

• He turned off the TV – subj + verb + indirect object

تلویزیون را خاموش کرد•

• 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 (ابتدا به آن توجهی نداشت

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 سابقه .

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:کامپوتر

• Partial correspondence – Faux amis

– باد Arabic: literature; Persian: politeness, good upbringing, for literature we say ادبیات

– Arabic: university; Persian: societyجامعه

• Zero correspondence : article system in English/Persian

Structures - Absolute correspondence

• I sat on a chair •آن صندلی من نشستم روی

that

Partial correspondence

• I sat on a chair

من روی آن صندلی نشستم•

that

Zero correspondence

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