Contrastive linguistics: an

introduction

Lê Công Tuấn, based on Ping KE

 Contrastive linguistics: what is it?
 The Name & Nature
• What/why/how?
synchronic diachronic
Intralingual (1) Synchronic intralingual (2) Diachronic intralingual
comparison comparison
(comparing phonemes) (comparing lexical items in
OE vs ME)
Interlingual (4) Synchronic interlingual (3) Diachronic interlingual
comparison comparison
(ME vs MV)
 Linguistic Typology
 Synthetic languages (agglutinating + inflectional)
 Analytic languages (isolating): no change in word forms;
grammatical functions by word order / additional words.
(Chinese/Vietnamese)
 Inflectional languages: Latin / Greek (change in word
forms)
 Agglutinating languages: addition of affixes => change
in meaning / grammatical functions. (Finnish, Turkish,
Hungarian…)
 Tone languages: Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai…
 Overlapping / no clear-cut distinction: English is more
analytic than French/German/Russian…
What? A definition
Contrastive linguistics: what is it?

 Micro-CL and Macro-CL

 Contrastive linguistics: Why?
 Theoretical Need for CL
Chao Yuen Ren (1892-1982), the famous Chinese American linguist
points out: ‘The so-called linguistic theory is nothing, but
scientific conclusions derived from a comprehensive
contrastive study of the languages of different nations
in the world’. (as cited in Wang, 1983, p.40)
CL == Universal Grammar
 Practical Need for CL
• - Language acquisition
• - ESL learners / teachers
• - Translation & other applications
Contrastive linguistics: History &
Development

 Skipped, reading Ping Ke & Bùi Mạnh Hùng

Exercise
1 - Games (language recognition / family / facts)
- kahoot.it / quizzes …
2. - Duolingo: Esperanto (first few lessons) =>
Write down FIVE rules/features of
Esperanto.