CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

(DR.M.BALASUBRAMANIAN)
01. Contrast (-ive, -ity) is a term used in linguistics for a difference between units, especially one
which serves to distinguish meaning in language.
Such difference are also referred to as DISTINCTIVE, FUNCTIONAL, or SIGNIFICANT.
02. Contrast fundamental to linguistic analysis (eg. Phoneme, Distinctive Features) which are
minimally contrastive units at some level of analysis :
LEVEL OF PHONOLOGY : /p/, /b/ etc.
Level of grammar : Inflectional forms, Possibilities of word order
03. Contrastive analysis is a general approach to the investigation of language as carried on in
certain areas of Applied Linguistics ( as in Foreign Language Teaching/ Translation).
04. In a contrastive analysis of two languages, the points of STRUCTURAL DIFFERENCES are
identified, and these are then studied as areas of potential difficulty in Foreign Language
Teaching/ Translation.
05. Contrastive Analyses are SYNCHRONIC.
Analogous Contrastive Studies of two states in the history of a language would be grouped
under a different heading such as COMPARATIVE or HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS.
06. FUNCTIONAL: Syntactic distinction and syntactic finction (rules and occurrences). E.G.
NOUN PHRASE function as in Clause as Subject, Object, Complement. Such syntactic relations
are a major feature of several Models of linguistic analysis, including the approaches of PRAGUE
SCHOOL, GLOSSEMATICS and RELATIONAL GRAMMAR.
07.Social Function Analysis of Language:
Ideas Code Register
Attitudes Code-switch
08. Contrastive Analysis involves the study of language from the point of view of the users, of the
choices the users make, of the constraints the users encounter in using language in social
interaction, and of the effects their use of language has on other participants in an act of
COMMUNICATION, (so SEMANTICS, SOCIOLINGUISTICS and EXTRALINGUISTIC
CONTEXTS ARE FOCUSED ON).
09. PRAGMALINGUISTICS, which studies issues of Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Implicatures,
Presuppositions, Speech Acts and Discourse Structure from the view point of the Structural
Resources available in a language.
SOCIOPRAGMATICS studies the ways conditions on language use derive from the social
situations.