Contrastive analysis is a branch of applied linguistics that compares two languages to identify their structural differences and similarities. This can help predict where learners may have difficulties when learning a new language. Contrastive analysis is considered an "interlanguage study" that examines how a monolingual learner becomes bilingual. It focuses on incipient bilingualism rather than established bilingualism. The goal of contrastive analysis is to understand and facilitate the process by which a learner acquires a new language by analyzing the differences between their native language and the target language.

1. Contrastive Analysis
By :
Zahra Aamir Kamil .

2. What is contrastive analysis ?

3. The term 'linguist' can refer to the following:
A person who is professionally engaged in the study and teaching of
one or more languages.
A polyglot, who might work as a translator or interpreter; someone
interested in 'language families' or language history.

4. Such a classification will involve three dimensions:
 Sampson pointed out two approaches, being the generalist and the particularist .
"On the one hand, linguists treat individual languages: English, French, Chinese,
and so on. On the other hand, they consider the general phenomenon of human
language of which particular languages are examples. Neither of these approaches
is superior to the other.
 Linguists are those who choose to study one, or each, language in isolation, or
those whose ambition and methods are comparative. The former are concerned
to discover and specify the immanent 'genius' of the particular language which
makes it unlike any other language.

5. Whereas the comparativist proceeds from the assumption that while
every language may have its individuality, all languages have enough in
common for them to be compared and classified into types. This
approach, called 'linguistic typology’

6.  De Saussure distinguishes between "two sciences of language":
diachronic as opposed to synchronic. "Every thing that relates to the
static side of our science is synchronic: everything that has to do
with evolution is diachronic.
 Typology is synchronic in that languages are grouped according to
their present-day characteristics.
 The diachronic parallel to typology is what is known as philology.

7.  CA is neither generalist nor Particularist, but somewhere
intermediate on a scale between the two extremes. Likewise,
CA is as interested in the inherent genius of the language
under as it is in the comparability of languages.
 CA is a hybrid linguistic enterprise aimed at producing
inverted two valued typologies and founded on the
assumption that languages can be compared.

8.  CA as Interlanguage Study
 Interlanguage is a branch of linguistics, which is primarily concerned
with emergence of languages rather than with the finished product.
 CA belongs to interlanguage study, and since 'emergence' is an
evolutionary concept ,
 CA is diachronic rather than synchronic in orientation, but in a slightly
different sense of the term than that intended by De Saussure.

9.  There are thus three branches of two-
valued interlingual linguistics: translation
theory which is concerned with the
processes of text conversion; error analysis;
and contrastive analysis these last two
having as the object of enquiry how a
monolingual learns to be bilingual.

10.  CA as pure or Applied linguistics
 Applied linguistics is a branch of linguistics where the primary
concern is the application of linguistic theories, methods and
findings to the elucidation of language problems which have arisen
in other areas of experience (Crystal, 2008).
 CA is assigned to applied linguistics for two reasons: first, that it is
different from 'pure' linguistics in drawing on other scientific
disciplines; and secondly, because linguistics is the science it draws
most heavily upon.

11.  CA relies very strongly on psychology; it is thus assigned to a
science of applied linguistics for two reasons:
a) first, that it is different from 'pure' linguistics in drawing on other
scientific disciplines.
b) secondly, because linguistics is the science it draws most heavily
upon.

12.  It is an undeniable fact, however, that 'pure' linguists,
especially during the last decade, have been practicing
something very much akin to CA.
 Their interests are not comparative, contrastive, or typological,
but lie in the universals of language to achieve the economy
referred to by Chomsky, (1965).
 However, what is central to our study is that CA is component
of applied linguistics, or at least the most obvious component.

13. The answer to the question is CA a form of 'pure' or of
'applied' linguistics? is of both, but while 'pure' CA is only a
peripheral enterprise in pure linguistics. it is a central concern
of applied linguistics.

14.  CA and Bilingualism
 Bilingualism known as the possession of two languages. It's
not the study of individual single languages nor of
language in general.
 Bilingualism refers to the possession of two languages by an
individual or society, whereas CA is concerned with how a
monolingual becomes bilingual: ‘bilingualisation’. We can call this
difference extant bilingualism incipient bilingualism

15.  If it is the possession of two languages by a single community we
speak of societal bilingualism.
 If we study the person who has competence in two languages we
are dealing with individual bilingualism: CA's concern is with this
second category.

16.  CA is concerned with the effects exerted by the NL on the language
being learnt. Interlinguistically, the processes that bring about
language change in contact situations spanning generations are very
similar to those processes determining an individual's acquisition of a
FL in a time-span of weeks.
 The historical stages in the pidginisation and creolization of
languages are similar to those a FL learner undergoes.
 Initially there is a process of simplification involving loss of inflections,
of the copula, and of function words like articles, after which there
sets in a process of gradual complication