Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis

1950s and 60s saw language as a habit. Second language learning was seen as forming a new set of habits. Therefore, native language had a very relevant role, since in this view of language learning, it was the major cause of lack of success in language learning. The habits established in childhood (NL) interfered with the establishment of a new set of habits (TL). From this understanding emerged the need to compare NL and TL. This is known as Contrastive Analysis which compares the rules of two languages to determine similarities and differences. Robert Lado is the major proponent of the this field.

Contrastive Analysis (CA) is a way of comparing languages in order to determine potential errors to isolate what needs to be learned and what doesn't need not be learned in second language learning. Phonology, morphology, syntax, social aspects, etc. are studied to predict what will be easier and difficult for learners. Similar structures will be easily transferred and learned.

Lado says:

Since even languages as closely related as German and English differ significantly in the form, meaning, and distribution of their grammatical structures, and since the learner tends to transfer the habits of his native language structure to the foreign language, we have here the major source of difficulty or ease in learning the structure of a foreign language. Those structures that are similar will be easy to learn because they will be transferred and may function satisfactorily in the foreign language. Those structures that are different will be difficult because when transferred they will not function satisfactorily in the foreign language and will therefore have to be changed. (Lado, 59) 

Pedagogical materials that came out of CA in North American tradition were based on the following assumptions:

1. CA is based on the assumption that language is a habit, learning a new language is establisment of a new set of habits. 
2. major source of error in second language is the native language - NL.
3. errors can be explained using differences between NL and TL.
4. Greater the difference, greater the difficulty. 
5. One has to learn the differences. Similarities are easily transferred.
6. difficulty and ease are proportional to differences and similarities between the two languages under consideration. 

Various views on CA Hypothesis

Strong/a priori/predictive view: One can predict about learning, and success of materials based on CA. 

Weak/a posteriori/explanatory view: Starts with the learners' recurring errors and gives explanations for the learner behaviour based on CA.

Weak version gained faith because the strong version failed. Weak version gave importance to the learner, the forms they produced and the strategies they used to reach their IL forms.

CA did not survive because its theoretical background-behaviourims- belief that NL was the driving force of L2 learning- was discarded. In the 60s, language came to be seen in terms of structured rules. Behaviourism was discarded. Learning was no more seen as imitation and habit formation, but as active rule formation. 

The failure of behaviourism had implication on SLA. If imitation and reinforcement has no bearing on NL acquisition, may be SL also is not influenced by it. This became evident through data analysis. Some errors learners produced in L2 were in no way related to the structures/errors in their L1. (He comed yesterday- attempt to impose regularity on irregular verb). The theory did not predict what was happening in non-native speech. Not only did the predictions NOT come true, things that they did not predict appeared more than often. Within a theory based on the transference of NL forms, this could not be explained, for why should transfer occur in one instance, but not in another?

For example:

In French, object pronouns precede the verb, as in 

- Je  les  vois.

  I  them see

 "I see them.”

In English, object pronouns follow the verb. However, the following facts emerge in learner data:

By French learners of English 

I see them. (produced) 

*I them see. (not produced) 

By English learners of French- None of these is possible in French. 

a. Je vois elle. I see her. 

b. Le chien a mangé les. The dog has eaten them. 

c. Il veut les encore. He wants them still. 

In other words, French learners of English never prepose the object pronoun. Rather, they correctly follow English word order, which in this case is in violation of French word order. With English speakers, the reverse occurs: they follow the native language word order. If the “habits” of one’s native language are the driving force, then why should they be operative in one language, but not the other? (Gass 98-99)

The ideas of difficulty were also questioned. Difficulty was equated to errors in CA. Error meant that learner was having difficulty in learning. It is not a real measure of difficulty. How does one judge what is difficult for the learner? Error is not a real measure of difficulty. To equate difference with difficulty attributes a psycholinguistic explanation to a linguistic description. 

We can't say that there are no factors in NL that influences TL. But there surely are other factors than NL. The conclusion is that the 1:1 correspondence implied by CA Hypothesis between native and second language does not hold ground. It is not that simple. L1 has its effect, but cannot be limited to difficulty and transfer. There are other factors that may influence the process of acquisition, such as innate principles of language, attitude, motivation, aptitude, age, other languages known, and so forth. 

Comparing languages is a complex business. Lado himself had identified it. Stockwell, Bowen, and Martin gives a framework or hierarchy of difficulty in learning. it speaks also about ways in which languages can differ. Categories in which there is differentiation (NL has one form, TL has two forms), absence of some category in either languages (articles in English; Japanese has no articles), Only one form in L2, but two in L1, Correspondence, etc. are the elements of the hierarchy. CA also failed to validate claims through data from real world (empirical basis). 

Lado's hypothesis inspired a lot of research in the field of second language learning (to match CA predictions and actual data). As a result of Lado's warning to check hypothesis against actual data, Error Analysis emerged.

Reference
Gass, Susan M. (2008). Second Language Acquisition. Routledge, New York.
Secondary: Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics Across Cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Psychological background of language acquisition, Contrastive Analysis

Language learning and Associate theories have derived their Technology from Psychology of learning. Behaviourism was the leading school of thought at that time. One of the key concepts of behaviourism was the notion of transfer. Concept says that if you learn concept A first, then all the concepts that you learn after that concept will be influenced by the first concept. If someone has learned tennis, she will use this knowledge when she learns to play table tennis. Old knowledge is thus transferred to new situation.

Learning is cumulative for behaviourists. The more knowledge someone has, the more likely it is that her learning is influenced by her past experiences and learning. An adult rarely finds something 'completely' new. 

The implication is that speed of learning can be influenced by what you already know. That is old knowledge will be transferred to new situation. Behaviourist notion underlines Expectations of habit and cumulative learning. For an adult the point of departure is learning of his/her past.

Let us now see how this concept is applied to second language learning. The concept of transfer has two aspects. Positive transfer or facilitation and negative transfer or Interference- these are not two distinct cognitive processes, but points to whether the process gives correct or incorrect results.

Example: If a Spanish speaker is learning Italian, when asking a question that speaker might correctly produce - Mangia bene  il   bambino?      eats     well the   babybecause in Spanish one uses the same word order to form questions.- ¿Come bien el   niño?       eats  well the babyThis is known as positive transfer. But if that same speaker is learning English and produces- Eats well the baby?the incorrect utterance is known as negative transfer. (Gass, 113)

There are two types of interference. Retroactive inhibition and proactive inhibition. Retroactive inhibition is when someone forgets something that was learnt earlier because of the new learning - language loss. Proactive inhibition is when previously learned responses appear in situations where new ones are required. This is more similar to second language learning since the first language in this model influences the learning of the second language.

But most of the experiments and results are gathered inside the laboratory. Their application in the real world has to be meticulously tested. 

Lado was the one who brought the theoretical underpinnings of behaviourist position explicit. Now turning to the work on second language acquisition based on the behaviourist positions, the major reason behind all this work was pedagogical. Behaviourists believed that problems in second language acquisition arise not out of difficulty in the features of language, but out of the special set created by the first language  itself.

Thus in the 1950s and 60s, language was understood as habit. Second language learning is the development of a new set of habits. And native language was seen as an impediment to learning L2. Childhood habits interfered with the establishment of new set of habits. 

From this framework, contrastive analysis (CA) emerged, because one needs to compare the rules of two languages. There are two traditions in contrastive analysis- North American and European. North American tradition emphasized on language teaching and learning. The goal of analysis was improvement of class room materials (Applied contrastive analysis according to Fisiak). In European tradition, goal was not pedagogical, but to gain a greater understanding of languages. Here, CA is a sub-discipline of linguistics.

Reference

Gass, Susan M. Second Language Acquisition, Routledge, New York 2008.

Behaviourism in (First) Language Learning

The role of native language has come to be known as language transfer. Much of the theory in this field is connected to SLA research. Language transfer is accepted or rejected because the associated theory is accepted/rejected. The assumption always was that the second language learner relies heavily on her/his native language. The need to produce pedagogically relevant materials prompted scholars to make contrastive analysis of native and target languages to determine their similarities and differences.

Transfer in this context should be explained. This can be determined based on output. That is, although the use of the term implies a process, the result is determined by the product.

Behaviourism 
Bloomsfield's classic work 'Language' (1993) provides the most elaborate description of the behaviourist position with regard to language.

Typical behaviourist position is that language is speech primarily. It is a precondition for writing. It is believed so because children learn to speak before writing, and some societies have no written language but all have spoken language, there are no societies with only written language.

Speaking is imitation and analogizing. As children we establish habits, and grow them by analogizing from what we already know or mimicking the speech of others.

Bloomfield's description of how language acquisition takes place:

1. babbling generated by a child- imperfect repetition of something according to Bloomsfield. Sounds are imitated, resulting in habit formation. This babbling trains it to reproduce vocal sounds which strike its ear.
2. Next is pairing this stimulus with the response of a native speaker. Mother saying something to the child initiates the response based on its habit through babble.
3. Mother says doll when handing the child a doll. Thus handing of the doll, hearing of 'doll' and sight of the doll happens until it becomes a habit- sight and feel of doll makes it say 'doll'.This is how language is learned.
4. Bloomsfield says that the absence of the stimulus can generate another stimulus, which in turn can generate the desired/same response.
5. Correct performance yields better results. If child utters something very vaguely, adults won't understand.

In short, child learns to make stimulus-response connection. Learning involves the establishment of a habit by means of which these stimulus-response sets become associated.

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) - A Basic Introduction

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a very young field of study. Therefore theories about SLA are still being developed.

It is the study of how second language is learned - study of acquisition of a non-primary language. It studies prospects, challenges and scope of SLA. Are there rules governing SLA? Are they the same for First Language Acquisition and SLA?

SLA theory is impacted by fields of linguistics, psychology, psycho-linguistics, socio-linguistics, sociology, discourse analysis, conversational analysis, education, etc. It is a truly interdisciplinary field of study. It takes tools and methodology from allied disciplines.

SLA is not pedagogy unless it affects language acquisition directly.

Chomsky says that learning language is knowing human essence, distinctive qualities of mind unique to humans.

Second Language Acquisition concerns itself with determination of linguistic constraints on the formation of second language grammars.

Today's language teaching courses teach SLA also. There is a realization that language learning is more than rule memorization and translation. It involves learning to express communicative needs. That is, pedagogical decision making and must reflect what is known about the process of learning. Another factor is teachers' expectations.

Cross cultural communication has its own kinds of barriers and limitations. Phonological issues are also there.

Policy formation is dependent on one's knowledge of SLA. So it has to be well rooted.

In short, SLA learns the processes underlying the learning of a second language. It is different from the study of pedagogy.

Terminology

1. NL- Native Language- this is the primary language or mother tongue or first language- L1
2. TL- Target Language- the language being learned
3. SLA- Second Language Acquisition- Process of learning another language after native language is learned. Some prefer to refer to it as Second Language Studies.
4. FLL- Foreign Language Learning- learning of non-native language in the environment of one's native language. This happens commonly in a class room. Second language learning happens in target language environment. This provides access to native speakers' language.

There are five elements of language that we learn:

1. Phonology or sound system
2. Syntax or grammar
3. Morphology and the lexicon- study of word formation
4. Semantics- meaning
5. Pragmatics- the way language is used in contexts

Learning an L2 is a complex task. SLA assumes that an interlanguage (IL) is created by the learner. It is filled with random errors, but has its own system and structure. Elements from NL and TL and new elements found nowhere will be found in IL. 

Fossilization is central to the concept of IL. It is the cessation of learning at a certain stage of IL. Some say, stabilization is a better term instead of fossilization. 

(Drawn from Gass' book on SLA)

Comprehension-based learning and the Roles of Output in language learning (Peter Skehan)

Roles of Output in language learning

1. To generate better input: good output serves as good input.
2. To force syntactic processing: awareness of need to produce speech makes better listeners of the means by which meaning is communicated. Syntax, etc. It causes input and listening to be used more effectively for interlanguage development.
3. To test hypotheses: speaker can control the agenda, take risks, look for feedback on the points of doubt in his/her developing grammar. This makes learning more efficient, because speaker can build upon the feedback.
4. To develop automaticity: real time speaking needs speed in processing. Linking utterances automatically reduces/saves processing time and spares the same for planning responses in speaking. Fluency comes by practice. (In languages where morphology (word order, etc.) plays a vital role, speaking helps faster learning.)
5. To develop discourse skills: to be an effective communicator, it is not enough to have sentence construction skills. Participation in discourse is the only means by which these skills can be achieved. 
6. To develop a personal voice: One needs to steer conversations along the interests of the speaker, finding ways of expression to mean what one wants to mean.

Importance of output
The points above detail the inadequacy of simple listening for language learning.

But is output sufficient as an efficient language learning tool?

Skehan says that the points above indicate that output is an efficient agent in learning language. Output has a central role in promoting interlanguage development by forcing syntactic processing, testing hypotheses, and developing automaticity. These stand for fluency and form.

The place of comprehension in language learning

It has been a subject of discussion as to why while first language learning almost always leads to success, second language learning doesn't have a great success rate. ELT has experimented various alternatives to methods of teaching and learning. It also has checked if approaches that connect first language acquisition to second language learning hold out any promise at all.

One such approach is comprehension-driven learning. This states that under the right conditions, second language development can happen simply as a result of exposure to meaningful input. One of the claims made by Peter Skehan (2014, 11) is that instructional activities that give importance to meaning (both comprehension- or production - based) may make learners to rely on strategies for communication that result in bypassing of the form of language.

Comprehension in Language Learning
Krashen is the one who has given much to comprehension-based language development. He said that comprehensible input is the basis for interlanguage development and change. He also said that such change has the potential to be carried over to production stage as well. In short, listening leads to learning how to speak. Krashen's argument is that the predictable context implies that what is said is a commentary of what is understood. This results in the expansion of interlanguage by the context-to-language connection involved. He quotes examples such as immersion education where learner has a lot of content based input available, and has freedom to develop at her/his pace. Studies have shown that such learners have much higher rates of achievements than those from traditional methods.

But criticism says that there is a contrast between the receptive and productive skills of learners of comprehension-based methods such as immersion education. They may have excellent comprehension skills, but may not be as good in production skills. Their errors can be persistent in speaking and writing even after years of instruction.

Strategies of comprehension
Native speaker uses a range of comprehension strategies (syntactic and semantic) in listening. It is probabilistic in nature, and does not follow any sort of deterministic model. That is, they don't use any linguistic model but use a variety of strategies.

Skehan (14) gives an outline of comprehension as dependent on three main sources of knowledge.
1. Schematic knowledge: Background and procedural knowledge
2. Contextual knowledge: situation and co-text
3. Systemic knowledge: syntactic, semantic and morphological knowledge

That is, we don't depend entirely on systemic knowledge to make meaning- we draw from context and schematic knowledge as well. Comprehension is in short a mixture of bottom-up and top-down processes. When we use top-down approaches more, our dependence on visual and auditory stimulus is reduced.

The implication is that comprehension process can be partly detached from syntactic system and form production. It may be considered partly an autonomous skill, whose development does not automatically transfer to other areas. An effective comprehender may be an effective strategy user, but not someone who extracts syntactic inferences from the language being processed. In short, comprehension may leave interlanguage untouched!

In case of second/foreign language learner, he/she already has schematic knowledge in place (first language), but lack systemic knowledge. When they face comprehension problems, they are likely to use schematic and contextual knowledge to overcome their systemic limitations. Therefore, the need to use interlanguage is reduced. Also, chances of interlanguage change and development is less.

The conclusion is, most people don't learn a second language by simply listening to it!

Krashen's claim regarding comprehension strategies was that language input is necessary, sufficient and efficient, and would lead to effective comprehension, and production. His claim also includes the fact that interlanguage will also be affected, and changed in the process. In fact, it is this second claim that makes his first claim interesting and worth discussion.

Reference and Source

Skehan, Peter. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning, Oxford University Press, New York, 2014.

Why this aversion towards psycho-linguistics, ELT?

Why? Why ELT? Why is this aversion towards psycho-linguistics? Tell us the reason.

Hmm. There are reasons. ELT is skeptical of psycholinguistics because it, once upon a time had borne the techniques of audio-lingualism, pattern practice, etc. which did not quite enhance the field. Therefore, ELT likes to see linguistics as its parent discipline. May be, even socio-linguistics can be seen as a parent of ELT, But certainly not psycholinguistics.

In fact, this has caused ELT troubles. Because of the aversion, ELT has been diverted from psycholinguistics for most of its life. The attention psycholinguistics must have received was taken away by linguistics and socio-linguistics.

Moreover, psycholinguistics is of secondary importance to linguistically motivated 'universalist account', and 'socio-linguistic generalizations'. This is because psycholinguistics emphasizes on information processing and cognitive abilities (which are the objectives of cognitive psychology). The widespread assumption was that 'the module that helps acquire language affects our perceptions on second language acquisition. This led to the sidelining of psycholinguistics!