Chapter Two: Speech Act Theory

Speech act theory was developed by the Oxford philosopher J.L Austin whose 1955 lectures

at Harvard University were published posthumously as How to Do Things with Words(1975).Austin’s

work is in many respects a reaction to some traditional and influential attitudes to language. These

attitudes can be said to involve three related assumptions as follows:

1- the basic sentence type in language is declarative(i.e. a statement or assertion);

2- the principle use of language is to describe states of affairs (by using statements);

3- the meaning of utterances can be described in terms of their truth or falsity.

Austin opposed these views and said that language is used for far more than making

statements and that for the most part utterances cannot be said to be either true or false. He made

two important observations. The first is that not all sentences are statements and that much of

conversation is made up of questions, exclamations, commands, and expressions of wishes like the

examples below.

a- Excuse me!

b- Are you serving?

c- Hello.

d- Six pints of stout and a packet of peanuts, please!

e- Give me the dry roasted ones.

f- How much? Are you serious?

 Such utterances are not descriptions and cannot be said to be true or false. Austin’s second

observation was that even in sentences with the grammatical form of declaratives, not all are used to

make statements. Austin identified a subset of declaratives that are not used to make true or false

statements, such as in the examples below:

a- I promise to take a taxi home.

b- I bet you five pounds that he gets breathalysed.

c- I declare this meeting open.

d- I warn you that legal action will ensue.

e- I name this ship The Flying Dutchman.

Austin claimed of these sentences that they were in themselves a kind of action/thus by

uttering: I promise to take a taxi home; a speaker makes a promise rather than just describing one.

This kind of utterance is called performative: in these examples they perform the action named by

first verb in the sentence, and we can insert the adverb hereby to stress this function, e.g. I hereby

request that you leave my property. We can contrast performative and non-performative verbs by

these two features. A speaker would not for example expect the uttering of (a) below to constitute

the action of cooking a cake, or (d) the action of starting a car. These sentences describe actions

independent of the linguistic act. Accordingly, there is the use of ‘hereby’ with these sentences.

a- I cook this cake.

b- I hereby cook this cake.

c- I hereby start this car. I hereby start this car.

II.1Evaluating Performative Utterances

 Austin argued that it is not useful to ask whether performative utterances like those above

are true or not , rather we should ask whether they work or not: Do they constitute a successful

warning, bet, ship-naming etc.? In Austin’s terminology a performative that works is called felicitous

and one that does not is infelicitous. For them to work, such performatives have to satisfy the social

conventions for a very obvious example, I cannot rename a ship by walking up to the dock and saying

I name this ship The F lying Dutchman. Less explicitly, there are social conventions governing the

giving of orders to co-workers, greeting strangers, etc. Austin’s name for the enabling conditions for

performative is felicity conditions. Examining these social conventions that support performatives, it

is clear that there is a gradient between performatives that are highly institutionalised ,or even

ceremonial, requiring sophisticated and very overt support, like the example of a judge pronouncing

sentence , through to less formal acts like warning, thanking, etc. To describe the role of felicity

conditions, Austin (1975) wrote a very general schema:

1- There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect ,the

procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain circumstances.

2- The particular persons and circumstances must be appropriate for the invocation of the particular

procedure invoked.

3- The procedure must be executed by all participants correctly.

4- …and completely.

Austin went on to add sincerity clauses firstly that participants must have the thoughts,

feelings and intentions, as specified by the procedure, and secondly, that if subsequent conduct is
called for, the participants must so conduct themselves. If the speech act is unsuccessful by failing

the (1) or (2) conditions above, then he described it as a misfire. Thus my casually renaming any ship

visiting Dublin docks is a misfire because (2) above is not adhered to. If the act is insincerely

performed, then he described it as an abuse of a speech act, as for example saying I bet … with non-

intention to pay or, I promise with…. When, I already intend to break the promise. Linguists, as

opposed to philosophers, have tended not to be so interested in this second type of felicity, since the

primary speech act has, in these cases, been successfully communicated.

II.2Explicit and Implicit Performatives

Looking at examples of performatives earlier, we can say that they are characterised by

special features:

a- They tend to begin with a first person verb in the simple present: I bet, I warn, etc.

b- This verb belongs to a special class describing verbal activities for example: promise,

warn, sentence, name, bet, pronounce.

c- Generally, their performative nature can be emphasised by inserting the adverb hereby, as

described earlier, thus I hereby sentence you to…

Utterances with these characteristics are called explicit performatives. The importance of

speech act theory lies in the way that Austin and others managed to extend their analysis from these

explicit performatives to other utterances. The first step was to point out that in some cases the

same speech act seems to be performed but with a relaxation of some of the special characteristics

mentioned above.

We regularly meet utterances like those below, where this is so:

a- You are hereby charged with treason.

b- Passengers are requested to avoid jumping out the aircraft.

c- Five pounds says he does not make the semi-final.

d- Come up and see me sometime.

We can easily provide the sentences above with corresponding explicit performatives, as

below:

1- I (hereby) charge you with treason.

2- We request he passengers avoid jumping out of the aircraft.

3- I bet you five pounds that he doesn’t make the semi-final.

4- I invite you to come up and see me sometime.

It seems reasonable to say that the sentences (a-d) could be uttered to perform the same

speech acts as those in (1-4). In fact it seems that none of the special characteristics of performative

utterances is indispensable to their performance. How then do we recognise these other

performatives, which are called implicit performatives? Answers to this have varied somewhat in the

development of the of the theory but Austin’s original contention was that it was an utterance‘s

ability to be expanded to an explicit performative that identified it as a performative utterance. The

conclusion we could end up with is a situation where the majority of performatives are implicit,

needing expansion to make explicit their force. One positive advantage of this translation strategy is

that it focuses attention on the task of classifying the performative verbs of a language. For now, the

basic claim is clear: explicit performatives are seen as merely a specialised subset of performatives

whose nature as speech acts is more unambiguous than most.

II.3 Statements as Performatives

 Austin’s original position that performatives, which are speech acts subject to felicity

conditions , are to be contrasted with declarative sentences , which are potentially true or false

descriptions of situations. The latter were termed constatives. However, as his analysis developed,

he collapsed the distinction and viewed the making of statements as just another type of speech act,

which he called simply stating. Austin argued that there is no theoretically sound way to distinguish

between performatives and constatives. For example, the notion of felicity applies to statements too:

statements which are odd because of presupposition failure, like the sentence The king of France is

bald, are infelicitous because the speaker has violated the conventions for referring to individuals

(i.e. that the listener can

Identify them). This infelicity suspends our judgement of the truth or falsity of the sentence: it

is difficult to say that the king of France is false in the same way as the president of France is a

woman, even though they are both not true at the time of writing this. So we arrive at a view that all

utterances constitute speech acts of one kind or another. For some the type of act is explicitly

marked by their containing a verb labelling the act, warn, bet, name, suggest, protest, etc.; others are

more implicitly signalled.

II.4 Locution, Illocution and Perlocution

Austin proposed that communicating a speech act consists of three elements: the speakers

says something, the speaker signal an associated speech act, and the speech act causes an effect on

the listeners or the participants. The first element he called the locutionary act, by which he meant

the act of saying something that makes sense in a language, i.e. follows the rules of pronunciation

and grammar. The second, the action intended by the speaker, he termed the illocutionary act. This

is what Austin and successors have mainly been concerned with: the uses to which language can be

put in society. In fact the term speech act is often used with just this meaning of illocutionary acts.

The third element, called the perlocutionary act, is concerned with what follows an utterance: Austin
gave the example of sentences like shoot her! In appropriate circumstances this can have the

illocutionary force of ordering, urging, or advising the addressee to shoot her, but the perlocutionary

force of persuading, forcing, frightening, etc., the addressee into shooting her. Perlocutionary effects

are less conventionally tied to linguistic forms and so have to be of less interest to linguists. We know

for example that people can recognize orders without obeying them.

II.5 Categorizing Speech Acts

After Austin’s original explorations of speech act theory there have been a number of works

which attempt to systematize the approach. One important focus has been to categorize the types of

speech acts possible in languages. J.R.Searle for example, while allowing that there is a myriad of

language particular speech acts, proposed that all acts fall into five main types.

1-Representatives, which commit the speakers to the truth of the expressed proposition

(paradigm cases: asserting, concluding);

2-Directives, which are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something

(paradigm cases, requesting, questioning);

3-Commissives, which commit the speaker to some future course of action (paradigm cases,

promising, threatening, offering);

4- Expressives, which express a psychological state (paradigm cases: thanking, apologising,

welcoming, congratulating);

5- Declarations, which effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and which

tend to rely on elaborate extra linguistic institutions (paradigm cases: excommunicating, declaring

war, christening, marrying, firing from employment).

 Searle uses a mix of criteria to establish these different types, including the act’s

illocutionary point; its ’fit’ with the world; the psychological-state of the speaker; and the content of

the act. The illocutionary point is the purpose or aim of the act: thus the point of directives is get the

hearer to do something. The ’ fit’ concerns direction of the relationship between language and the

world: thus speakers using representatives , for example assertions , are seeking to get their words to

match the world, while users of directives, for example, requests or orders , are seeking to change

the world so that it matches their words. The criterion of psychological state relates to the speaker’s

state of mind: thus statements like ‘it is raining’ reflect belief, while expressive like apologies and

congratulations reveal the speaker’s attitude to events. Thus one cannot properly promise or predict

things that have already happened. Another example: one way of viewing the difference between a

promise and a threat in terms of whether the future event is beneficial or harmful to the addressee.

In the following section we will consider the central issue in SLA (Second Language Acquisition)- the

linguistic system which is learned. The discussion will involve the nature and characteristics of this

system, and its route of development. We will also discuss the role of the first language in

determining the system the learner learns. These would be presented under the headings:

Contrastive analysis, error analysis, and interlanguage.

Exercises

I. Choose two illocutionary acts and give three different locutions which would

express each act.

Congratulate - request - apologize - warn - thank.

II. Read the following utterances and then

(i) Specify two possible illocutionary forces for each.

(ii) Provide a situation for each illocution

(a)Is this your coat on the floor?

(b)I can’t hear a word.

(c)I’ll tell your father.

(d)I had a flat tyre.

(e)It is seven o’clock.

(f)It is getting quite late.

(g)It is raining outside.

III. For each of the utterances below

1) name the speech act performed.

2) describe two of its felicity conditions.

3) decide whether the speech act is direct or indirect and explain in terms of sentence

structure.

a) Can you make your bed?

b) have a safe journey.

c) where do you live?

d) I wonder what happened to Mary?

e) I hear there’s a fire in the next building.

f) Enjoy yourself

g) Can you people at the back hear me?

h) Is this the new dress you bought yesterday for 5000SR?

i) Where is your book?

IV. For each of the following utterance.

(i) Name the speech act performed.

(ii) Describe two of its felicity conditions.

(a)where’s the book?

(b) I promise I’ll come tonight.

(c) I name this ship the queen Elizabeth.

(d) Don’t smoke.

 Chapter Three: Contrastive Analysis

III.1 Definition

Narrowly defined, contrastive analysis (CA) investigates the differences between pairs

(small sets) of languages against the background of similarities and with the purpose of providing

input to applied disciplines such as foreign language teaching and translation studies. With its largely

descriptive focus contrastive linguistics provides an interface between theory and application. It

makes use of theoretical findings and models of language description but is driven by the objective of

applicability. Contrastive studies mostly deal with the comparison of languages that are ‘socio-

culturally linked’, i.e. languages whose speech communities overlap in some way, typically through

(natural or instructed) bilingualism

The objective of the comparison may vary.

Language comparison is of great interest in a theoretical as well as an applied perspective. It

reveals what is general and what is language specific and is therefore important both for the

understanding of language in general and for the study of the individual languages compared.

(Johansson and Hofland, 1994: 25)."Contrastive analysis was developed and practiced in the 1950’s

and 1960’s as application of structural linguistics to language teaching" (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992,

p. 83). Contrastive Analysis describes similarities and differences among two or more languages at

such levels as phonology, grammar, and semantics.

 Contrastive linguistics is thus not a unified field of study. The focus may be on general or on

language specific features. The study may be theoretical, without any immediate application, or it

may be applied, i.e. carried out for a specific purpose.

The term 'contrastive linguistics', or 'contrastive analysis', is especially associated with

applied contrastive studies advocated as a means of predicting and/or explaining difficulties of

second language learners with a particular mother tongue in learning a particular target language. In

the preface to his book, Lado (1957) expresses the rationale of the approach as follows:

“The plan of the book rests on the assumption that we can predict and describe the patterns which

will cause difficulty in learning and those that will not cause difficulty”.

III.2 Some Important Definitions

Auxiliary Languages

An international auxiliary language (sometimes abbreviated as IAL or auxlang) or

interlanguage is a language meant for communication between people from different nations

who do not share a common native language. An auxiliary language is primarily a second

language.

Languages of dominant societies over the centuries have served as auxiliary

languages, sometimes approaching the international level. French and English have been used

as such in recent times in many parts of the world. However, as these languages are associated

with the very dominance - cultural, political, and economic - that made them popular, they are

often met with strong resistance as well. For this reason, many have turned to the idea of

promoting an artificial or constructed language as a possible solution.

 The term "auxiliary" implies that it is intended to be an additional language for the

people of the world, rather than to replace their native languages. Often, the phrase is used to

refer to planned or constructed languages proposed specifically to ease worldwide

international communication, such as Esperanto, Ido, and Interlingua. However, it can also

refer to the concept of such a language being determined by international consensus,

including even a standardized natural language (e.g., International English), and has also been

connected to the project of constructing a universal language. Some auxiliary language

aficionados call these languages auxlangs.

Bilingualism

The term bilingualism or multilingualism can refer to an occurrence regarding an

individual speaker who uses two or more languages, a community of speakers where two or

more languages are used, or between speakers of different languages.

Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.

First Language /Mother Tongue

A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is

the language a human being learns from birth. A person's first language is a basis for

sociolinguistic identity.
Monolingualism

Monolingualism or unilingualism is the condition of being able to speak only a single

language. In a different context "unilingualism" may refer to language policy which enforces

an official or national language over others.

Native-born persons living in many of the Anglosphere nations like the United States,

Australia, United Kingdom, and New Zealandare regularly designated as monolingual, owing

to an international awareness that English speakers perceive slight importance in learning a

second language by reason of the outspread distribution of English and its proficient use even

in many non-English speaking countries in Europe, Africa, and South Asia. Many Spanish

language countries in Latin America are also considered to have substantial proportions of the

population who are monolinguals.

Second Language

A second language (L2) is any language learned after the first language or mother

tongue (L1). Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second

languages or lingua franca.

It is quite possible that the first language a person learns may no longer be their

dominant language, that is, the one he or she uses most or the one with which he or she is

most comfortable in. For example, the Canadian census defines firstlanguage for its purposes

as "the first language learned in childhood and still spoken", recognizing that for some, the
earliest language may be lost, a process known as language attrition. This can happen when

young children move, with or without their family (because of immigration or international

adoption), to a new language environment.

Second Language Acquisition

It is the process by which people learn a second language in addition to their native

language(s). The term second language is used to describe the acquisition of any language

after the acquisition of the mother tongue. There is also research into the similarities and

differences of Third Language Acquisition. The language to be learned is often referred to as

the "target language" or "L2", compared to the first language, "L1". Second language

acquisition may be abbreviated "SLA", or “L2A”, for "L2 acquisition".

The term "language acquisition" became commonly used after Stephen Krashen

contrasted it with formal and non-constructive "learning." However, "second language

acquisition" or "SLA" has become established as the preferred term for this academic

discipline.

Though SLA is often viewed as part of applied linguistics, it is typically concerned

with the language system and learning processes themselves, whereas applied linguistics may

focus more on the experiences of the learner, particularly in the classroom. Additionally, SLA

has mostly examined naturalistic acquisition, where learners acquire a language with little

formal

Target Language
 A target language is a language that is the focus or end result of certain processes.

• In applied linguistics and second-language pedagogy, the term "target language" refers to any

language that learners are trying to learn in addition to their native language. The same concept is

often expressed as "second language" or "L2."

• In translation, the term "target language" is applied to the language that a source text is being

translated into.

III.3Contrastive Analysis and Second Language Acquisition

Contrastive Analysis was applied widely in the sphere of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in

the 1960s and early 1970s, as a procedure of clarifying why few characteristics of a Target Language

were more problematic to acquire than others. Conforming to behaviourism, which is a systematic

approach to understanding the behaviour of humans and other animals. It assumes that all

behaviours are either reflexes produced by a response to certain stimuli in the environment, or a

consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment,

together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although

behaviourists generally accept the important role of inheritance in determining behaviour, they focus

primarily on environmental factors.) For the theories predominant at the time, language learning was

a matter of habit formation(a form of learning in which an organism decreases or ceases its

responses to a stimulus after repeated or prolonged presentations.[1] Essentially, the

organism learns to stop responding to a stimulus which is no longer biologically relevant. For

example, organisms may habituate to repeated sudden loud noises when they learn these

have no consequences. Habituation usually refers to a reduction in innate behaviours, rather

than behaviours acquired during conditioning (in which case the process is

termed "extinction"). A progressive decline of a behaviour in a habituation procedure may

also reflect nonspecific effects such as fatigue, which must be ruled out when the interest is

in habituation as a learning process) , and this could be reinforced or hindered by real habits.

Consequently, the hardship in exceeding structures in a second language (L2) depended on

the difference between the learners' mother language (L1) and the language they were

trying to learn.

III.4 History

The theoretical foundations for what became known as the contrastive analysis

hypothesis were formulated in Robert Lado's Linguistics across Cultures (1957). In this book,

Lado claimed that "those elements which are similar to [the learner's] native language will be

simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult". While it was not a

novel suggestion, Lado was the first to provide a comprehensive theoretical treatment and to

suggest a systematic set of technical procedures for the contrastive study of languages. That

involved describing the languages (using structuralist linguistics, in sociology, anthropology,

and linguistics, structuralism is the methodology that implies elements of human culture

must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader, overarching system or structure.

It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive,

and feel. Alternatively, as summarized by the philosopher Blackburn, structuralism is "the

belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations.

These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena

there are constant laws of abstract culture").

 During the 1960s, there was a widespread enthusiasm with this technique, manifested

in the contrastive descriptions of several European languages, many of which were sponsored

by the Center of Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC. It was expected that once the areas

of potential difficulty had been mapped out through Contrastive Analysis, it would be

possible to design language courses more efficiently. Contrastive Analysis, along with

Behaviourism and Structuralism exerted a profound effect on SLA curriculum design and

language teacher education, and provided the theoretical pillars of Audio-Lingual Method,

(also called the Army Method or also the New Key, which is a style of teaching used in

teaching foreign languages. It is based on behaviourist theory, which professes that certain

traits of living things, and in this case humans could be trained through a system of

reinforcement—correct use of a trait would receive positive feedback while incorrect use of

that trait would receive negative feedback. This approach to language learning was similar to

another, earlier method called the Direct Method. Like the Direct Method, the Audio-Lingual

Method advised that students be taught a language directly, without using the students' native

language to explain new words or grammar in the target language. However, unlike the Direct

Method, the Audio-lingual Method did not focus on teaching vocabulary. Rather, the teacher

drilled students in the use of grammar.

III.5Criticism

In its strongest formulation, the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis claimed that all the

errors made in learning and L2 could be attributed to 'interference' by the L1. However, this

claim could not be sustained by empirical evidence that was accumulated in the mid- and late

1970s. It was soon pointed out those frequent errors foreseen by Contrastive Analysis were

oddly not noticed in learners' language. Furthermore confusingly, some systematic errors

were committed by learners regardless of their L1. It hence became obvious that Contrastive
Analysis could not predict learning hardships and was exclusively useful in the retrospective

explanation of errors. These developments, along with the decline of the behaviourist and

structuralist paradigms considerably weakened the appeal of Contrastive Analysis.

III.6 The Psychological Basis of Contrastive Analysis

It is a hybrid drawing between Psychology and the Learning processes.

TRANSFER

Considered within two different theories of language, two approaches:

Behaviourism

* S-R Theory

Transfer Theory

Ellis The hypothesis that the learning of language will affect the subsequent learning of

language, i.e., the psychological foundation of CA is transfer theory, by means of which the gains

made in one skill will always be relevant for subsequent gains made in other skills. Most of the

experimental investigations of transfer involved learning sets of nonsense-syllables. But, even though

the observations came from simplified settings and types of learning – in comparison with real-life

learning – they can serve a theory of real language-learning since it is on this basis that progress is

made in science. Moreover, there were experimental findings of transfer effects in bilingualism.

Thus, Weinreich (1935) proposes INTERFERENCE as “those instances of deviation from the

norms of either language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with

more than one language.”

Behaviourism

In psychology,
Associationism

It is the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one entity with another. For

example, identifying pictograms with what they really represent is a mental process developed

through association.

Restaurant Escalators Hospital Car Park

In the process of learning, those entities are a stimulus and a response. The Stimulus-

Response Theory is based in the reception of stimuli, be it linguistic, non-linguistic or pre-linguistic,

which leads to the production of responses, either natural or learnt. Linguistics Formal properties of

language

Cognitivism

*Cross-Association*Ignorance Hypothesis

The psychological basis of CA is a hybrid drawing between psychology learning processes.

TRANSFER considered within two different theories of language, two approaches.

Behaviourism

* S-R Theory

Transfer Theory: The hypothesis that the learning of language A will affect the subsequent

learning of language B, i.e., the psychological foundation of CA is transfer theory, by means of which

gains made in one skill will always be relevant for subsequent gains made in other skills. Most of the

experimental inquiries of transfer included learning collections of nonsense-syllables. However, the

considerations came from plain settings and kinds of learning – in juxtaposition with real-life learning

–they can afford a theory of real language-learning considering it is on this ground that development

is made in science. Furthermore, there were experimental findings of transfer effects in bilingualism.
 Thus, Weinreich (1935) proposes INTERFERENCE as “those instances of deviation from the

norms of either language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with

more than one language.”

Behaviourism

In psychology, association is the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one

entity with another. For example, identifying pictograms with what they really represent is a mental

process developed through association. Restaurant- Escalators Hospital- Car -Park

In the process of learning, those entities are a stimulus and a response. The Stimulus-

Response Theory is based in the reception of stimuli, be it linguistic, non-linguistic or pre-linguistic,

which leads to the production of responses, either natural or learnt.

Cognitivism

Cross-Association*Ignorance Hypothesis

Following this concept, it can be said that the psychological basis of CA is transfer theory

,elaborated and formulated within a Stimulus-Response (S- R) (behaviourist) theory of psychology.

Some Problems in Defining Stimulus-response in Second Language Learning

1. In non-verbal learning, the learner does not have to learn the responses but their associations with

a specific stimulus, i.e., the L2 utterances, which are the responses, have to be acquired

simultaneously with which stimuli they are to be combined with S: Yes/No Questions R: Yes, I do /No,

I don't.
2. Contrastive Analysis is more involved with teaching rather than learning considering that teaching

includes the predetermination and conventionalization of which stimuli and responses are to be

associated. In other words, CA is interested in how learners are taught to appropriately associate a

certain response to its stimulus. S: emphasis R: (Cleft Sentence) It was JOHN who did it!

3.Jakobovits (1970) and Bloomfield (1933)

S→pre-linguistic definition: The environmental conditions that are antecedent to linguistic

utterances.S: Feeling cold (pre-linguistic)R: Could you please shut the window? S→ R: Of

course. Richterich (1974)

S → Communicative need which is prior to the interaction.

The stimulus reception is unavoidable while the response is a choice.

S: Sadness (Communicative need)R: I miss him so much. → S →R: Yes, I miss him too.

Richterich disregards the stimulus's conception as purely linguistic and also finds it contradictory

because language behaviour is a two-way process – an R may become in turn an S –.

4.The response in language behaviour is the utterance, which is linguistics object of study. However,

linguistic descriptions only account for language as a system, and as such, they deal with sentences

and not with utterances. Utterances undergo a process of abstraction to be studied as sentences,

and since one sentence may underlay many concrete utterances, predictions can only be made as

regards the form and not the substance. As a result, CA is more interested in generalizations rather

than in the utterances themselves.

CA and the Cognitivist Learning Theory

 Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings of their native language and culture as

well as their distributions to the foreign language and culture (Lado,1957).

From this idea, it is stated that CA is founded on the assumption that L2 learners will tend to

transfer the formal features of their L1 to their L2 utterances. Nonetheless, in the 60's, this

transfer theory as yet clarified through the behaviourist prospect was superseded by

clarifications from cognitive psychology. As far as theories of language are concerned, the

turning point is marked by Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behaviour suggested that

language – which could be acquired like a habit by a programme of S-R and reinforcement –

was a form of conditioned behaviour. (Frederic Skinner was one of the profound supporters of

the Behaviourist school of psychology. He proposed a model of Language Acquisition in his

1957 Book Verbal Behavior. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior presented a serious and bold attempt

to stretch the ideas and principles of Behaviourism to Language acquisition, development and

use. Two years after this, in 1959, American Linguist Noam Chomsky reviewed and critically

analysed Skinner’s Verbal Behavior explanation of language development. He wrote that a

complex cognitive system such as Language in higher organisms cannot be explained through

Behaviourist principles as propounded by Skinner.

Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior was, in a way, a broader critique of

the assumptions of Behaviourism, which were predominant during the mid-20th century. He

said, in the introductory lines, that he chose Skinner’s Verbal Behavior book because it was a

thorough and detailed representation of what he wanted to debate upon. He challenged

Skinner’s model on the basis of lack of support from empirical data and persuasive reasoning.

Chomsky believed that his review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior was “historical”, having deep

roots in the Rationalist Psychology and Linguistics of the 17th- 18th century tradition.

Chomsky’s review of Skinner in 1957 marked the mid-20th Century Paradigm Shift from
Behaviourism to Cognitivism in Linguistics and psychology. It was, in blunt terms,

assassination of the behaviourism and reviving of the mentalistic principles.

Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior book is quite lengthy and filled with lofty

diction. Here is a simple explanation that covers all main points, which will help the students

of Linguistics get the essence of Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior book.

We will now summarize the long review and list the key points in a very easy to understand

manner. These key points are written in a sequential order of the original review for

convenience.

In a review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior,Chomsky said that prediction of verbal

behaviour of complex organisms such as humans cannot be done through a functional analysis

schema. It is a schema which relies solely on certain external variables like stimulus,

reinforcement, deprivation, etc.

He said that the problem with Skinner’s Functional Analysis is that he concerns

himself with input-output data records (that too on lower organisms). Due to this, he misses

out on the internal makeup of complex organisms, which is inborn, genetically controlled and

highly complex.

Generalization of Laboratory Terminology to Real Life Human Behaviour is a weak

area in Skinner’s Work

Simple functions to describe behaviour in well-defined and controlled conditions of

the laboratory can’t be easily applied to complex processes like language. Skinner seems to

have borrowed laboratory terms like stimulus, stimulus-control, response, probability,

response-strength, etc. And then he carelessly extrapolated them to human behaviour.

Absence of Linguistic Model in Skinner’s Book

Skinner utilizes results from experiments on behaviour of lower organisms. He uses

results for analogical guessing on higher organisms without any experimental evidence on

linguistic behaviour. Nowhere, in his book, there is any reference, whatsoever, of concrete

experiments and results from linguistics, and yet the book claims to be all about verbal

behaviour.

Response is not dependent on Stimulus for we cannot identify a Stimulus until we know about

the Response

In Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, the fundamental concept of “Stimulus-response” is

vague as stimuli are no longer driver by outside world. We identify a stimulus when we hear

the response. Also, we cannot control the properties of the physical objects to which a speaker

will respond. Hence, we have no control over verbal response, contrary to what Skinner had

claimed.

Besides, stimuli-responses with perfect, smooth and reproducible curves do not exist

in real human behaviour widely.

Reinforcement isn’t a single factor necessary for Acquisition of Language. Complex,

Genetically controlled mechanisms (majorly unknown) are at work

In psychology, “reinforcement” is strengthening of a response with a stimulus as

opposed to “punishment” that weakens it. Skinner’s claim that all verbal behaviour is

acquired and maintained in strength by reinforcement is not true as factors like causal

observation, natural inquisitiveness, and strong tendency to imitate are also important.
 Moreover, there is a remarkable capacity in a child to generalize, hypothesize and

process information, which might be largely innate, in a manner completely unknown to

science.

Skinner’s system for description of Verbal Behaviour is Arbitrary

Chomsky concludes that the system that Skinner develops scientifically with notions

of verbal behaviour is based on stimuli, response, reinforcement, etc. are vague. Hence, the

system itself also becomes vague and arbitrary.

Verbal Operant in Skinner’s descriptive system offers no improvement over traditional

formulations

Skinner identifies new verbal operant in the analysis of verbal behaviour (like Mand,

Tact, Echoic, Intraverbal and Autoclitic). When this is taken in literal sense, it does not cover

any aspect of human verbal behaviour. And if it is taken metaphorically, it offers no

improvement over traditional formulations. These terms lose their objective meaning with

such an extension and become vague.

Failure of Skinnerian Framework lies in the fact that it speculates about Causation of Verbal

Behaviour without understanding the specific character of this behaviour

It is futile to speculate about the process of language acquisition without trying to

understand what exactly is being acquired. Before going into integrative processes that control

language acquisition, it is important to first characterize these problems. Skinner’s Verbal

Behaviour theory and system fail to identify language as a complex, higher-mental faculty,

which cannot be explained by instinctual principles alone.

Language and its Grammar are extremely complex and have an Abstract Character
 The remarkable capability to distinguish sentences form non-sentences and to detect

ambiguities, besides constructing well-formed strings of words is present even in a 2-year old

human child. This forces us to say that language and its grammar are highly complex systems.

And understanding it is just not a matter of imitation and reinforcement as proposed by

Skinner. The fact that a young child masters this system very rapidly and effortlessly is

another very astonishing fact.

Present day studies are inadequate to decipher the major aspects of Verbal Behavior

Chomsky feels that the “data-handling” and “hypothesis-formulating” abilities, present

even in a young child is of complex and unknown character, and that decoding this mystery is

a big challenge. Study of language is still limited and insufficient to give us complete picture

of verbal behaviour.)

Based on cognitivism, CA considers as L1 transfer H. V. George's mechanism of “Cross-Association” as

well as Newmark and Reibel's “Ignorance Hypothesis”.

Cross-Association(H. V. George 1972)

Cross-association underlies what is usually meant by Mother-Tongue interference. George

presents the concept of redundancy as a type of interference which occurs when one term with

different associations in L1 splits up in different terms in L2 producing instances of errors when

transferring it inappropriately to L2. Cielo: Sky →Heaven→

e.g. *My grandmother is in the sky. Therefore, L1 Spanish learner of L2 (English) says the incorrect

sentence because English is more redundant than his/her own language.

Ignorance Hypothesis

The errors of L2 learners are explained through a cognitivist alternative to L1 transfer. The L2

learner may want to say something he/she doesn't yet know how to say in the L2 and uses whatever

means at disposal. Selinker (1972) proposes “ignorance” as a prerequisite for learning in

consideration that the learner becomes aware that he/she has no linguistic competence respecting

some facets of L2; as well as a precondition for interference, which foresees that if a learner is called

upon to carry out some L2 form which he/she has not learnt, he will tend to produce an erroneous

form having its origin in L1. When L1 and L2 formal devices are identical, learners will transfer them

successfully; but it is when they differ greatly that interference arises and learners transfer the L1

item erroneously. However, ignorance and interference refer to different phenomena and one does

not necessarily imply the other. Duskova (1969) explains this distinction:

Ignorance without Interference

Learners who have experienced difficulty in using some L2 structure will prefer to make use

of paraphrasing or some near equivalent. This is known as the avoidance strategy, e.g. tag questions,

collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms

Examples

1-Question: ‘Did you go to swim yesterday?’ Answer: ‘It is winter’ Child 1. (Exercise of transformation

into a negative sentence). Question: Are there two helicopters? Answer: ‘There are one helicopter’

Child 3. Question: ‘Did you think about it?’ Answer: ————- (silence)

2 -A significant number of responses corresponding to the Semantic Avoidance category3 were also

noted. Adult 1. Question: ‘Was your mother sleeping when you arrived?’ Answer: ‘She was at work’
 Adult 2. Question: ‘Were those children singing a song?’ Answer: ‘They not sing’ Adult 3. Question:

‘Are those children going to Madrid?’ Answer: ‘They have no car’

3- The stopping mid-sentence category was noted in responses such as: Child 1. Question: ‘Do you

usually catch the bus at 6:30?’ Answer: ‘I am not…’

4- A fairly high frequency of word invention was also found, which was often mixed with Spanish

terms. Child 1. In the ‘placard’ (for “señal”) no write metro. Child 2. A girl isn’t skate in a ‘pist’ (for

“pista”). Child 3. The grandfather isn’t reading the ‘periodic’ (instead of ‘newspaper’) Adult 1. Luis

isn’t eating in the “camp” (for ‘countryside’)

Interference without Ignorance

The learning of a certain structure in L2 becomes error-free, i.e., there is no longer ignorance

about it. However, mistakes can still be made .e.g. people IS, news ARE

Mistake and error mean something that is done incorrectly or wrong. Thus, they are
synonyms. But the difference between these two words is in the context that they are used in.

But the difference between these two words is in the context that they are used in.

1. Mistake is usually a choice that turns out to be wrong.

Mistakes are usually accidental. You know it’s wrong. In other words, mistakes are
performance based, and can be self-corrected. Mistake is less formal than error, and is usually
used in daily speech.

• Coming to this place was a big mistake. We only wasted our time.

2. Errors are usually made due to the lack of knowledge. So, the action was wrong because it
was different from the rules, model or specific code. Error is a more formal word than
mistake.
In sports, the violation of rules will be called an error.

You cannot say, “I does my homework” – that is an error! You have to say, “I do my
homework”.

Methods of Analysis in CA

Whitman (1970 in Byung-gon, 1992) mentioned four steps to analyse languages. First, the

researcher writes description of the two languages, second, forms are selected from the two

descriptions; then the two selected forms are compared and finally features of difficulty are

predicted. Comparison of the two language subsystems should be through the same model of

description.

Nevertheless, a dilemma still can occur as the model used can be of favour of one language

rather than the other. One proposed solution for this dilemma was to use the translation theory

whereby each language can be described by its favourite model then translated into an artificial

“etalon language”(Melchuk, 1963) that can enhance the features of L1 and L2 constructions. Another

solution was applying description bias to the second language and how it is used by the second

language learner more than the focus on understanding L1.

Comparing the two language subsystems involves several steps: First, the gathering of data

of the system to be compared in the two languages. CA uses translations of the two languages

without worrying about the bias of different meanings due to its focus on general rules or systems

rather than the focus on the translated meaning. CA aims at generalizing its findings on the

grammatical systems of compared languages. Second, description of the realizations of each

grammatical category in each of the two contrasted languages, such as, for instance, determining the

realization or the context of using the indefinite article in English and Russian. Third step is the

addition of new data with their translation to the corpus and then modifying the rules to include the
new data. Finally in step four, a formulation of the found results of the contrasted data is determined

either in the form of equations or operations. The formulation was either in the form of a set of

instructions that can be applied to both language grammars (Harris, 1954 in James, 1980) transfer

rules or equations which differ from transfer rules in that they do not show which language is being

converted to the other and hence lack the directionality of the transfer rules. Moreover, equational

statements show the phonological representations of the category which helps to reveal the variety

of forms for a specific category in contrast to transfer rules which focuses only on structural or

syntactic depiction.

Micro linguistic Contrastive Analysis

In micro linguistic Contrastive Analysis, Analysts often focus on the levels of grammar,

phonology and lexis. Micro linguistic CA is a well explored, yet still controversial territory. The

principle is that doing CA isof a global and exhaustive nature is neither feasible nor desirable. Such CA

is infeasible simply because linguistics is not yet in apposition to describe a language in Toto.

In their effort to reach a reliable contrast of two or more languages, CA linguists set fixed

linguistic categories to describe the different languages in an attempt to have constant factors. On

the microlinguistic level, the language variables are organized according to three levels- phonology,

grammar and lexis- and categories- unit, structure, class and system. In the traditional approach of

analysis, the linguistic level was described separately without reference to other levels, describing

phonological features did not include any reference to grammatical ones, for example. Then merging

the description of different levels was found later to be inevitable. In Hetzron (1972 cited in James,

1980) homonymy which was given as a reason to support the syntactic order in Russian.

The principle of linguistic level is analysed by CA to observe the shift from one level to the

other. For example, Russian questions are distinguished by their intonations while English questions
are formed by the fronting of verb do syntactically. This is described as ‘a phonology-to-grammar

level shift‟.

Grammatical Level

In the pursuit of reaching fixed organizational framework for the description of languages,

Halliday (1961 in James, 1980) set four grammatical categories- unit ,structure, class and system- that

he described as “universal, necessary and sufficient” for describing any language. The unit category

includes the sentence as the biggest unit of analysis which is then followed by clause, phrase, word

and morpheme. From this perspective, CA therefore does not analyse more than the sentence level.

It may observe, for example, that the same sentence has different number of clauses across the two

languages. Structure is the second category and it refers to the order of the components in the

sentence structurally or that of sounds in a word phonologically. In English for example the sentence

is composed of subject predicate, compliment, and adjunct and phonologically words can be

cccvcorvccv. The adjective in French occurs in a post-nominal position while in English it is pre-

nominal. The third category “Class” depends on the place a specific unit may occupy in the sentence

structure, eg. Any phrase that can occupy the adjunct is considered one of the class of the „Adverbial

phrase‟. The last category System includes a variety of options for the same element that can occupy

the same place in the sentence, such as plural and singular nouns in English. In Arabic there is also

dual.

Models of Grammatical CA

Contrasting languages requires using the same model of analysis because each model focuses

on certain features, and hence comparing features analyzed by two different models will make it
difficult for the linguist to determine whether it is a trait of the data or the model. Using the same

model contributes to having constants and reliable CA data. A variety of models of analysis are used

by linguists, two of which are the structural or the Taxonomic model and the Transformational

generative grammar. Through the taxonomy model, structuralists proposed the Immediate

Constituent Analysis technique whereby any complex

grammatical structure is divided into two constituents AB+C or A+BC according to which parts should

be in order or can be omitted. The phrase rather nice girl can have „nice girl‟ as one construction but

„rather nice‟ cannot be accepted as one construction. Such analysis does not account for meaning, it

only considers construction types “syntagmatic” and possible elements for each structural position

“paradigmatic”. With the eminence of Chomsky’s universal grammar, language is analysed by the

Transformational generative grammar in which a difference between surface structures and deep

structures of the sentence is highly considered. Deep structure is considered universal and hence

allows only for contrasting different surface structures across L1 and L2. Generative grammar focuses

on the intermediate structure where diversion across the two contrasted languages appears. Other

models of analysis have also influenced contrastive analysis techniques.

Phonological level

In acoustic phonetics, contrastive linguistics focuses on sounds that have physical similarities

between L1 and L2 and then tries to determine the differences. Similar sounds in two languages can

be of different functional importance. For example two allophones in one language can be

considered as two different phonemes in the other. Contrasting two sound systems involve four

steps. First, a phonemic inventory of the two languages is drawn. Second, phonemes of the two

languages are equated. Third, the different phonemes and allophones are listed.

Then, the distributional restrictions or on the context of the phonemes and allophones are

determined for each language. For example, the sound [ŋ] in English and Spanish in English it is an
allophone of /n/while in Spanish before /h/and /w/such as [estraŋ “hero”]. Phonemes can contrast in

one of the following ways (Politzer, 1972). Two similar phonemes in the contrasted languages does

not mean equation of their allophones since one phoneme can have allophones and the other does

not show allophones at all. Another contrasting feature shows when the same sound is considered a

phoneme in one language and an allophone in the other.

Models of phonological CA

Taxonomic phonology and generative phonology are the two main models of analysis in

phonological CA. The taxonomic model aims at stating the two phonological systems of the two

languages and the variations of similar sounds.

The phonemic approach indicates that errors of pronunciation by the L2 learner occur

because of phonemic asymmetries and allophonic variations which may lead to a foreign accent.

However, this taxonomical model fails to highlight the difference between receptive and productive

difficulty. Generative phonology the other hand, depends on the concept of transformation of deep

structures into surface structures which are psychological non-realistic; thus, making the taxonomic

approach more practical.

Lexicology Level in CA

In Determinism language sets the structure of reality leading to different view of reality by

different language communities. One CA model depends on word fields where the lexicon is grouped

according to “semantic, cognitive, attitudinal, or notional areas of concern.” For example, verbs are

grouped in a notional class of verbs that refer to speech acts such as „say, speak, tell, and talk‟ in a

study by Lehmann (1977) then they are to be compared to their equivalence in German. One

argument against the notional class is that it can never be objective and does not have well set

criteria for adding a word to a specific word field.

 Another model of contrasting lexis is the semantic components. This approach assumes

universality of some components that exist in all languages and hence creating a lexical inventory of

features is considered possible, an assumption which is criticized by the fact that each language may

have its subset under the universal features. In CA two approaches can be followed. L2 lexemes are

specified via an inventory then each lexeme is analysed according to the Symantec components.

The second approach is the translation equivalence whereby words are translated

tentatively; then checked by components to confirm if they really are similar.

Macrolinguistics

Viewing microlinguistic analysis as idealistic causing regularization and decontextualization of

data, focus has turned to analysing bigger chunks of language and how they are organized in texts on

the one hand, and how language functions in discourse as well as in its socio-cultural setting

(Coulthard, 1977) onthe other. In summary, CA studies text either through textual characterization,

text type or translation of texts. In the first approach, textual characterization, data collected

according to the preference of specific features of textual cohesion in each language. Thus, texts are

observed in the two languages for the type,

frequency and context of cohesive devices. Wonderly (1968) found, for instance, that the use of

ellipses enhances style in English while repetition may be a preference in other languages as the

Mayan languages of Central America. Text typology is another approach in macrolinguistic

contrastive analysis. It compares types of text that have the same function in the two languages, such

as comparing rituals or reports. The third approach is translated texts which are criticized for their

potential to being distorted by formulations of the source language.

 Contrastive analysis of discourse and pragmatics is beneficial for providing the second

language learner with how to interact in the community and context of the second language. It

includes comparative analysis of conversation.

Ways of Using Contrastive Analysis in the Classroom

Contrastive analysis in the classroom usually implies certain methods and strategies that are

notoriously “forbidden”, such as the use of the mother tongue and translation. Contrastive analysis

refers to all previous language experience of the learner and is a natural process in every learning

situation. According to this view it is not only the native language of the learner that is a very

powerful factor in foreign language learning, but rather all languages and language situations that

the learner has ever encountered. Especially in trying to understand a new grammatical or lexical

element, the learner would scan all his previous knowledge in order to find similarities (Skela,

1994:78). Try as we would, this “habit” cannot be eliminated from the process of learning, so

perhaps it is time to find ways of using it to our and the learner’s advantage. In other words,

Marton(1981:149) suggests:

The question then suggests itself whether it isn’t better to use this habitual
transfer in some way rather than desperately trying to fight it and eradicate it,
or even to deny its existence. I think that using contrastive analysis in the
classroom would go a long way towards controlling this powerful tendency and
making an ally of what has long been considered our greatest enemy.

If we now agree that contrastive analysis can and should be used in the classroom, several

questions come to mind: When do we choose to compare a certain language item to the mother

tongue or to another foreign language already mastered by the students? Which segments of

language lend themselves to comparison or contrasting? Should we concentrate on the similarities or

the differences? Can this approach be used in all age groups and levels? What purpose do we have

in mind and what results can we expect from using contrastive analysis?
 Perhaps these questions should be dealt with one at a time. As for the general decision about

when to compare or contrast a certain language item, the only possible answer is: whenever we feel

it appropriate. Once again, the teacher should rely on his/her own resourcefulness and follow the

eclectic approach. If we take Slovene learners of English, there are many grammatical structures and

phrases that are conspicuously different from Slovene, but does that mean that we should point out

all the differences we encounter on the way?

This brings us to the field of error analysis. In the seventies experts believed to have found the

ultimate key to predicting and explaining errors - contrastive analysis. Still, years of experience have

shown that negative transfer is by no means the only source of errors and that the use of contrastive

analysis in the classroom failed to bring the expected results. So disappointing was this fact that

experts decided to ban contrastive studies from the classroom altogether, which accounts for their

neglected status in the past two decades. Perhaps the best strategy is to “wait”for a certain error to

occur, and then - if the reason was indeed negative transfer - point out the difference and illustrate it

with examples.

Negation of English sentences is often a source of errors for Slovene learners, because

English syntax does not allow double negation, which is a common grammatical feature in Slovene.

e.g.Nikogar ne poznam v tejvasi. *I don’t know nobody in this village.

Nikoli ni nikomurnièesar dal. *He has never given nobody nothing.

Another example of negative transfer often occurs with Slovene learners of German who

already master English. The German modal verb woollen corresponds to the English verb want, but

the 1st person singular form Ich will... is often misinterpreted as future tense because of the English

structure I will....Students thus have to be reminded that future tense in German is formed with the

verb werden: IchwerdenachHausegehen for I will go home.

 As for the question whether to concentrate on the similarities or differences between two

languages, there is no universal answer. If there is a similarity between the mother tongue and the

foreign language, we usually need not point it out, because the students will intuitively sense it.

What we do need to point out are the cases where the apparent similarity is misleading, as is the

case with false friends: sympathetic vs. simpatièen, local vs.lokal, etc.

Here it should again be noted that two items of language may appear similar or different, according

to the criteria and purpose of our comparing/contrasting them. If we take conditional clauses in

Slovene and English, the overall structure is rather similar, but the tenses are different (Mikliè

1994:91),e.g.:

Èebolepovreme, bomo [li ven.

If the weather is fine we’ll go out.

With very young learners the teacher often uses the mother tongue, provided that he or she

speaks it and that it is a monolingual classroom. Still, any contrasting of grammatical structures

would be out of place, because the learners have not yet reached the level of abstract thinking. Some

simple techniques of translation, and translation is considered to be one of contrastive techniques,

may, however, be used successfully also at this level, but moderately.

As soon as the learners have reached the level of abstract thinking and are able of conscious

generalisation of grammatical rules, contrastive analysis may be used to point out certain

conspicuous differences or explain mistakes. Learners sometimes even demand a contrastive

explanation, especially when there is a clash between the first foreign language and the second

foreign language, for example Slovene learners of German who have already learned English.

It seems that negative transfer occurs even more often between L2 and L3 that between L1

and L2. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is the fact that the mother tongue is acquired

subconsciously and the grammatical rules are internalised. Acquiring the mother tongue is an
experience quite different from foreign language learning, which could be the reason why the rules

of the mother tongue do not interfere with the foreign language as often as might be expected. The

experience of the first foreign language learning however determines all further foreign language

learning, and learners tend to apply rules acquired through the first experience to all language

learning experiences that follow.

Generally speaking, contrasting grammatical features makes the most sense with those

learners who already have some experience with foreign language learning and are thus already used

to comparing languages and language items. Most contrastive techniques are not appropriate for

very young learners and elementary stages. The rest is basically a matter of personal taste and

experience - if the teacher believes contrastive analysis to be useful, he or she will undoubtedly find

ways of using it.

A detailed study of the existing contrastive techniques cannot be included in this paper. Here

I briefly mention some:

Contrasting grammatical or lexical items during the presentation,

Contrasting idioms, proverbs, set phrases etc.,

Translation,

Contrastive pragmatics.

This is a very broad field, which does not necessarily include any specific language item, but

rather focuses on the basic social and cultural conventions that rule communication in a certain

context or situation. Some very important skills should be taught here, which often have nothing to

do with language but with non-verbal means of communication. What is the typical head movement

indicating agreement or disagreement? Do we shake hands when introduced to somebody? Which

interjection do we use to express disgust and what facial expression goes with it?
 Of course a foreign language can be taught and learned without referring to the mother

tongue (or L2). But if some of these techniques can facilitate learning or even make it more

interesting, why not use them.

Conclusion

These are but a few aspects of contrastive analysis and its possible uses in the classroom. The

reason why I am in favour of occasional contrasting of languages is not just the fact that it may help

to predict, explain or prevent mistakes, but rather that it provides a different and long-neglected

insight into how languages work and how we can understand and consequently remember their

features better. As Nation points out (1978:175),“‘itis worth mentioning two other possible effects.

Exclusion of the mother tongue is often seen by the learners as a criticism of the mother tongue as a

language, thus making it seem like ‘a second-grade language”. The effects of this degrading of the

mother tongue are beneficial neither to the mother tongue nor to the people who use it. Secondly,

learning a foreign or second language provides an opportunity for learning about the nature of

language, how a language works, how different languages organise the world and experience in

different ways.
Exercises

1. Briefly explain how language is (a) systematic (b) symbolic and (c) social.

2. Match the following linguistic terms to their corresponding synonyms/definitions:

1. Lexicon a. word structure

2. Phonology b. grammar

3. Morphology c. vocabulary

4. Syntax d. Sound system

1. Contrastive Analysis a. Krashen

2. Error Analysis b. Dulay and Burt

3. Interlanguage c. Corder

4. Morpheme Order Studiesd. Chomsky

5. Monitor Model e. Lado

6. Universal Grammar f. Selinker

3. When interlanguage development stops before a learner reaches target language norms, it is

called …………
4. As they can be understood in Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar, what is the difference

between linguistic performance and linguistic competence?

5. According to a Functionalist perspective, what is the primary ue of language?

6. Choose which developmental levels from the framework of Information Organization the following

sentences represent: (choose from Nominal Utterance Organization, Infinite Utterance

Organization, Finite Utterance Organization) a. my manager say I get raise b. they have eaten c.

girl nice but she not pretty d. later we talked e. he call his mother, say ‘come over’ f. man wife

restaurant.

Active Learning

1. Read the following scenarios and decide which aspect of language is mentioned in each instance.

(Choose from lexicon, morphology, phonology, and syntax.)

a. If we see the word ‘talks’ alone, outside of any context, we could consider it to be composed of the

root ‘talk’ and a plural -s to make a noun (more than one talk/discussion/address), or we could

consider it to be made up of the root ‘talk’ and a third person -s to make a conjugated verb (like

‘he talks’, ‘she talks’, or ‘it talks’).

b. The English word ‘talk’ has near synonyms like ‘speak’, ‘say’, ‘express’, ‘shout’, ‘yell’, and

‘whisper’.

c. The English word ‘talk’ can be pronounced differently depending on the geographical locations of

the speakers.

d. In English, appropriate word order is Subject-Verb-Object, like saying ‘The man was talking to the

child.’ In Japanese, word order is Subject- Object-Verb, so one would say ‘The man the child to

was talking.
2. Reread the section on the Poverty-of-the-Stimulus argument and make a definition of this theory

in your own words. Do you think this theory holds true for SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION as

well as for first language acquisition? Why or why not?

3. Make a timeline to indicate when the following theories or schools of thought were flourishing as

they are discussed in this text. Think about the progression of theories. When they change, are

they building upon old theories or rejecting them? Select one theory and explain how it builds

upon or rejects those that came before it.

a. Contrastive Analysis h.Mentalism

b. Behaviourism i.Interlanguage

c. Structuralism j. Morpheme Order Studies

d. Error Analysis k. Monitor Model

e. Universal Grammar l. Constructionism

f Systemic Linguistics m. Functional Typology

g. Function-to-Form Mapping n. Information Organization

4. Listen to someone who speaks your language non-natively and write down some ungrammatical

sentences they have spoken. Using principles of Contrastive Analysis and the procedures of Error

Analysis on your lectures, try to classify each error. Remember that there may not be a specific

‘right’ answer available; these are just your predictions.

5. If you have studied a second language, what are some of the linguistic elements that have been

most difficult for you to master (morphology, phonology, syntax, etc.)? Why do you think they

have been harder?

6. Proponents of Universal Grammar believe that language ability is innate, whereas Functionalists

believe that we develop language primarily because of a need to communicate. Which theory do

you believe in? Why?

Key Answer

1. Language is (a) systematic, (b) symbolic, and (c) social in the following ways:

a. Languages consist of recurrent elements which occur in regular patterns of relationships.

Language is created according to rules or principles which speakers are usually unconscious of

using if language was acquired in early childhood.

b. Sequences of sounds or letters do not inherently possess meaning. These symbols of language

have meaning because of a tacit agreement among the speakers of a language.

c. Each language reflects the social requirements of the society that uses it. Although humans

possess the potential to acquire an L1 because of their neurological makeup, that potential can be

developed only through interaction with others in the society. We use language to communicate

with others about the human experience.

2. 1-C, 2-D, 3-A, 4-B 3. 1-E, 2-C, 3-F, 4-B,

3. 5-A, 6-D

4. 4. Fossilization

5. 5. Performance is actual use of language in a specific instance, whereas competence is

the underlying knowledge of language we possess.

6. 6. communication

7. a-IUO, b-FUO, c-NUO, d-FUO, e-IUO, f-NUO

 Chapter Four: Error Analysis

Error Analysis owes its place as a scientific method in linguistics and became a recognised

part of applied linguistics thanks to the work of SP Corder. Before him, linguists observed learners'

errors, categorised them, tried to see which ones were common and which were not, but not special

attention was drawn to their important role in second language acquisition.

It was Corder who highlighted the significance of errors to(teachers, researchers, and

students themselves).

There are many major concepts introduced by S. P. Corder (1967) in his article entitled "The

significance of learners' errors". He mentions the paradigm shift in linguistics from a behaviouristic

view of language to a more rationalistic view and asserts that in language teaching one important

effect is to shift the emphasis away from teaching towards a study of learning. He focuses on

applying new hypotheses about how languages are learned in L1 to the learning of a second

language. He says, "within this context, the study of errors takes on a new importance and will I

believe contribute to a verification or rejection of the new hypothesis." (in Richards 1974:.21).
 According to Corder, in L1 acquisition we interpret child's 'incorrect' utterances as

being evidence that he is in the process of acquiring language and that for those who attempt

to describe his knowledge of the language at any point in its development, it is the 'errors'

which provide the important evidence(Richards, 1974: 23) In second language acquisition,

Corder suggested as a working hypothesis that some of the strategies adopted by the learner of

a second language are considerably the same as those by which a first language is acquired.

(It does not mean, however, the course or sequence of learning is the same in L1 and L2.) By

categorising the errors that learners made, researchers could learn a great deal about the SLA

process by inferring the strategies that second language learners were adopting. For learners

themselves, errors are 'indispensable,' since the making of errors can be regarded as a device

the learner uses in order to learn (Selinker, 1992: 150)

Selinker (1992) pointed out the two highly significant contributions that Corder made:

"that the errors of a learner, whether adult or child, are (a) not random, but are in fact

systematic, and are (b) not 'negative' or 'interfering' in any way with learning a TL(target

language) but are, on the contrary, a necessary positive factor, indicative of testing hypotheses

(ibid.151). Such contribution in Corder (1967) began to provide a framework for the study of

adult learner language. Along with the influence of studies in L1 acquisition and concepts

provided by Contrastive Analysis (especially language transfer) and by the interlanguage

hypothesis (e.g. fossilization, backsliding, language transfer, communication and learning

strategies).

IV.1The Significance of Learners' Errors

In his article "The significance of learners' errors", Corder (1967) introduced the following

major concepts:
- The distinction between systematic and non-systematic errors. Unsystematic errors occur in one’s

native language; he calls these "mistakes" and states that they are not significant to the process of

language learning. He uses the term "errors" for the systematic ones, which occur ina second

language.

-Errors are significant in three ways: - to the teacher: they show a student’s progress

- to the researcher: they show how a language is acquired, what strategies the learner uses.

- to the learner: he can learn from these errors.

-When a learner has made an error, the most efficient way to teach him the correct form is not by

simply giving it to him, but by letting him discover it and test different hypotheses (which suggests

that the learner should find the correct linguistic form by searching for it).

- Many errors are due to the fact that the learner uses structures from his native language. Corder

claims that possession of one’s native language is facilitative. Errors in this case are not inhibitory,

but rather evidence of one’s learning strategies.

IV.2Interlanguage

In the process of mastering a target language (TL), second language learners (L2)

develop a linguistic system that is self-contained and different from both the learner’s first

language (L1) and the TL (Nemser, 1971). This linguistic system has been variously called

interlanguage (IL) (Selinker, 1972), approximative system (Nemser, 1971), idiosyncratic

dialects or transitional dialects (Corder, 1971).

The idea of interlanguage is founded upon the assumption that an L2 learner, at any

particular moment in his learning sequence, is using a language system which is neither the

L1, nor the L2. It is a third language, with its own grammar, its own lexicon and so on. The

rules used by the learner are to be found in neither his own mother tongue, nor in the target
language. Thus, Nemser cites Serbo-Croat learners of English who will produce "What does

Pat doing now?", although this construction belongs neither in English, nor in Serbo-Croat.

The lesson to be learned, suggest applied linguists such as Nemser, Corder and Selinker, is

that we need to understand the learner's language as a system in its own right. This is

both possible, and interesting because learners tend to go through a series of interlanguages in

systematic and predictable ways.

Learners’ Strategies

How does the learner create his/her interlanguage? According to Selinker (1972) ,

there are a number of basic processes - but, particularly in his later work, he insists upon

learning strategies - that is, activities that the learner adopts in order to help his/her acquire

the language.

1-Language transfer: The learner uses his/her own L1 as a resource. This used to be looked

upon as a mistake, but it is now recognised that all learners fall back on their mother tongues,

particularly in the early stages of language acquisition, and that this is a necessary process

2-Overgeneralization: The learner uses an L2 rule in situations in which a native speaker

would not. This can occur at a number of levels:

- At the phonetic level: For example, learners of English, after having learnt to master the

English 'r', may take to placing it at the end of words, whereas in RP it is not pronounced.

- At the grammatical level: The learner in the early stages may use nothing but the present

tense. Later, there may be extensive, non-native use of 'be - ing' forms of the verb.

- At the lexical level: The learners tend to use base terms and to stretch them - thus a 'goose'

might be referred to as a 'chicken', or a teaspoon may be a 'little spoon'.

- At the level of discourse: Lexical items and expressions may be used in inappropriate social

contexts. Someone learning French as an L2, and who has been staying with a friendly family

with teenagers may find himself /herself using the 'tu' form to strangers, their eldermembers

and so on.

3- Simplification - both syntactic and semantic - the learner uses speech that resembles that of very

young children or of pidginized language (.an interlanguage arising as a medium of communication

between speakers of different languages characterized by grammatical structure and lexical content

originating in different sources unintelligibility to speakers of the source language and by

stability...).This may be either because they cannot, in fact, as yet produce the target forms, or

because they do not feel sure of them.

Here are some examples of Pidgins and Creoles: To grow up decent our children need

new clothing to present themself in school proper neat!! The sun have to shine for our

childrens too. Amen.

The example above is a sample of a most perfect written Black English, examples of

oral Black English: grammatically all given by Dillard(1973).

He don't be wait-in' for me right now. Sometime Daddy be drivin', he call people names.

Example of the English spoken by Puerto Ricans in their American community: No make any

difference, but I like when I go because I don't have too many time for buy and the little time

we buy have to ao to someplace and I find everything there.

Maori English: She went down to her nany ' s and see if her mother was there. Aboriginal

English: We bin give you a lot of shell, e?

Jamaica Creole, where the status of the addressee influences the type of language: (the bus

conductor to the e rich tourist ) Please, step up, sir. (the same bus conductor to a group of

poor Jamaicans ) Me tell unu say step up.

Let us look more closely at transfer. It can have several different effects:

a) Negative transfer

-Until the morpheme studies of Dulay and Burt (1973), it was often assumed that most errors were

derived from transfer of the L1 to the L2 - this was referred to as interference. It is now no longer

clear where errors derive from. Dulay and Burt believe that the majority of errors are not based on

transfer. However, it is not always a simple matter to decide whether an error is L1 based or not.

-For example, when French speakers use 'have -en' forms in inappropriate settings, is it

because of overgeneralization, a developmental error, or an interference error based on the

Passé Composé?

-Indeed, it is not always easy to decide whether an error has occurred at all. Take again the

case of the 'have -en' forms. A French speaker learning English may use the form in the

correct setting, but actually derive it from the French Passé Composé- he has done the

right thing, but for the wrong reasons. Has an error actually occurred? How would we know?

-Consider the following dialogue:

-A: I (look for) Bob. You (see?) him.

-B: Yes, I (see) him half an hour ago

A French learner might produce

-A: I'm looking for Bob. You have seen him?( because of his mother tongue which is French)

-B: Yes. I have seen him half an hour ago.

-If speakers of different mother tongues do, in fact, make different mistakes, and if these

mistakes do appear to be related to structures in the mother tongue, then it would seem

reasonable to speak of transfer errors.

-At the level of phonology, this certainly appears to be the case. There are typical accents, and

it is comparatively easy to distinguish between the English pronunciation of, say, a German

L1 speaker, a French L1 speaker or a Japanese. However, even here, there appear to be rules

that are target language specific - progress through to full acquisition of the 'th' appears to

follow a fairly regular pattern, which is similar to that of an English child learning her L1.

-b) Positive transfer

Not all effects of language transfer are negative - indeed, we may consider that without

some language transfer, there would be no second language learning. In the cases of Genie and

Chelsea,(The critical period hypothesis-Genie 1970s: 13-year-old Genie brought by her mother to

social services after escaping mentally ill father; until mother’s escape, had no language input (and

very horrific living conditions) By age 17, she had a five-year-old’s vocabulary, and could express

meanings by combining words together. Chelsea , a partially deaf woman incorrectly diagnosed as

“retarded”, from a loving home, discovered at age 31, and fitted with hearing aids, she learned a

large vocabulary, but syntax and morphology worse than Genie.It is very difficult to master a
language after the age of 11 or 12 years of age, unless one already has a mother-tongue to fall back

on. It may be that younger children are able to pick up an L2 without reference to their L1, but for

adolescents and adults, the mother tongue is a major resource for language learning.

Where languages are historically and linguistically related to each other, the positive effects

of transfer may be obvious. French-speaking learners of English and English speaking learners of

French quickly come to realise that they share an enormous amount of vocabulary, for example -

there are far more 'Vrais Amis' than there are 'Faux amis', and it makes sense to take advantage of

this.

For Japanese speakers learning Chinese, there is a great advantage when it comes to studying

the written language in the fact that the Japanese ideographs are based upon the Chinese. This

saves considerable time.

However, the Chomskian perspective has lead specialists in SLA to believe that there

are deeper levels at which the L1 may aid in language learning. If all languages are

fundamentally the same, then it makes a lot of sense to use the rules of the mother-tongue as

initial hypotheses about the rules of the L2.

We must conclude that - The teacher who tries to forbid his students from having recourse

to their L1 may be doing them a disservice, for L1 can, in fact, be extremely helpful.

c) Avoidance

Where certain structures are very different from L1, students may simply avoid using them.

Schachter (1974) found that Chinese and Japanese learners of L2 English made fewer errors in the

use of relative clauses than did Persian or Arabic learners - but this was because they tried to use

them less often. This is because Persian and Arabic relative clauses are structured in a similar way to

English ones, while the two Oriental languages treat them in a very different way.
 It is difficult to know when a student is using avoidance as a strategy – he/she must

show some evidence that he knows of the structure that he is avoiding, and it must also be so

that a normal speaker of the target language would have used the structure in that situation.

Kellerman(1986) distinguishes 3 types of avoidance:

1. Learner can anticipate that there is a problem, and has some idea of what the correct form is like.

2. Learner knows the target form well, but believes that it would be too difficult to use in the

circumstances in which he finds himself - free-flowing conversation, for example.

3. Learner knows how to use the target form, but will not do so because it breaks a personal rule of

behaviour - ready use of 'tu' form by person coming from a culture where formality is highly valued.

d) Overuse

This may be a concomitant of avoidance. Students will use the forms that they know rather

than try out the ones that they are not sure of. It may also reflect cultural differences - thus Olshtain

(1983) found that American college students, learning Hebrew in Israel, were much more likely to use

direct expressions of apology than were native speakers of Hebrew. This also seems to be true of

English speakers of French.

How do teachers actually treat errors? In fact, there is considerable variation from one

teacher to another, and also the treatment of error by any one teacher may vary from one moment

to the next.

Studies of what teachers do have shown that very often they are inconsistent. Also, some

errors are more likely to be treated than others - discourse, content and lexical errors receive more

attention than phonological or grammatical errors - and here there is variation between native and

non-native-speaker teachers. Many errors are not treated at all

(Student: 1 can lo play the guitar.

Teacher: You can play the guitar?

Student: Yes, 1 can lo play the guitar very well.

Error treatment negotiations like the above are not always successful. In fact, teachers often

fail to help their students notice and correct their errors simply because they lack the necessary

understanding of error treatment. Even though different studies have been conducted in this area of

Classroom-Centred Research, many instructors are not informed about the different aspects of error

treatment. According to Burt and Kiparsky, "the teacher has no guide, but his intuition, to tell him

which kind of mistakes are most important to correct”. In order to treat errors effectively, teachers

must make informed decisions. This implies that not only should teachers be aware of existing

research on this area, but they should also acknowledge students ' preferences for error treatment.

And in order to discover students' preferences, it is worth devoting some time at the beginning of the

semester to either interview or survey the students on their preferences for error treatment).

Further, the more a particular kind of error is made, the less likely the teacher is to treat it.

Moreover, teachers sometimes correct errors that have not taken place.

Error Treatment

Another question is 'Who does the repairing?'. In natural settings, there is a preference for

self-initiated and self-completed repair. However, in the classroom, it is the teacher who initiates

repair - at least during the language-centred phase - while he/she expects the student or one of his

peers to produce the correct form.

Error treatment seems to have little immediate effect upon student production ; thus the

teacher may correct an error made by student A to have student B make exactly the same error five

minutes later - and hear student A do it again before the end of the lesson!
 Some experts - Krashen among them - deduced that this suggests that correction is a

pointless exercise. However, we should be aware that there are no studies as yet of the long-

term effects of error correction.

What about students' attitudes to error correction? In general they say that they want to be

corrected, both in the classroom, and in conversation with native speakers, however, when they are

taken at their word, they feel uncomfortable with the resulting style of discourse.

Our recommendations for action can only be very tentative, and lack empirical backing.

However, it would appear that the following rules are accepted by most members of the profession

now - which does not mean that they are right!

1. Teachers should respect student errors: They are a part of the learning process. Respecting does

not mean taking no notice of them, but it does mean that they are not to be treated as necessarily

being evidence of stupidity, idleness or evil intent on the part of the learner.

2.Teachers should only treat those errors that students are capable of correcting, according to the

state of their interlanguage at the time of the error. Written scripts should not be returned with

simply everything underlined in red ink.

3. Teachers should encourage self-repair, as the student feels better about it. Being corrected by

the teacher, or by other students, may be humiliating.

4. Teachers need to develop strategies for overcoming “avoidance”. The student needs to be put in

a situation where he or she is forced to use the unassimilated structure and to think about the

problems that this poses. However, this needs to be treated as a process of discovery rather than

as a minefield.
 Most important, remember that the students errors are a precious resource for the teacher,

which inform him/her about the state of his/her pupils' interlanguage. This is why it so important to

avoid negative marking, where the student simply learns that if he/she makes an error he will lose

points.

Exercises

I - Common Error Examples from Student Work

Common Error Exercise - Prepositions

The following 10 sentences, taken from students' work, all contain an error in prepositions.
Correct the sentences.

1- Using the internet, people can buy things on other countries.

2- This research will emphasize on analysis of the current and prospective retail market

of China.

3- They were also asked whether they prefer to Chinese or Japanese writers.

4- Except coats or sweaters, students are not permitted to wear outer clothing such as

jackets or cardigans.

5- They also suggest that research should be the critical instrument to the process of

theory building.

6- The former site supervisor refused to comment this issue.

7- One third of the nurses had more than five years experience in caring post-operation

and cancer patients.

8- The next course will start on June 2003.

9- The respondents felt that the book did not suit to their learning objectives.

10- He mentioned that Japanese was presented in two types of script by this book.
II – Identify and classify errors in the following utterances.

1- I-pod is an interesting thing.

2- The happiness is another thing.

3- I think that if a lot of people not had mobile phones in the past, why now all the people

must have had a mobile phone?

4- I have one phone since I’m 11 years old

5- We should not deny all these tips.

6- A lot of people has mobile phones.

Key to Exercises

Part I

1- : Using the internet, people can buy things from other countries.

We use 'from' to indicate the origin of something; where something comes from.

2- This research will emphasise analysis of the current and prospective retail market of
China.

'Emphasise' is usually followed by the object. In the passive, we can say something is

emphasised by something/someone else. Emphasis – a noun – may be followed by 'on'

'They place the emphasis on teaching…

3- They were also asked whether they prefer Chinese or Japanese writers.
'Prefer' is usually followed by the object. In the passive, we can say something is

preferred by someone. Prefer can be followed by a noun phrase (prefer something), or

by an infinitive (prefer to eat /to do /to go…)

 4- Except for coats or sweaters, students are not permitted to wear outer clothing such as
jackets or cardigans.

5- 'Except for' is the most common way to express this concept.. "Excepting' or 'with the
exception of' are also possible.

6- They also suggest that research should be the critical instrument in the process of
theory building.

7- Try using a concordancer to determine which prepositions can precede “the process
of”.)

8- The former site supervisor refused to comment on this issue.

9- Try using a concordancer to determine which prepositions can follow “to comment”

10- One third of the nurses had more than five years experience in caring for post-

operation and cancer patients.

11- To 'care for' someone is a phrasal verb and the preposition is necessary.

12- The next course will start in June 2003.

13- We use in for non-specific times during a day, a month, a season, a year or an

event.

14- The respondents felt that the book did not suit their learning objectives.

15- 'To suit' is usually followed directly by the object with no preposition.

16- He mentioned that Japanese was presented in two types of script in this book.

17- Preposition of place or location.

Part II

(1). Intralingual error. Source: overgeneralization.

 1- *I-pod is an interesting thing (syntactic reconstruction: The I-pod is an interesting

thing).

(2). Intralingual error. Source: ignorance of rule restrictions.

But *the happinees is another thing (syntactic reconstruction: but happiness is

another thing)

(3). Intralingual error. Source: incomplete application of rules.

I think that if a lot of people *not had mobile phones in the past, why now all the

people must have had a mobile phone? (syntactic reconstruction: I think that if a

lot of people didn’t have mobile phones in the past, why should they have a mobile

phone now?).

(4). Intralingual error. Source: False concepts hypothesized.

I have *one phone since I’m 11 years old (syntactic reconstruction: I have had a

phone since I was 11 years old.)

(5). Transfer error. Source: overextension of analogy.

We should not *deny all these *tips. (syntactic reconstruction: We should not

reject all this advice).

(6). Transfer error. Source: transfer of structure.

A lot of people *has mobile phones. (syntactic reconstruction: A lot of people have

mobile phones).