CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS, ERROR ANALYSIS AND INTERLANGUAGE IN RELATION TO ADULT CHINESE SPEAKERS LEARNING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

The more recent view of language and language learning offered by generative grammar has called into question the contrastive analysis hypothesis. The purpose of this study is to gather empirical evidence through an error analysis of the interlanguage of speakers of a source language that is fundamentally different from the target language being learned, namely, speakers of Chinese learning English as a second language (ESL). Four syntactic areas in English are found to have major contrasts with Chinese and four levels of difficulty are postulated. On the basis of the investigator's knowledge and experience as an ESL learner as well as an ESL teacher and on the basis of current theoretical insights, it is hypothesized (1) that, to adult Chinese speakers, the learning of a completely unrelated language like English presents numerous difficulties traceable to interference from Chinese; (2) that this interference from the source language decreases with levels of learning; (3) that in the four syntactic areas contrasted, English verbs, articles, prepositions and word order present a descending order of difficulty; and (4) that interference from the target language increases with levels of learning.; These hypotheses were tested against data collected by an uncontrolled elicitation technique. The data were examined through an error analysis of the linguistic productions of nine Chinese ESL students who represent three levels of learning. The results of a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the errors supported hypotheses (1), (2) and (4) in that, for the sample under investigation, the interlingual interference did present numerous difficulties, and that the learners' interlingual errors did increase while their intralingual errors increased with levels of learning. Hypothesis (3) was partially substantiated in that while the verb was the most and word order was the least problematic area, the article and the preposition showed little difference in the degree of difficulty.; In relation to the Chinese ESL students investigated, the above results indicate the following: (1) An a priori contrastive analysis proves valuable in locating and explaining problem areas. The phenomenon of objective linguistic difficulty is real and must be recognized in a second language learning theory. (2) An a posteriori error analysis provides data for verifying contrastive analysis and supplements it by revealing errors not predicted. Contrastive analysis and error analysis have to be jointly considered and employed for a better understanding and a more efficient treatment of difficulties in second language learning. (3) Clear inter- and intralingual errors indicate that first language transfer, overgeneralization and rule simplification are the learning strategies employed. (4) There is variability in the interlanguage of both individuals and groups. Systematicity in the interlanguage lies in the recurring patterns of inter- and intralingual errors found in the linguistic productions.; While the data collected did support the main hypotheses propounded, the results are to be interpreted in terms of the strictly defined population as well as the relatively small sample used. The findings, though limited in generalizability, have practical significance and they warrant further research.; For further research, a replication of this study is suggested, prefereably by a research team, on a larger scale and with inferential statistics. In general, more contrastive error analysis studies on a larger scale involving more languages, typologically related as well as unrelated, and in diverse learning contexts and situations, are desirable so that more cumulative data-based evidence will pave the way for the foundation of a viable theory of second language learning and teaching, which is the concern and preoccupation of current research in applied linguistics.