Second Language Acquisition

Paper Summary:

With the increase of channels of communications in the twentieth century, the need to acquire one second language or more has grown rapidly. This has opened the way to new linguistic theories concerning second language acquisition. This paper focuses on the contrastive analysis hypothesis, which aims at providing an explanation of errors by exploring the relation between two linguistic systems and more specifically by attempting a comparison between them. It also examines the error analysis hypothesis, which tries to provide researchers with an in-depth knowledge of foreign language deviations. The paper attempts to establish the purposes of these theories and their fundamental aspects, and then describes the criticisms of these theories and discusses their accuracy.

From the Paper:

"The Contrastive analysis hypothesis emerged in the 1940's with Charles Fries, one of the leading applied linguists of the day. His idea was that "The most efficient materials are those that are based upon a scientific description of the language to be learned, carefully compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learner."(Fries 1945, as reported in Lanlin Zhang). Robert Lado, Fries' colleague at the University of Michigan, also worked on this idea in his book Linguistics across Cultures which marks the real beginning of modern applied linguistics. In his book, as reported in Lanlin Zhang (2005), he claims that "we can predict and describe the patterns that will cause difficulty in learning, and those that will not cause difficulty, by comparing systematically the language and culture to be learned with the native language and culture of the student". Wardhaugh (1970)(Cf: Lanlin Zhang) later termed this claim as the "Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis" (CAH). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Corder S.P. (1967), "The Significance of Learners' Errors". In Richards J.C. (ed.), Error Analysis, Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, 19-30. London: Longman. UCD Main Library, 375.42/RIC.
• Corder S.P. (1971), "Idiosyncratic Dialects and Errors Analysis". In Nehls D. (ed.), Studies in Contrastive Linguistics and Error Analysis, the theoretical background, 93-106. Heidelberg: Groos. UCD Main Library, 410 NEH.
• James C. (1980), Contrastive Analysis, London: Longman. UCD Main Library, 410 JAM.
• Mukattash L. (1980), "Contrastive analysis, error analysis and learning difficulty". In Fisiak J. (ed.), Contrastive Linguistics, Prospects and Problems, 333-349. Berlin, New-York, Amsterdam: Mouton Publishers. UCD Main Library, 410 FIS.
• Nemser W. (1971), "Approximative Systems of Foreign Language Learners". In Richards J.C. (ed.), Error Analysis, Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, 55-63. London: Longman. UCD Main Library, 375.42/RIC.

More papers on Second Language Acquisition:

• Essay # 32686 : "Theories of Second Language Acquisition"
• Essay # 83744 : "Second Language Acquisition (SLA) "
• Research Paper # 128200 : "Second Language Acquisition and Metacognition"
• Research Paper # 108133 : "Second Language Acquisition in School Age Children"

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