Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and Interlanguage: Three Phases of

One Goal
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Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and Interlanguage: Three Phases of
One Goal

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ContrastiveAnalysis,ErrorAnalysisandInterlanguage:ThreePhasesofOneGoal
Introduction
The mistakes or "errors" that students make in the process of learning asec
ond or foreign language (target language, or TL, hereafter) have
alwaysbeen a cause of much concern to the teachers and textbook
writers alike
1

. This concern is reflected not onl

y in the way writers of pedagogic
algrammars draw attention to the
potential "pitfalls" in the TL, but
also in
them a n y l i s t s o f " c o m m o
n errors" prepared by e
xperienced teachers.
2
Asystematic approach to the problem
of errors, in an effort to account for
theirlinguistic and psychological
origin, regularity, predictability,
variability, etc.is, however,
relatively recent. The "one
goal" mentioned in the title
of thischapter refers to the
attempt to facilitate the
process of TL learning
(andt e a c h i n g ) b y s t u d y i
ng the phenomenon of "
errors" within a scienti
f i c framework that is consistent
with both linguistic theory and
learning theory.In so far as the three
areas of research under review have
this as one of their

2
primary goals, if not the main goal, they may be said to
constitute three phases of one goal.
The "Outreach" of the Areas of Research
This is not to imply, of course, that the areas of research mentioned in thet
itle have this pedagogical goal as their qnly concern. On the contrary,
eachof the three fields of study has been claimed to have important
contributionsto make in a variety of related areas. Contrastive Analysis
(CA hereafter) isclaimed to be central to all linguistic research-in developing a
general theoryof language based on the discovery of the "universals"
of language, in the study of diachronic change and of dialectal variation,
in longitudinal studiesof language acquisition, as well as in interlingual
translation
3
(see
Ferguson1 9 6 8 ) . E r r o r A n a l y s i s ( E A , h e r e a f t e r ) , i t i s c l a i m e d
, is significant for thei n s i g h t s i t p r o v i d e s i n t o t h e s t r a
t e g i e s e m p l o y e d i n s e c o n d l a n g u a g e acquisition, and in turn
into the process of language learning in general (seeCorder 1967). The
study of Interlanguage (IL, hereafter), it is claimed, has implications
for theories of language contact, language change and languageacquisition, besides
its usefulness in describing ,special language types suchas immigrant speech,
non-standard dialects, non-native varieties of languagea n d t h e l a n g u a g e o f
a p h a s i c s a n d o f p o e t r y, a m o n g o t h e r s ( s e e
Nemser1971a; Richards 1972; Corder 1971a). Despite thes
e m a n y a n d v a r i e d claims, it is still correct, however, to say that the primary goal
of all the threeareas of research has been to facilitate TL learning by
providing insights intothe nature of the learner's performance.

3
In addition to the diversity of
claims regarding their
applications,
CA,E A a n d I L a l s o d i f f e r
from one another in a num
ber of respects-in
theirtheoretical assumptio
ns, methodologies, the nat
u r e a n d s c o p e o f d a t a consi
dered relevant in each area, the
kind of insights they provide into
thenature of TL learning, and
in the implications of the
studies carried out for practical
classroom teaching and materials
preparation.It is the purpose of this
chapter to present a "state of the
art" in each f these areas of
research from the point of
view of the "one goal"
explained above. In particular, with
respect to each field of study, we shall
examine
thecurrent trends in theory, m
ethodology, claims and empir
ical validations t h e r e o f a n d i
ts contribution to TL teac

h i n g . T h e f o l l o w i n g d i s c u s s i o n i s organized in four parts-the first,

second and third parts deal with CA, EA andIL respectively and the last
part is the conclusion. There will be a good dealof overlap among the sections,
but this is unavoidable given the fact that thethree fields have developed at times
as rivals, and as complementary to oneanother at other times.
Contrastive Analysis
Although several prominent linguists and pioneers i
n t h e f i e l d o f T L pedagogy, including Henry Sweet, Harold Palmer
and Otto Jespersen, werewell aware of the "pull of the mother tongue" in
learning a TL, it was CharlesC. Fries who firmly established contrastive

linguistic analysis as an
integralcomponent of the
methodology of TL teaching.
4
Declaring that the
most e f f e c t i v e m a t e r i a l s
(for foreign language t
eaching) are based upo
n a