Contrastive Linguistics

contributed by Gabriel Rise

What is contrastive linguistics? According to the definition, it is an applied science of general linguistics which, in turn, is the study of language. It studies the components of language and how they behave. The study includes phonetics, the sound system; morphology, the word structure; lexicon, the vocabulary; syntax, the sentence and phrase structure; and semantics, the word and sentence meaning. It also studies pragmatics, the language use in context.

Applied Linguistics is not limited to contrastive linguistics; there are other applied sciences as well, among which is the comparative linguistics.

While comparative linguistics compares two languages of the same origin or two dialects of the same language, contrastive linguistics attempts to identify the similarities and the differences between two or more languages that come from different origins.

Comparative linguistics may compare English to German, Arabic to Hebrew, or the Old English of Beowulf to the Middle English of Chaucer. On the other hand, contrastive linguistics may explore English and Arabic in order to detect the similarity and difference of their characteristics.

There is a lot in common between English and German, as well as the Semitic languages Arabic and Hebrew. For instance, the English "My name is..." harmonizes with the German "Mein Name ist..." and the Arabic "????" correspond to the Hebrew "khamaish".

There are more differences between English and Arabic than of similarities; while Arabic uses definite article with abstract nouns as in " ??????", English abstract nouns do not include neither definite nor indefinite articles as in "We must strive to achieve peace"

Contrastive linguistics assists teachers in developing course materials for language teaching and helps translators strengthen and widen their knowledge about both source language and the target language. It also helps learners of foreign language remedy and avoids the common errors arising from the influence of the mother tongue.

The more Arabic speakers studying English become aware of the differences and similarities of the two languages, the more competent English speakers and translators they will be.

About the Author:

Gabriel Rise has been working at essay writing service for several years.You can ask her about customer service concerning the custom essay or dissertationthat you have.

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