Criticisms of the Contrastive Analysis hypothesis

(1)?the predictability of errors (empirical research)

①?Intro: the cause of learner error

1)?four causes:

a.?the learner does not know the structural pattern so makes a random response

b.?the correct model has been insufficiently practiced

c.?distortion may be induced by L1

d.?the student may follow a general rule which is not applicable in a particular instance

2)?issue: whether interference could account for most errors

②?D & B’s research

1)?four types of error according to psycholinguistic origins

a.?interference-like errors

a)?reflect native language structure

b)?are not found in first language acquisition data

b.?first language developmental errors

a)?do not reflect native language structure

b)?are found in first language acquisition data

c.?ambiguous errors

cannot be categorized as either interference-like or developmental

d.?unique errors

a)?do not reflect first language structure

b)?are not found in first language acquisition data

2)?result and conclusion

a.?children construct the L2 as an independent system, in much the same way as in L1 acquisition

interference may be a major factor only in phonology

b.?a comparison of L1 and L2 cannot predict errors or explain the process of SLA

③?other studies

1)?considerable discrepancy between D & B’s research and other studies

a number of variables made it difficult to code errors according to their psycholinguistic source

2)?interference errors percentage from D & B’s research is below the mean percentage

④?major difficulty in validating the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis:

lack of well-defined and broadly-accepted criteria: which grammatical utterances are the result of language transfer

1)?interference & developmental errors: hard to distinguish

2)?same error from learners with different L1 may not necessarily be developmental

⑤?conclusion

1)?L1 interference is probably not the prime cause of learner errors

2)?Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and habit-formation theory is not adequate to predict errors or to explain the process of SLA

(2)?Theoretical criticisms

①?Chomsky’s attack on behaviorism

show nothing about how human beings learn language in natural conditions

1)?“stimulus”?and “response”

it was not possible to tell what constituted the stimulus for a given speaker response

2)?“analogy”

too crude to capture the creative use of language

3)?“imitation”?and “reinforcement”

could not account for the creativity of language(more than imitation)

in L1 acquisition, parents rarely corrected formal errors or rewarded correct utterances(no reinforcement)

②?language differences=learning difficulties=errors

1)?language differences ≠ learning difficulties

difference: linguistic concept

difficulty: psychological concept

2)?learner difficulties ≠ errors

difficulty and error were shown to be not significantly related

③?linguistic basis

1)?“translation equivalence”

a.?similar communicative functions + structural similarities

b.?pragmatic aspect + linguistic aspect

c.?appropriate language use + correct language use

2)?learner variability

a.?contextual and situational variability

b.?error prediction

a)?non-linguistic and linguistic contexts (transfer errors)

b)?categorical error predictions → unreliable

④?conclusion

1)?lack of a comprehensive and valid comparison of two languages

2)?the comparison may serve little purpose

(3)?Practical criticisms

①?whether Contrastive Analysis is of any practical worth to language teachers?

②?a majority of learner errors are not caused by interference

③?the predictions are superficial (already known by teachers)

④?Contrastive Analysis serves as a tool to weight rather than to select items

⑤?errors could be a positive aspect and there’s no need to avoid them??