RECENT ASSIGNMENT

Contrastive Linguistics Assignment One (20%)
In contrastive analysis (CA) to compare and contrast two languages, five different steps have been mentioned in the literature. Following these procedures, compare and contrast any local language with the syntactic structures of English with the aim of predicting and describing errors.
Procedures
1. Selection: Certain areas of difficulty in TL are selected based on analyst’s prior teaching experience and bilingual intuition or prior analysis of errors of the learners ( same native languages)
2. Description: The two languages should be described through the same linguistic model or framework. For example, if certain aspects of the grammar of L1 are described through Generative-Transformational Grammar, the same model for the description of L2 should be applied as well.
3. Comparison: The subsystems of the two languages are juxtaposed in order to find similarities and differences between them. Linguistic features of the two languages are compared on three levels: form, meaning and distribution of forms.
4. Predictions: are made about difficulties learners may come across in acquiring the L2. Similarities and differences found through the comparison of the two languages should be judged to see if they are problematic for the learners or not. Predictions are made through the formulation of a hierarchy of difficulty
5. Verification: Finding out whether the predictions made about errors and difficulties actually materialize or not.