LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 8 August 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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Contrastive Study of English and Standard Urdu-Hindi Languages

Md. Motiur Rahman, Ph.D.

Abstract

The present paper attempts to present a contrastive analysis of English and Urdu-Hindi Languages. Contrastive analysis plays a very significant role in second language learning and teaching. Language learning involves the “transfer of habits” of the native language. It is necessary for the programme planners, material producers and language instructors to study and understand the similarities and differences between source and target languages.

This study makes a contrastive analysis of English and Urdu-Hindi languages at various levels of Phonological, morphological and syntactic such as sound pattern, allophonic variation, consonant clusters, Syllabic Structure, plural formation of word and morphological processes and also syntactic structures of sentences.

Introduction

According to Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1999), a contrastive analysis describes the structural differences and similarities of two or more languages. As an area of enquiry, contrastive Analysis is concerned with the principles and uses of such descriptions (Johnson, K. & Johnson, Helen, 1999:203). Crystal (1992) has defined as Contrastive Analysis or Contrastive Linguistics as the identification of points of structural similarity and difference between two languages (Crystal, 1992:83).

When the child learns his native language, he develops his native language behaviour. Gradually this becomes stronger and stronger. In learning the second language, the learner is influenced very much by his native language behaviour. Where the structure of two languages is the same, no difficulty is anticipated. Where the structure of the second language differs from the native language, we can expect both difficulties on learning and error in performance.

The bigger the difference between the languages, the greater the difficulties will be in learning a second language. Learning a language then is visualized essentially learning a process to overcome these difficulties. In other words, learning a second language means changing one?s native language behaviour to that of the speaking of the target language. Here the contrastive analysis will be useful. It will discover the differences between languages and will predict the difficulties that the learner will have. Teaching will then focus on those points where there are structural differences; this in turn determines what the learner has to learn and what the teacher has to teach.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Md. Motiur Rahman, Ph.D.
Department of Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh 202002
Uttar Pradesh
India
rahman.res@gmail.com
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