1. ِ Contrastive Analysis

2. Plan
Outline
1. Emergence of Cotrastive analysis
2. Definition of CA
3. Learner and Language
4. Similarities and Differences
5. Alternatives of CA
6. Assumptions of CA
7. Procedures of CA
8. Pedagogical Implications of CA
9. Contrastive Analysis between English and
Arabic
10. Intereference of Arabic
in Learning English
Conclusion

3. • After the Second World War the interest in teaching
foreign languages increased in the USA.
• Many linguists were concerned with pedagogical
contrastive studies to predict learning difficulties on the
basis of comparing the native language with the target
foreign language , and also with the study of
bilingualism and language contact phenomena.
• It was believed that determining the similarities of the
two languages compared will make the process of
foreign language learning easier for the learner.
3
Emergence of Contrastive
Analysis

4. What is contrastive Analysis?
6

5. • It is a hypothesis founded by the pioneer of
CA field, Robert Lado (1957) in his book
Linguistics Across Cultures to account for the
second language acquisition.It is the
systematic study of pair languages to point
out the differences and similarities.
6

6. Learner and Language
 Is the emphasis on what the learner
needs to know or what he has to know??

7. It is on what he has to know
because what he needs to know is
already installed and familliar to
the learner through the L1 in
terms of the functions of the
language and structural forms
So, the lerner has to
know about the unfamilliar aspect
of the language.

8. Similarities and differences
Is the focus on differences or similarities?
Why?

9. On differences……
 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.“

10. On what basis can we say that
two languages share
similarities and differences??

11. Alternatives of CA
 The difficulty:differences are considered
difficult to learn.
Is it appropriate to consider
differences similar to difficulties?

12. .
 We can not take them as similar or use
them intercheangeably .Difficulty is not
always reliable because of socio-psycological
factors:
 Learners are less motivated to learn.
 Aptitude
Teaching method
Expectency of success.

14. Mutual inteligibility
-Sometimes two languages are quietly
inteligible but they are not within one
territory.However, two dialects which are
supposed to be two different
languages,they are joined under one
geographical extension.
Why?

15. Comparative philology:
 It is a comparative historical linguistics
that is concern with comparing two
languages to establish their historical
relatedness.
 Germanic languages
 Romance languages
 Slavic Languages.

17. Based on behaviorist and structuralist
theories, the basic assumption for this
hypothesis was:
the second language acquisition is hindred
due to the interference of the first
language system with the second
language system.
7
Assumptions of the
C A

18. • Interference refers to the influence of L1 on L2 in
negative sense, so it corresponds to negative
transfer, e.g. ‫دراسته‬ ‫من‬ ‫→انتهى‬ He finished from his
studies.
• Transfer usually refers to the influence of L1 on
L2 in both positive and negative way , e.g.
‫تفاحة‬ ‫أعطاه‬
• → he gave him an apple
‫الشبكة‬ ‫في‬ ‫يبحر‬
‫العنكبوتية‬
• → he surfes in the internet.
9

19. Procedure
According to Lado (1957), Contrastive
analysis goes through four stages:
1. Description : linguist explicitly describes the
two languages under study.
2. Selection: he selects forms (rules,
structures ) for contrast.
3. Contrast : he compares and draws one
linguistic system on the other to specify the
relationship of one system with the other.
4. Prediction based on the analysis.
10

20. Pedagogical Implications of
CA
• Determines the hierarchy of difficulty by which a
teacher or linguist could predict areas of difficulty
in the second language learning.
• Predicts and describe the patterns that will cause
difficulty in learning, and those that will not cause
difficulty.
• Highlights the interfering effects of the first
language on second language learning.
11

21. Contrastive analysis: Arabic Vs English
Phonology:
English has about three times as many vowel sounds as Arabic,
so it is inevitable that beginning learners will fail to distinguish
between some of the words they hear, such as ship / sheep or
bad / bed, and will have difficulties saying such words correctly.
For Arab learners to have difficulties with the seemingly random
nature of English stress patterns. For example, the word
yesterday is stressed on the first syllable and tomorrow on the
second.

24. Grammar - Verb/Tense:
Arabic has no verb to be in the present tense, and
no auxiliary do. Furthermore, there is a single present
tense in Arabic, as compared to English, which has
the simple and continuous forms. These differences
result in errors such as She good teacher, When you
come to Germany?, I flying to Egypt tomorrow or
Where he going?

25. 17
Arabic does not make the distinction between actions
completed in the past with and without a connection to
the present. This leads to failure to use the present
perfect tense, as in I finished my work. Can you check
it?
There are no modal verbs in Arabic. This, for
example, leads to: From the possible that I am late. (I
may be late.) Another common mistake is to infer that
an auxiliary is needed and make mistakes such as: Do
I must do that?

26. Prepositions, Adjectives, Pronouns
The indefinite article does not exist in Arabic, leading to its
omission when English requires it. There is a definite article but its
use is not identical with the use of the definite article in English.
Arab learners have problems with genitive constructions such as
the boy's dog. In Arabic this would be expressed as Dog the boy,
which is how such constructions may be conveyed into English.

27. 19
Adjectives in Arabic follow the noun they qualify. This
leads Arab beginners to making word order mistakes
in written or spoken English.
Arabic requires the inclusion of the pronoun in
relative clauses, unlike English, in which the pronoun
is omitted. This results in mistakes like:Where is the
pen which I gave it to you yesterday?

28. Interference of Arabic in Learning English
The interference of the mother tongue has always been
a major problem in teaching and learning English as a
foreign language.
Arab students who learn English as a foreign language
often make lexical, semantic and phonological errors
because of the interference of their native language
(Arabic).

29. Redundancy:
 Arabic speaking students often resort to redundancy
when writing compositions and essays. They usually
cannot avoid using redundant patterns. The following
sentences are just a few common examples of
redundancy.
* Mona lives alone by herself.
* The problem is very serious in the nature of it.
*The boss advanced forward the date of the
meeting.

30. Prepositions
Arabic speaking students sometimes use prepositions where
they are not supposed to:
While writing, they would normally use affect on, enjoy with
or by etc. because such verbs normally take prepositions in
Arabic (phrasal verbs).
they often make errors in choosing the correct preposition.
They tend to say: ashamed from, composed from, object on
blame on ,where of, of, to and for should be used respectively.

31. 23
Students also tend to use before nouns which are not
normally preceded by this definite article, such as names
of most diseases and many other nouns. The reason for
this is that in Arabic such nouns are usually preceded by
the definite article. Notice the following examples:
My father suffers from the diabetes.
He was filled with the sadness.
He studies the music.
He left at the twilight.

32. Syntax
The use of run-on sentences (i.e. sentences which are
incorrectly connected) is also common in compositions and
essays written by Arabic speaking students. Look at the
following examples:
*We waited a long time, he didn't turn up.
*My uncle and his family lived in the capital I knew I
could stay with them.

33. 25
Other syntactical errors occur in using adjectives. The
fact that in Arabic, adjectives follow nouns makes it
difficult for learners of English to put adjectives in their
proper place. Therefore, students are likely to make
errors such as the following:
*Tourists come to Egypt to enjoy the weatherbeautiful.
*Men and women enjoy rights equal.
*This is a book very interesting.

34. They use an adjective plus a noun derived from the main
verb instead of using an adverb. The following examples
make this point clear:
*The temperature rose a sharp rise (instead of:
The temperature rose sharply).
*The singer performed a wonderful performance
(instead of: The singer performed wonderfully).
*The prices have increased a gradual increase (instead
of: The prices have increased gradually).

35. use of countable and uncountable nouns
Another difficulty faced by Arabic speaking students is
related to the use of countable and uncountable nouns. -
Following are some examples:
*The informations I received were useful
* Housewives do a lot of houseworks.
*The storm caused great damages.

36. The absence of certain English sounds in Arabic like /p/
and /v/ causes real phonological problems for Arab
students who usually find it difficult to pronounce words
containing such sounds ( Egyptians).
Thus words like park and van are likely to be pronounced
bark and fan. This affects language learning and it
particularly impeded developing listening and speaking
skills.

37. • All three disciplines of C L complement
each other:
Contrastive
Linguistics
Theory of
Translation
Contrastive
Analysis
Error
Analysis
30

38. The process of learning requires that CA
takes place BEFORE.
The Error AnalysisAFTER the learning
process.
Contrastive analysis is inclusive because it
has applied, pedagocical outcomes.
By identifiying similarities and differences,
CA PREDICTS possible areas of difficulty
for the SL learner.
31

39. Conclusion
To sum up, Arabic speaking students should be aware
of the fact that English and Arabic are quite different
languages. If students are taught how to think in English
and avoid doing a mental translation, their learning will
be greatly enhanced. Teachers certainly have a great role
to play in the process of acquainting and familiarizing
their students with the language areas that are likely to
hinder their language acquisition.

40. References
Johansson, S. 2000. Contrastive Linguistics
and Corpora. University of Oslo, SPRIK reports
3:
ww.hf.uio.no/ilos/forskning/prosjekter/sprik/docs/
pdf/sj/johansson2.pdf
S.Pit Corder.1973.Introducing Applied
Linguistics
Johansson, S. 2007. Seeing through
multilingual corpora. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Robert Lado. 1957.Linguistics Across Cultures:
applied linguistics for language
teachers. University of Michigan Press, 1957 32

41. Thank you