Why Is It Important Contrastive Analysis 2v16j

Alumno: Ortega Díaz Eduardo Lingüística Aplicada y Análisis de Errores

Profesor: Octavio Villareal Rivera

Why is it important contrastive analysis? The study of a pair of languages was a major breakthrough in the 1960. Researchers in second language acquisition used contrastive analysis with the intent of understanding why some issues of one language were more difficult than others for a learner of certain language. Contrastive analysis (CA) is based on the hypotheses of differences and similarities which says that: “With greater differences between two languages learners are going to have more problems to acquire the second language (L2), but if some characteristics of the native language (L1) are similar to the learner’s (L2) he is going to learn the (L2) with more easiness due to the positive transferences students could make. Contrastive Analysis contributions to second language acquisition are important for five reasons: Firstly, CA has allowed teachers of (L2) to focus on the differences of the (L1) and (L2) and this has enabled them to help their students to cope with this differences better. If the students were walking unwarily on the paths of a second language acquisition then their learning could be at risk of falling with the many differences that a (L2) can have in comparison with his (L1). For example for Spanish speakers is so difficult to understand why the possessive pronoun “su” splits in English to “his/her” and such leaves them baffled and with many difficulties. So if the professor takes advantage of CA he will be able to guide them through the process. Secondly, CA’s influence in learners and teachers of a second language is notorious and this due to what? There is an important phenomenon in research that when somebody is eager to know more about any subject he will make important discoveries even if the object of study does not happen near him. We can see that for Spanish speakers many of their grammar rules make perfect sense for them (not all of course), but in general they do not have many questions for their own grammar, so grammar books of Spanish do not give elaborated explanations of the aspects of Spanish grammar. However American students of Spanish do have plenty of questions for a language that is not theirs, what is more only teachers or experimented students can fully answer these questions because they have the knowledge that sometimes is not even in the books of Spanish speakers. The point is that

Alumno: Ortega Díaz Eduardo Lingüística Aplicada y Análisis de Errores

Profesor: Octavio Villareal Rivera

CA has been of great help for teachers of a second language for they are able to see the differences of two languages and ed them into books. Thirdly, even if CA analysis purpose is to show the similarities of two languages, it has shown itself productive given be the case that it manages to find one similarity, it does not relate the similarities of the two languages, but once seen the similarity it presents it within the context of the second language, which in the end is a way of letting know the students that every language has its own nature regardless of the similarity. Fourthly, CA research has shown that however the resemblance of two elements of the (L1) and (L2) the functional loads that the (L2) gives to the same element of the (L1) can vary which is telling us that the likeness in the two elements though lexical can have a very functional distinction. Here CA demonstrates that not everything is what it seems. Fifthly, CA makes a double job the first one is to make sure that the students of (L2) are not transferring his (L1), which would no help the student to really make an approach to the (L2), and the second one is that CA compares the production of L2 with the standard of the same language to see if there can be some flexibility in the grammar of the (L2). As a conclusion CA took the leading role in second language acquisition for a long time because its aim was to predict the problems that students of an (L2) were going to have, and as a matter of fact it was of great help until the very moment that the criticism made them see that no all difficulties can be foretold and not all the problems come from the comparison of languages, but from many other factors.