result of the practical demands of a language-teaching methodology , where
it was empirically shown that the errors which are made by foreign language
students can be often traced back to the differences in structure between
the target language & the language of the learner . This naturally implies
the necessity of a detailed comparison of the structure of a native & a
target language . This procedure has been named contrastive analysis .
People proceed from the assumption that the categories , elements on the
semantic as well as on the syntactic & other levels are valid for both
languages .
e. g. Linking verbs can be found in English , French , German , Russian ,
etc. Linking verbs having the meaning of “change & become” are differently
represented in each of the languages . In English , for instance , “ become
, come , grow , fall , run , turn “ ; in Russian –“ ñòàíîâèòüñÿ “ are used
. The task is to find out which semantic & syntactic features characterize
the English set of linking verbs , the Russian linking verb & how they can
be compared , how the English word-groups “ grow thin , get angry , fall
ill “ correspond to Russian “ïîõóäåòü , ðàññåðäèòüñÿ , çàáîëåòü “.
Contrastive analysis can be carried out at three linguistic levels :
phonology , grammar ( morphology & syntax ) & lexis . Contrastive analysis
is applied to reveal the features of sameness & difference in the lexical
meaning & the semantic structure of correlated words in different languages
. It is commonly assumed by non-linguists that all languages have
vocabulary systems in which the words themselves differ in sound-form , but
refer to reality in the same way . From this assumption it follows that for
every word in the mother tongue there is an exact equivalent in the foreign
language . It is a belief which is reinforced by the small bilingual
dictionary where single-word translation is often used .Language learning
cannot be just a matter of substitution a new set of labels for the
familiar ones of the mother tongue .It should be born in mind that though
the objective reality exists outside human beings & irrespective of the
language they speak , every language classifies reality in its own way by
means of vocabulary units .
e. g. In English , for example , the word “foot” is used to denote the
extremity of the leg . In Russian there is no exact equivalent for
“foot”: “ñòîïà” is a little bit smaller than foot , the word “íîãà”
denotes the whole leg including the foot .
Differences in the lexical meaning of correlated words account for the
differences of their collocability in different languages .
e. g. Thus , the English adjective “new” & the Russian adjective”íîâûé”
when taken in isolation are felt as correlated words : a new dress ,
New Year . In collocation with other nouns however the Russian
adjective cannot be used in the same meaning in which the English word
“new” is currently used : new potatoes , new bread , etc.
Contrastive analysis on the level of the grammatical meaning reveals that
co-related words in different languages may differ in grammatical
characteristics .
e. g. Russians are liable to say “news are good , the money are on the
table , her hair are black” because the Russian words “íîâîñòè , äåíüãè
, âîëîñû” have the grammatical meaning of plurality .
Contrastive analysis brings to light the essence of what is usually
described as idiomatic English , idiomatic Russian , i. e. the peculiar way
in which every language combines & structures in lexical units various
concepts to denote extra-linguistic reality .
e. g. A typical Russian word-group used to describe the way somebody
performs an action or to state how a person finds himself has the
structure that may be represented by the formula “adjective + a finite
form of a verb”(îí êðåïêî ñïèò , áûñòðî óñâàèâàåò ). In English we can
also use structurally similar word-groups & say “he learns fast/slowly”
. The structure of idiomatic word-group in English is different . The
structure is “adjective + deverbal noun”. It is really in English to
say “he is a heavy smoker , poor learner early riser”.
Statistical analysis .
Statistical linguistics is nowadays generally recognized as the one of
the major branches of linguistics . Statistical inquiries have considerable
importance because of their relevance to certain problems of communication
engineering & information theory . Statistical approach proved essential in
the selection of vocabulary items of a foreign language for teaching
purposes . Very few people know more than 10% of the words in their mother
tongue . It follows that if we do not wish to waste time on committing to
memorize vocabulary items which are never likely to be useful to the
learner we have to select only lexical units that are commonly used by a
native speaker .
Out of approximately 500 000 words listed in Oxford English dictionary
the active vocabulary of an educated Englishman comprises no more than 30
000 words & of these 4 000 - 5 000 are presumed to be amplisufficient for
the daily needs of an average member of the English speech community. Thus
, it is evident that the problem of selection of teaching vocabulary is of
vital importance . Statistical techniques have been successfully applied in
the analysis of various linguistic phenomena . Different structural types
of words , affixes , the vocabularies of great writers & poets & even in
the study of some problems of Historical Lexicology .
Statistical regularities can be observed only if the phenomena under
analysis are sufficiently numerous . Thus , the first requirement of any
statistic investigation is the size of the sample . It is known that
comparatively small group of words makes up the bulk of any text . It was
found that approximately 1300 – 1500 most frequent words make up 85% of all
words occurring in the text . If however we analyze a sample of 60 words it
is hard to predict the number of occurrences of most frequent words .
e. g. If we take the word “room” we can find some meanings of the word
: 1) “room”- denoting “space” as in “take less room , not enough room
to do smth.”; 2) part of a house as in “sitting-room” ; 3) used in
plural = lodgings as in “to get rooms”. Statistical analysis shows that
most frequently the word is used in its second meaning – 83% of all
occurrences of the word in different texts , 12% of all takes its first
meaning – “space”, & only 2% takes the third meaning of the word .
Immediate constituents analysis .
The theory of Immediate Constituents was originally elaborated as an
attempt to determine the ways in which lexical units are relevantly related
to one another . It was discovered that combinations of units are usually
structured into hierarchial sets of binary constructions .
e. g. In the word-group “ a black dress in severe style “ we do not
relate the indefinite article “a” to adjective “black” , “black” to
“dress” , “dress” to “in” , “in” to “severe” , “severe” to “style” .We
set up a structure which may be represented as “a black dress” & “in
severe style”.
Thus , the fundamental aim of immediate constituents analysis is to
segment a set of lexical units into two maximally independent sequences &
these maximally independent sequences are called immediate constituents .
The further segmentation of immediate constituents results in ultimate
constituents , which means that further segmentation is impossible for no
meaning can be found .
e. g. The ultimate constituents of the phrase given are “a” ,”black” ,
“dress” , “ in” , “severe” , “style” .
This method of analysis is extremely fruitful in discovering the
derivational structure of words .
Distributional analysis .
Distributional analysis in its various forms is commonly used nowadays.
By the term “distribution” we understand the occurrence of a lexical unit
relative to another lexical units of the same levels : words to words ,
morpheme to morphemes . In other words , by this term we understand the
position which lexical unit occupies or may occupy in the text or in the
flow of speech . It is observed that a certain component of the word-
meaning is described when the word is identified distributionally .
e. g. In the sentence
The boy__________ home .
the missing word is easily identified as a verb . It may be “came ,
ran , went , goes” , but not as an adverb or a noun , or an adjective .
Thus , we see that the component of meaning that is distributionally
identified is actually the part-of-speech meaning . It is also observed
that in a number of cases words have different lexical meanings in
different distributional patterns .
e. g. The verb “to treat” has different lexical meanings in “to treat
smbd kindly” & “to treat smbd to ice-cream” .
The interdependence of distribution & meaning can be also observed at the
level of word-groups .
e. g. It is only the distribution of completely identical lexical units
but arranged on the reverse that differentiates the meaning – water tap
& tap water .
Transformational analysis .
Transformational analysis in lexicological investigations may be defined
as repatterning ( representing , reorganization ) of various distributional
structures in order to discover difference or sameness of meaning of
