This document discusses microlinguistics and contrastive analysis. It defines microlinguistics as focusing on phonology, morphology, and syntax. It then discusses different aspects of contrastive analysis including: 1) Comparing languages through the same descriptive model and comparing abstract elements rather than concrete realizations. 2) Conducting grammatical contrastive analysis by assembling data from both languages and formulating contrasts. 3) Conducting phonological contrastive analysis by comparing sound inventories, allophones, and distribution restrictions between languages. 4) Examining lexical contrasts by comparing morphological, syntactic, and semantic specifications of words between languages.

1. Microliguistic
Contrastive Analysis
By :
Zahra Aamir Kamil

2. What is microlinguistics?
Microlinguistics is a subfield of macrolinguistics, whose
primary subject-matter is phonology, morphology and syntax
(Crystal, 2008).
James describes the principle of CA, where he says, analyzing
the whole language is neither feasible nor desirable because
linguistics is not yet in position to describe a language as a whole.
There are tries to make globally such as the Chicago series. James
supports the idea of analyzing two selected languages as a whole
rather than global attempt.

4. Description:
“The minimum requirement of parallel description is that the two languages
be described through the same model of description.” The descriptions while
being parallel, would be equal.
Comparison:
We compare (types) rather than (tokens) which means that CA compares
abstract elements rather than their concrete realisations.

5. Grammatical contrastive analysis
Grammatical contrastive analysis are carried out on comparable systems of the
two languages concerned.
Practicing this type of analysis needs steps as follows:
a. Assemble the data exhibiting the relevant system in each language.
b. For each language, state the realisations of each grammatical category
pertinent to the CA being done.
c. Supplement the data.
d. Formulate the contrasts which have been identified by the analyses of
steps b and c.

6. Phonological contrastive analysis
Contrastive phonetics and phonology
The phonetician is concerned with three types of
physical reality who he studies the sounds of
language:
-Articulatory phonetics
-Acoustic phonetics
-Auditory phonetics
There are two approaches to phonetics CA:
•Physiological
•Physical

7. The physiological approach is guaranteed by the tact that the
world languages do tend to employ sounds produced by a limited
number of combinations of articulatory features.
The physical approach is associated with the acoustic properties of
speech sounds. Like comparing the aspirated (P) in English and
French.
When we are talking about allophones, we are no longer
concerned with physical or physiological reality, but with mental
reality.

8. Contrastive Sound System
Steps of contrasting sound systems
Inventories the phoneme of L1 and L2.
State the allophones of each phoneme of L1 and
L2.
State the distributional restrictions on the
allophones and phonemes of L1 and L2.

9. Contrastive lexicology
Second language learning is a matter of the learner,
learning the lexical equivalents of L2 corresponding to his
L1 words.
John Lyons says that “the language of a particular society
is an integral part of its culture, and .. The lexical
distinctions drown by each language will tend to reflect
the culturally important features of objects in situations
and activities in the society in which the language
operates”.

10. The prior analysis of the lexicons will be considered as a
combination of three specifications:
-Morphological specification
-Syntactic specification
-Semantic specification

11. Semantic component
Lexemes can be shown to be composed of semantic features or
components.
A clear account of components and how they are identified is
given in Lyons in considering these words in English:
•man - woman - child
•bull - cow - calf
Each lexeme is a complex of such components (lamb) for example
is specifiable as (+ young) corresponding to the dictionary
definition of the item ( young sheep).

12. -LEXICAL DEVICES
i) He will give you the name of one or two suitable doctors.
ii) Should there be any hitch, ask to speak to the physician-in-chief.
iii) If you need a doctor for your child in a strange town, find the
name of the best hospital.
iv) The physician-in-chief will in all probability not be a children's
specialist.
v) Telephone and ask for the name of a pediatrician on the staff.

13. GRAMMATICAL DEVICES
Halliday and Hassan (1976, Cohesion in English) identify four
major grammatical means:
a) REFERENCE:
b) ELLIPSIS
c) COMPARISON:
d) PARALLEL STRUCTURE

14. Grammatical CA
James said that grammatical analysis concerns itself with types
rather than with their physical manifestations or tokens. In other
words, the grammarian studies the functional patterning of classes
of linguistic units, not individual words and morphemes as physical
entities.
Comparison steps;
STEP 1: Assemble the data exhibiting the relevant systems in each

16. STEP 2: For each language, state the realizations of each
grammatical category pertinent to the CA being done.
STEP 3; Supplement the data: since our interest has been aroused
for the ways (in which feminine head nouns in such sentences in
Portuguese influence the forms of the article and adjective, we
add two further sentences to our corpus, together with their
translation equivalents).
STEP 4: Formulate the contrasts which have been identified by
the analyses of Steps 2 and 3.

17. Phonological CA
Contrastive Phonetics and Phonology
The phonetician is concerned with three types of physical reality when he studies the
sounds of language:
i) "He is interested in the way in which the air is set in motion, in the movement of the
speech organs .... This whole area of interest is generally known as articulatory phonetics"
(0' Connor, 1973: 16).
ii) "He is interested in the way in which the air vibrates between the mouth of the speaker
and the ear of the listener. . .. This is the domain of acoustic phonetics" (ibid. ) .
iii) "He is interested in the hearing process... in the sensation of hearing, which is brain
activity .. .. This is the domain of auditory phonetics." (ibid.).

18. A division of the phonetic sciences into these two main branches immediately poses a problem for the
contrastivist: is he to do Contrastive Phonetics or Contrastive Phonology? involve him in making
detailed descriptions of the sounds of a pair of languages and then somehow equating certain of these
sounds interlingually for purposes of comparison.
 The first approach to phonetics CA, therefore, is in the comparison of L1 and L2 sounds with a
shared articulatory basis.
 The second approach is physical rather than physiological, and is associated with the acoustic
properties of speech sounds.
The third type of phonetics is auditory phonetics: it is concerned with what 'message' the ear
transmits to the brain. To take a simple unilingual example: it can be shown that the first and second
consonantal segments in English /pit/ and /spit/ respectively are different: in the former /p/is aspirated,
but not in the latter.
Nevertheless, the English ear does not send to the English brain any instruction to register this
phonetic difference: auditorily, and mentally, [p] and [p’] are perceived as the same phoneme /p/.
Notice that we are now speaking of two allophones being tokens of the same type, as having equal
functions in the economy of English.