Contrastive analysis hypothesis

Contrastive analysis hypothesis is a branch of comparative linguistics concerned with comparing

two or more languages to find their differences or similarities, either for theoretical or non-theoretical
reasons. It suggests a conviction.There would be no basis for linguistic universals if there were no
traits in common.comparison. CA, in its broadest sense, has been employed as a method in
comparative historical linguistics to construct language genealogy, build language taxonomies in
typological linguisticsTo design bilingual dictionaries, translation theory is used to study equivalence
issues.

Contrastive Analysis Objectives To begin, contrastive analysis is seen as a method for anticipating
issues and challenges that learners may encounter, as well as errors that they may make. Contrastive
analysis, according to Oller (1971, p.79), is "... a strategy for predicting places of difficulty and some
of the errors that learners will make."

According to Christopherson (1973), recognizing the similarities and contrasts between the source and
target languages might help foresee issues in second language learning. That is, offering insights into
the similarities and contrasts between the native language and the foreign language will assist the
linguist in identifying the challenges that the learner may have when learning that foreign language.

Second, contrastive analysis is regarded as a method for detecting mistakes. It is worth noting that
this role is only assigned to the weak version of (CA), not the strong version, because the former has
an explanatory function while the latter has a predictive one. As a result, the weak version, with its
explanatory role, allows the instructor to use his linguistic skills to account for some errors made by
foreign language learners. According to James (1980, p. 148), "knowing why particular errors are
committed is a crucial component of the teacher's function as monitor and assessor of the learner's
performance." The instructor organizes feedback to the student and corrective actions based on such
diagnostic knowledge.

Third, contrastive analysis seeks to create course materials for language instruction. Fries
(1945) is one of those who advocate for transforming data from (CA) into teaching plans; he
claims that a good teaching process may be achieved by employing course content based on
systematic comparison of the source and target languages. According to Dulay et al. (1982),
"contrastive study of a learner's L1 and L2 should highlight areas of difficulty for L2 students,
giving teachers and authors of L2 materials with specific advice for lesson preparation.

Contrastive Analysis Objectives has three versions which are weak version,strong version and
moderate version.

A. The Strong Version

The strong version or priori version claims that the difficulties that will face learners can be
predicted by the contrast of the two languages. Richards (1974, p.60) argues that “ the strong
version states that the learner's behavior is predictable on the basis of a comparison of LS and
LT.” In addition, the priori version claims that the differences between the source language
and the target language can lead to the prediction of (L2) learning problems (Christopherson,
1973).
B. The Weak Version

The weak version or posteriori version, on the other hand, claims that some observed learning
problems can be accounted for by the differences between the source language and the target
language ( Christopherson, 1973). Richards (1974, p.61) claims that “ the weak claim of
contrastive analysis is that of accounting for learner behavior.”

C.The moderate version

“The categorization of abstract and concrete patterns according to their perceived similarities
and differences is the basis for learning; therefore, wherever patterns are minimally distinct in
form or meaning in one or more systems, confusion may result.” (Oller & Ziahosseiny, 1970).
According to Ziahosseini (2006), the CAH has a moderate version or small changes version.
According to this approach, L2 objects that differ from L1 are more likely to be seen and
classified, rather than causing problems. From this viewpoint, it is the similar items that might
cause a problem. This idea was founded on the stimulus generalization principle, which
argues that the more similar two stimuli are, the more likely a person is to respond to them as
if they were the same stimulus. As a result, when confronted with such a situation, the learner
may generalize a response learnt to a single stimulus. This, it was said, would cause
misunderstanding on the learner's part.

Contrastive analysis still remains a useful tool in the search for potential sources of trouble in
foreign language learning. CA cannot be overlooked in syllabus design and it is a valuable
source of information for the purposes of translation and interpretation. Today, the scope of
contrastive analysis has gradually widened, along with the expansion of researchers’ interests
beyond the confines of the sentence for instance, to interlanguage pragmatics.