Description
Reflections can be in the form of a conventional essay (~500 words, video essay, or infographics) Reflections should identify the main themes of the readings integrated with students’ personal language learning and/or teaching experience. Reflections should not merely summarize the readings. They should include personal thoughts, experience, reactions and analysis. Students may find ideas in readings that contradict or reinforce their existing beliefs and teaching practice. While the first person singular pronoun “I” is appropriate in this genre, an academic tone should be maintained. If students choose to reflect on a singular idea/theory in the readings, the reflection should demonstrate that they have read and understood all of the reading materials by, for instance, clearly showing the connection between this idea/theory with other theories. An appropriate title for the reflection can be chosen.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Gass, S.; Behney, J. & Plonsky, L. (2013). Second Language Acquisition:
An Introductory Course (4th ed.). New York/London: Routledge
CHAPTER FOUR
The Role of the
Native Language
An Historical Overview
4.1 INTRODUCTION
We turn now to one of the oldest and most continuously studied areas of SLA, that of
the role of the NL, which has had a rocky history in the course of SLA research. This
subfield of SLA has come to be known as language transfer. As we will see in this
chapter, much of the history of this central concept has been related to varying theoretical
perspectives of linguistics, psychology, and child language acquisition. The acceptance
and/or rejection of language transfer as a viable concept has been related to the
acceptance or rejection of the specific theory with which it has been associated. In this
chapter, we include a discussion of some of the early work on second language learning;
this is followed by issues related to this early period stemming from psychology and
linguistics. Finally, a prevalent SLA means of dealing with errors, namely, contrastive
analysis, is put into context and discussed, together with criticisms and shortcomings.
These criticisms led to error analysis, which was the beginning of what might be called
a transition period. This latter period is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5.
It has always been assumed that, in an L2 learning situation, learners rely extensively on their native language. Lado, in his early and influential book Linguistics Across
Cultures (1957), stated this clearly:
individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings, and the distribution of forms
and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and
culture—both productively when attempting to speak the language and to act
in the culture, and receptively when attempting to grasp and understand the
language and the culture as practiced by natives.
(Lado, 1957, p. 2)
Lado’s work and much of the work of that time were based on the need to produce pedagogically relevant materials. To produce these NL-based materials, it was
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necessary to perform a contrastive analysis of the NL and the TL. This entailed making
detailed comparisons between the two languages in order to determine similarities
and differences (see section 4.3 for further elaboration).1
To understand why language transfer was accepted as the mainstream view of
language learning, it is necessary to understand the psychological and linguistic
thinking at the time Lado was writing. We review that literature briefly and then show
how Lado’s writings incorporated the theoretical positions of his time.
It is important at this juncture to clarify one important aspect of our understanding
of the term transfer. Although the original term used in the classical literature on transfer
did not imply a separation into two processes, negative transfer versus positive
transfer, there has been some confusion in the use of the terms in the L2 literature.
Implicit in the use of these terms is that there are two different underlying learning
processes, one of positive transfer and another of negative transfer. However, the
actual determination of whether or not a learner has positively or negatively transferred
something is based on the output, as analyzed by the researcher, teacher, native
speaker/hearer, when compared and contrasted with TL norms. In other words, these
terms refer to the product, despite the fact that their use implies a process. In other
words, there is a process of transfer; there is not a process of negative or positive
transfer. Thus, one must be careful when using terminology of this sort, because the
terminology often reveals a conflation between product and process. Further discussion
of this concept appears in section 4.2.2.
4.2 BEHAVIORISM
Early research into language learning (both first and second) was heavily dependent
on the dominant linguistic and psychological paradigms. In this chapter, we present
some of the background as it relates more generally to language learning, in particular
L1 learning.
TIME TO THINK …
Think about your own L1 and L2(s). What aspects do you think you transfer
from your L1 to your L2? Lexicon? Grammar? Pronunciation? Can you think of
a specific example?
4.2.1 Linguistic Background
We turn now to a consideration of some of the common assumptions about language
and language learning. Bloomfield’s classic work, Language (1933), provides the most
elaborate description of the behaviorist position with regard to language.
The typical behaviorist position is that language is speech rather than writing.
Furthermore, speech is a precondition for writing. The justification for this position came
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from the facts that (a) children without cognitive impairment learn to speak before they
learn to write; and (b) many societies have no written language, although all societies
have oral language; there are no societies with only written, but no spoken, language
systems.2
Within the behaviorist framework, speaking consists of mimicking and analogizing.
We say or hear something and analogize from it. Basic to this view is the concept of
habits. We establish a set of habits as children and continue our linguistic growth by
analogizing from what we already know or by mimicking the speech of others. But
what makes us talk and carry on conversation?
To understand the answer to this question within the behaviorist framework,
consider the following information:
Suppose that Jack and Jill are walking down a lane. Jill is hungry. She sees an
apple in a tree. She makes a sound with her larynx, tongue and lips. Jack vaults
the fence, climbs the tree, takes the apple, brings it to Jill and places it in her
hand. Jill eats the apple.
(Bloomfield, 1933, pp. 22–23)
Bloomfield divides a situation like this into three parts:
1.
2.
3.
practical events before the act of speech (e.g., hungry feeling, sight of apple);
speech event (making sound with larynx, tongue, and lips);
hearer’s response (Jack’s leaping over the fence, fetching the apple, placing it in
Jill’s hand).
Thus, in this view, speech is the practical reaction (response) to some stimulus.
Although this describes the interrelationship between speech and action, it does
not provide information about how children learn to behave in this way. Again, we turn
to the Bloomfieldian description of how language acquisition takes place. “Every child
that is born into a group acquires these habits of speech and response in the first
years of his life” (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 29).
1.
2.
The first step is, interestingly, babbling generated by a child, although
Bloomfield implies that it is somehow the imperfect repetition of something
the child has heard. Assume the child produces something similar to da.
“The sound vibrations strike the child’s ear-drums while he keeps repeating
the movements. This results in a habit: whenever a similar sound strikes
his ear, he is likely to make these same mouth-movements, repeating the
sound da. This babbling trains him to reproduce vocal sounds which strike
his ear” (pp. 29–30).
The next step is a pairing of this stimulus with the response of a native
speaker. The process depends on somebody, such as the mother, saying
something that resembles the babbling. “For instance, she says doll. When
these sounds strike the child’s ear, his habit (1) comes into play and he
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THE ROLE OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGE
3.
4.
5.
utters his nearest babbling syllable, da. We say that he is beginning to
‘imitate.’ Grown-ups seem to have observed this everywhere, for every
language seems to contain certain nursery-words which resemble a child’s
babbling—words like mama, dada: doubtless these got their vogue because
children easily learn to repeat them” (p. 30).
Bloomfield assumes that stimulus and response explain why the mother
would say doll in the first place. “She says doll when she is actually
showing or giving the infant his doll. The sight and handling of the doll
and the hearing and saying of the word doll (that is, da) occur repeatedly
together, until the child forms a new habit: the sight and feel of the doll
suffice to make him say da. He has now the use of a word. To the adults
it may not sound like any of their words, but this is due merely to its
imperfection” (p. 30).
Bloomfield then has to argue that the absence of the stimulus somehow
creates another stimulus that generates the same response. “Suppose, for
instance, that day after day the child is given his doll (and says da, da, da)
immediately after his bath. He has now a habit of saying da, da after his
bath; that is, if one day the mother forgets to give him the doll, he may
nevertheless cry da, da after his bath. ‘He is asking for his doll,’ says the
mother, and she is right, since doubtless an adult’s ‘asking for’ or ‘wanting’
things is only a more complicated type of the same situation” (p. 30).
In accordance with behaviorist theory, Bloomfield posits that correct
performance yields better results: “If he says da, da imperfectly—that is, at
great variance from the adults’ conventional form doll—then his elders are
not stimulated to give him the doll. In short, his more perfect attempts at
speech are likely to be fortified by repetition, and his failures to be wiped
out in confusion. This process never stops. At a much later stage, if he says
Daddy bringed it, he merely gets a disappointing answer such as No! You
must say ‘Daddy brought it’; but if he says Daddy brought it, he is likely
to hear the form over again: Yes, Daddy brought it, and to get a favorable
practical response” (pp. 30–31).
TIME TO THINK …
Think about Bloomfield’s statement above that it is unlikely that children ever
invent a word. Do you agree with that statement?
Think about the example of a child saying “bringed” that Bloomfield gives.
What error has the child made here and why? Can you think of other similar
examples of errors that children might make when learning their first
language?
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THE ROLE OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGE
To sum up, from a theoretical perspective, the child learns to make the stimulus–
response connection. One such connection is the uttering of the word doll (response)
when the child sees the object (stimulus); another connection is the reverse: the child
gets the doll (response) when he or she hears the word (stimulus). Thus, learning
involves the establishment of a habit by means of which these stimulus–response sets
become associated.
4.2.2 Psychological Background
The terminology used in a language-learning setting and the associated concepts (e.g.,
interference/facilitation) come from the literature on the psychology of learning. The
leading psychological school of thought of the time was behaviorism. One of the key
concepts in behaviorist theory was the notion of transfer just discussed. Transfer is a
concept that was used extensively in the first half of the 20th century and refers to
the psychological process whereby prior learning is carried over into a new learning
situation. The main claim with regard to transfer is that the learning of task A will affect
the subsequent learning of task B. What is of interest is how fast and how well you
learn something after having learned something else. Some examples will help clarify
this notion.
From a physical perspective, if someone knows how to play tennis and then picks
up a table-tennis racquet for the first time, she or he will use the knowledge/skills that
have been gained from playing tennis in this new, but related, situation. Thus, old
knowledge/skills are transferred to a new situation.
In a transfer experiment related to verbal learning, a study by Sleight (1911) was
concerned with the ability to memorize prose more easily if one has had “prior
experience” in memorizing poetry. He compared four groups of 12-year-old children
on their ability to memorize prose. Three groups had prior training on the memorization
of (a) poetry, (b) tables of measures, or (c) content of prose passages. A fourth group
had no prior training in any type of memorization. Following training, the groups were
tested on their ability to memorize prose. The question was: “To what extent does
poetry memorization, or more precisely, the skills used in poetry memorization, transfer
to memorization of prose?” (The results were nonsignificant.)
Let’s consider an example from the area of language learning. According to the
initial view of language transfer, if speakers of a particular language (in this case, Italian)
form questions by saying:
(4-1)
Mangia bene il bambino?
eats
well the baby
“Does the baby eat well?”
then those same (Italian) speakers learning English would be expected to say,
(4-2)
Eats well the baby?
when asking a question in English.
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A behaviorist notion underlying this expectation is that of habits and cumulative
learning. According to behaviorist learning theory:
Learning is a cumulative process. The more knowledge and skills an individual
acquires, the more likely it becomes that his new learning will be shaped by
his past experiences and activities. An adult rarely, if ever, learns anything
completely new; however unfamiliar the task that confronts him, the information
and habits he has built up in the past will be his point of departure. Thus transfer
of training from old to new situations is part and parcel of most, if not all,
learning. In this sense the study of transfer is coextensive with the investigation
of learning.
(Postman, 1971, p. 1019)
Although this statement is not specifically intended as a description of language
learning, we can see how the concepts can be applied to L2 learning.
A distinction noted above that is commonly made in the literature is between
positive transfer (also known as facilitation) and negative transfer (also known as
interference). These terms refer, respectively, to whether transfer results in something
correct or something incorrect, and not, as noted earlier, two distinct cognitive
processes. As an example with relation to L2 learning, if a Spanish speaker is learning
Italian, when asking a question that speaker might correctly produce
(4-3)
Mangia bene il bambino?
eats
well the baby
because, in Spanish, one uses the same word order to form questions.
(4-4)
¿Come bien
eats
well
el niño?
the baby
This is known as positive transfer. However, if that same speaker is learning English
and produces
(4-5)
Eats well the baby?
the incorrect utterance is known as negative transfer. One can see, then, that the
process is the same.
With regard to interference, there are two types noted in the literature: (a) retroactive
inhibition—where learning acts backwards on previously learned material, causing
someone to forget (language loss)—and (b) proactive inhibition—where a series of
already learned responses tends to appear in situations where a new set is required.
This is more akin to the phenomenon of L2 learning, because the first language in this
framework influences/inhibits/modifies the learning of the L2.
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Most of the literature on transfer of learning dealt with very specific laboratory
experiments. The wholesale application of this framework to situations of L2 learning
is questionable. There is little empirical evidence in support of the assumption that,
for example, forgetting outside the laboratory is a function of the same variables and
represents the same processes as those observed in formal laboratory situations. So,
although it may be that learning task A affects the subsequent learning of task B in
an experimental setting, one must question whether it is the case that this is so outside
the lab. For example, when we go into a video-game arcade and play a particular kind
of simulation game, such as driving, do we carry over what we do in that situation to
driving on the road?
These views did not go unchallenged, and, in fact, the challenges were part of
the early thinking of the field of SLA in the 1960s and 1970s. We return to this
discussion in Chapters 5 and 6.
We turn now to the work on L2 learning that was based on these behaviorist
positions. As noted earlier, Lado’s work made these theoretical underpinnings explicit.
Recall also that the major impetus for this work was pedagogical, as Fries makes clear
in his foreword to Lado’s book:
Before any of the questions of how to teach a foreign language must come the
much more important preliminary work of finding the special problems arising
out of any effort to develop a new set of language habits against a background
of different native language habits.
Learning a second language, therefore, constitutes a very different task from
learning the first language. The basic problems arise, not out of any essential
difficulty in the features of the new language themselves, but primarily out of
the special “set” created by the first language habits.
(Fries, Foreword to Lado, 1957)
Thus, underlying much work in the 1950s and 1960s was the notion of language
as habit. L2 learning was seen as the development of a new set of habits. The role
of the NL, then, took on great significance, because, in this view of language learning,
it was the major cause of lack of success in learning the L2. The habits established
in childhood interfered with the establishment of a different set of habits.
From this framework emerged contrastive analysis, because, if one is to talk about
replacing a set of habits (let’s say, the habits of English) with another set of habits
(let’s say, those of Italian), valid descriptions are needed, comparing the “rules” of the
two languages.3
4.3 CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS HYPOTHESIS
What are the tenets of contrastive analysis? Contrastive analysis is a way of comparing
languages in order to determine potential errors for the ultimate purpose of isolating
what needs to be learned and what does not need to be learned in an L2 learning
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situation. As Lado detailed, one does a structure-by-structure comparison of the sound
system, morphological system, syntactic system, and even the cultural system of two
languages for the purpose of discovering similarities and differences. The ultimate goal
is to predict areas that will be either easy or difficult for learners.
It is assumed that learners tend to transfer the habits of their native language
structure to the foreign language and it is also assumed that this is the major source
of difficulty or ease in learning the structure of a foreign language. Those structures
that are similar will be easy to learn, because they will be transferred and may function
satisfactorily in the foreign language. Those structures that are different will be difficult,
because, when transferred, they will not function satisfactorily in the foreign language
and will therefore have to be changed (Lado, 1957, p. 59).
The pedagogical materials that resulted from contrastive analyses were based on
a number of assumptions, some of which have been discussed earlier in this chapter:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Contrastive analysis is based on a theory of language that claims that language
is habit and that language learning involves the establishment of a new set of
habits.
The major source of error in the production and/or reception of an L2 is the native
language.
One can account for errors by considering differences between the L1 and
the L2.
A corollary to item 3 is that, the greater the differences, the more errors will occur.
What one has to do in learning an L2 is learn the differences. Similarities can be
safely ignored, as no new learning is involved. In other words, what is dissimilar
between two languages is what must be learned.
Difficulty and ease in learning are determined, respectively, by differences and
similarities between the two languages being contrasted.
There were two positions that developed with regard to the Contrastive Analysis
Hypothesis (CAH) framework. These were variously known as the a priori versus the
a posteriori view, the strong versus weak view, and the predictive versus explanatory
view. In the strong view, it was maintained that one could make predictions about
learning and, hence, about the success of language-teaching materials based on a
comparison between two languages. The weak version starts with an analysis of
learners’ recurring errors. In other words, it begins with what learners do and then
attempts to account for those errors on the basis of NL–TL differences. The weak
version, which came to be part of error analysis, gained credence largely owing to the
failure of predictive contrastive analysis. The important contribution of the former
approach to learner data (i.e., error analysis) was the emphasis it placed on learners
themselves, the forms they produced, and the strategies they used to arrive at their
IL forms.
Those arguing against the strong version of contrastive analysis were quick to
point out the many areas where the predictions made were not borne out in actual
learner production (see examples 4-8–4-9).
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However, there were other criticisms as well. Perhaps the most serious difficulty,
and one that ultimately led to the demise of contrastive analysis, a hypothesis that
assumed that the NL was the driving force of L2 learning, was its theoretical
underpinnings. In the 1960s, the behaviorist theory of language and language learning
was challenged. Language came to be seen in terms of structured rules instead of
habits. Learning was viewed not as imitation but as active rule formation (see Chapter
5 for details).
The recognition of the inadequacies of a behaviorist theory of language had
important implications for SLA, for, if children were not imitators and were not influenced
in a significant way by reinforcement as they learned language, then perhaps L2 learners
were not either. This became clear when researchers began to look at the errors that
learners made. Similar to data from child language acquisition, L2 learner data reflected
errors that went beyond those in the surrounding speech and, importantly, beyond
those in the NL. For example, it is not uncommon for beginning L2 learners to produce
an utterance such as (4-6), in which the learner attempts to impose regularity on an
irregular verb:
(4-6)
He comed yesterday.
There was no way to account for this fact within a theory based primarily on a learner
transferring forms from the NL to the TL.
Not only did errors occur that had not been predicted by the theory, but also
there was evidence that predicted errors did not occur. That is, the theory did not
accurately predict what was happening in nonnative speech.
Dušková (1984) presents data from Czech speakers learning English and Russian.
She found that those learning English did not transfer bound morphemes, whereas
the Czech learners of Russian did. Within a theory based on the transference of NL
forms, this could not be explained, for why should transfer occur in one instance, but
not in another?
Yet another example is given by Zobl (1980). In data from French speakers
learning English and English speakers learning French, Zobl found inconsistencies in
actual error production. In French, object pronouns precede the verb, as in (4-7).
(4-7)
Je les vois.
I them see
“I see them.”
In English, object pronouns follow the verb. However, the following facts emerge in
learner data:
(4-8)
By French learners of English:
I see them. (produced)
*I them see. (not produced)
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(4-9)
By English learners of French (Ervin-Tripp, 1974, p. 119; Selinker, Swain,
& Dumas, 1975, p. 145) (none of these is possible in French):
(a) Je vois elle.
I see them.
(b) Le chien a mangé les.
The dog has eaten them.
(c) Il veut les encore.
He wants them still.
In other words, French learners of English never prepose the object pronoun.
Rather, they correctly follow English word order, which in this case is in violation of
French word order. With English speakers, the reverse occurs: They follow the NL
word order. If the “habits” of one’s native language are the driving force, then why
should they be operative in one direction, but not the other?4
Yet another criticism of the role of contrastive analysis had to do with the concept
of difficulty. Recall that a fundamental tenet of the CAH was that differences signified
difficulty, and that similarity signified ease. Difficulty in this view was equated with errors.
If a learner produced an error, or errors, this was a signal that the learner was having
difficulty with a particular structure or sound.
But what actually constitutes a sign of difficulty? Consider the following example
from Kellerman (1987, p. 82), in which a student wrote:
(4-10) But in that moment it was 6:00.
In a conversation with the student, the teacher wanted her to comment on her use
of the preposition in. The student insisted that the correct form was in, but questioned
whether it should be it was 6:00 or it had been 6:00.
If we assume the dictionary definition of difficulty, which is “hard to do, make, or
carry out,” then it becomes difficult to apply this concept to the common equation of
error with difficulty. Clearly, the learner was having difficulty in the sense of struggling
with something that was hard for her to do, but in this case the struggle was with tense
usage, even though there was no error reflecting that difficulty. On the other hand,
there was no doubt in her mind about the correctness of the preposition. From her
perspective, that was not an area of difficulty, despite the overt error. So, difficulty cannot
be unilaterally equated with errors, although (within the CAH) errors are the predicted
result of linguistic differences. Differences are based on formal descriptions of linguistic
units—those selected by a linguist, a teacher, or a textbook writer. It is not a real measure
of difficulty. To equate difference with difficulty attributes a psycholinguistic explanation
to a linguistic description. It is a confusion of the product (a linguist’s description) with
the process (a learner’s struggle with the second language).
We have mentioned some of the problems with assuming the validity of the
CAH as Lado (1957) stated it. However, this discussion should not be interpreted
as suggesting that there is no role for the NL in SLA, for this is clearly not the case.
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What it does suggest is that there are other factors that affect L2 development, and
that the role of the native language is far more complex than the simple one-to-one
correspondence implied by the early version of the CAH.
Language learning is not just a matter of “linguistic hiccups” from NL to TL (as
Sharwood Smith, 1978, noted [cited in Kellerman, 1979]). There are other factors
that may influence the process of acquisition, such as innate principles of language,
attitude, motivation, aptitude, age, other languages known; topics to be treated in
subsequent chapters. For the present, suffice it to say that the acquisition of an L2 is
far too complex a phenomenon to be reduced to a single explanation.
Two final points need to be made with regard to the significance of contrastive
analysis and to Lado’s pioneering work. First, it is an oversimplification to think that
comparing two languages is a straightforward comparison of structures. Lado, in his
detailed treatment, elaborated on ways in which languages might differ. After a
discussion of ways in which different languages expressed similar meanings, Lado
(1957, pp. 63–64) stated:
In the above cases we assumed that the meanings signaled in the two languages
were in some way equivalent even if not identical. We went so far as to call
them “same.” The difficulty in such cases depended on differences in the formal
devices used in the two languages to signal the “same” meanings. We now turn
to cases in which a grammatical meaning in one of the languages cannot be
considered the same as any grammatical meaning in the other language.
Recognition of the complexity of comparing languages became apparent quite
early, particularly in work such as that of Stockwell et al. (1965a, 1965b), who, rather
than dichotomize the results of language comparison into easy and difficult and
therefore dichotomize the needs of learning into a yes/no position, established a
Hierarchy of Difficulty and, by implication, a hierarchy of learning. Included in this
hierarchy are different ways in which languages can differ.
For example, in their framework, the most difficult category is that in which there
is differentiation: The native language has one form, whereas the target language
has two. According to this view, an English speaker learning Italian (or Spanish or
French) would find the translation equivalent of the verb to know difficult, because, in
Italian, there are two possibilities: sapere, meaning to know a fact, to have knowledge
of something, or to know how to do something; and conoscere, meaning to be familiar
or acquainted with someone. Second and third types of differences between languages
occur when there is a category present in language X and absent in language Y. As
an example, consider the English article system. Because Japanese does not have
articles, a Japanese learner of English must learn a new category. An example of the
third type is an English learner of Japanese where there is an absent category (i.e.,
no articles). A fourth difference is found in situations in which the opposite of
differentiation occurs: that is, coalescing (e.g., an Italian speaker learning the English
words to know). Finally, correspondence occurs when two forms are used in roughly
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THE ROLE OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGE
TABLE 4.1 Hierarchy of Difficulty (Source: Adapted from Stockwell, Bowen &
Martin, 1965a, 1965b.)
Category
Example
Differentiation
English L1, Italian L2: to know versus sapere/conoscere
New category
Japanese L1, English L2: article system
Absent category
English L1, Japanese L2: article system
Coalescing
Italian L1, English L2: the verb to know
Correspondence
English L1, Italian L2: plurality
the same way (e.g., plurality in English and Italian). The hierarchy of these differences
reveals the complexity of cross-linguistic comparisons (Table 4.1).
A second point concerning the significance of the CAH has to do with the
importance of empirical validation and the limitations that Lado himself attributed to
his work. As we discussed earlier, part of the criticism leveled against contrastive
analysis was empirical: Not all actually occurring errors were predicted; not all predicted
errors occurred. The lack of empirical basis was, in fact, noted by Lado (1957, p. 72):
Necessity of Validating the Results of the Theoretical Comparative Analysis
The list of problems resulting from the comparison of the foreign language with
the native language will be a most significant list for teaching, testing, research,
and understanding. Yet it must be considered a list of hypothetical problems
until final validation is achieved by checking it against the actual speech of
students. This final check will show in some instances that a problem was not
adequately analyzed and may be more of a problem than predicted. In this
kind of validation we must keep in mind of course that not all the speakers of
a language will have exactly the same amount of difficulty with each problem.
. . . The problem will nevertheless prove quite stable and predictable for each
language background.
Historically, Lado’s hypothesis inspired a generation of L2 researchers to conduct
linguistic field work, that is, to check hypothetical contrastive analysis statements
against the actual speech of language learners. This much-cited passage presages
TIME TO THINK …
Think about your L1 and your L2. Can you come up with an example of each
category of the Hierarchy of Difficulty for your L1 and L2? Would you agree
with the hierarchy in terms of whether the example in the category of
differentiation is more difficult than the example in the category of new
category, etc.?
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the current acceptance of the centrality of individual variation. One way of fulfilling
Lado’s injunction to check hypothetical problems against actual learner production
was to refocus on learner errors, from which developed an approach called error
analysis.
4.4 ERROR ANALYSIS
What is error analysis? As the name suggests, it is a type of linguistic analysis that
focuses on the errors learners make. Unlike contrastive analysis (in either its weak or
its strong form), the comparison made is between the errors a learner makes in
producing the TL and t
