Kenny Rodia on The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis in language teaching

The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis is founded on the assumption that learners tend to transfer grammatical and phonological features peculiar to their native tongue to the second language. The psychological basis of this Transfer Theory is elaborated and formulated within a stimulus-response behaviorist theory of psychology.

The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis attempts to compare two given languages in order to predict and hence eliminate or reduce certain real or potential sources of error in learning the foreign language. For example, French learners of English will tend to omit the /h/ sound of a word like "house". German speakers may utter the word "old" with a final /t/ sound and many nationalities will have difficulty in producing the voiced consonant of the definite article "the" and its voiceless counterpart as in "thin".

Research into the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis found that few grammatical errors could be attributed to interference from the native tongue. However, at the phonological level, it was concluded that there was a high degree of reliability and that the differences existing between English and other languages, are quite often the prime cause of manifold interference. It was also recognized that the greater these phonological similarities or differences are the easier or more acute the learning process will be.

Following the results of the research, a number of books were published that explain the typical phonological difficulties encountered by specific language groups.

When the language of the learner is inaccurate the teacher needs to ascertain if the error is one of grammar or pronunciation and within the former, if the problem is one of morphology*. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis can be useful in determining the source of learner-errors. Some errors may be interpreted as grammatical failures when they could be phonologically based. For instance, in Italian no final consonant clusters feature (with the exception of loan words) consequently, Italians may produce the verb "liked" as "like" or "he eats" as "he eat" where the teacher may conclude that the student has not mastered the formation of past tenses, or the third person singular. However, a comparative phonological study, based on a Contrastive Analysis, may reveal that the error is caused by the differences in phonotactics** where English permits more than one consonant in a final position and Italian does not.

The teacher may decide that an error does not impede effective communication and therefore does not require remedial attention. Where corrective treatment is needed understanding the source of a problem will help the teacher to deal with it more successfully!

*Morphology - The study of morphemes e.g. the adjective "Unfriendly" consists of 3 morphemes - the prefix "un", the noun "friend" and the suffix "ly"

**Phonotactics - The study of the order of individual sounds it is possible to put together to form words.

Kenny Rodia MA is Principal of English 2000 School of English in Bournemouth and Director of Management International in London