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FOR ONLINE LEARNING COURSES

University of Da Nang
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Unit 3 TERTIUM COMPARATIONIS

& PROCEDURES OF CA

FOR ONLINE LEARNING COURSES

University of Da Nang
LEARNING OUTCOMES OF THE LESSON

At the completion of this chapter, students are

expected to be able to
•EXPLAIN the basic concepts of CA such as
Tertium Comparationis (TC)
•NAME types of TC at different levels of linguistics
•DESCRIBE steps of CA procedures
UNIT 3 TERTIUM COMPARATIONIS & PROCEDURES OF CA
Tertium comparationis:
• Goodbye, England's rose.
(Elton John on the death of Princess Diana)
Objects of comparison: Diana; roses
Tertium comparationis: beauty

- a common platform of reference enabling the

process of contrastive analysis
-“third term of a comparison”
C

A ≡ B
E.g. Objects can be compared via different features ->
similar in some respects but
different in others
– A square & a rectangle:
•Same number of angles;
•Different side lengths
– Box A & Box B: Volume (A > B); Weight (B < A)
Joseph Vendryes:
under the variety, languages share common attributes ->
Foundation for general linguistics
- remains invariant in translation or in CA which forms the
basis for the comparison
•Equivalence:
a contrastive relation referring to the relative
sameness in meaning
'The Fault In Our Stars’ ≡ Lỗi tại Duyên số
The 'Stars' from the title refers to fate.
Common platform: Cultural belief about the relationship
between the stars and human problems
•James (1980):
•Translation equivalence best TC for CA
- Translation equivalence = semantic equivalence +
pragmatic equivalence (contextual equivalence)
- Formal equivalence is incomplete for CA
•He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
silver spoon is synonymous with wealth, especially
inherited wealth
•It killed me.
referred to made a very strong impression upon the
reader according to different contexts
•The story "killed" the reader with laughter
•The story brought to mind painful thoughts, which
"killed" in an emotional sense
TC at different levels of linguistics:
• Phonetics & phonology:
Position/Manner articulation; Suprasegmental units;
distinctive features
E.g. /p/ & /b/ in English vs. Vietnamese
• Lexis:
mental images in the surrounding world
E.g. words naming colours in English vs. Vietnamese
• Grammar:
corresponding structures & meaning
E.g. Existential sentence in English vs. Vietnamese
• Pragmatics:
Language functions
E.g. act of greeting in English vs. Vietnamese
III. Types of TC
2-texts [+/-trans]: data as corpus for CA
1) Statistical equivalence (for quantitative CSs)
- translational version of structures in L1 & L2 with a
highest frequency
- semantic/pragmatic equivalent with almost the same
frequency
2) Translational equivalence:
- 2-texts [+trans]: data for qualitative CS
- 2-texts [-trans]: data for qualitative CS
3) System equivalence (for CS of systems):
- equiv. established on paradigmatic + syntagmatic axis
- examine members of system + their collocation
4) Semanto-syntactic equivalence (for CS of
construction):
- on the similar basis of deep structure as semantic
structure, as input for the grammatical derivation
5) Rule equivalence (for CS of rules):
- based on comparison of constructions on which these
rules operate
- interpreted in the view of Transformation-Generative
Grammar: Phrase Structure Rules, Transformational
Rules, e.g. input & output of Wh-question vs. Vmese equi
6) Equivalents in objects:
objects or entities outside language expressed by
vocabylary in L1 & L2, e.g. foods, festivals in English
culture vs. Vietnamese
7) Pragmatic equivalents (for CS of pragmatics,
stylistics or socio-linguistics):
- relations between texts of two different languages which
ellicit from the language user the maximally similar
cognitive effects:
+ functions of a unit, construction, structure
+ how these linguistic devices behave in speech
acts in each speech community
- formal equivalences are the least important
- comparative devices of languages: significant only if
they have a function that is comparable to each other
Function: English Vietnamese
Greeting Good morning!/ Anh đi đâu đấy?/
Hello! … Đang ăn cơm hả? …
IV. Procedures of CA
4 Steps in Contrasting Two Language Systems
Description Juxtapositio Comparison Prediction
n
1. Description:
• Selection & preliminary characterization of items under
comparison
• Conducted within the same framework of language-
independent theoretical model
1-The selected materials will be linguistically described.
2- Languages should be described within the same theory
3- Structural phonology for describing the sound systems
4- No specific theory for describing syntax & morphology
5-The focus is on differences, not similarities
• 2 approach for description of CA:
Bilateral/unilateral CA
+ Bilateral CA:
Describe L1 and L2 data independently
Use etalon language form which is model-
neutral
 Features of

current relevance
Etalon Lang.

completed
Speaker

anterior
on foot
female

arrival
Language CA
Sentence (E) + - + - + + -
I
have arrived
Sentence (R) + + + + - + +
Ja
Unfavorable points of bilateral CA:
- No need for the description of L1 & L2 to be equally
exhaustive
- Too much work is done for comparison
- impossible without the balance in means or ways of
expressing categories of the linguistic units in L1 and L2
E.g. Intonation: [+] in English but [-] in Vietnamese
a descriptive imbalance, in favour of the L2
more concerned with what the learner does with
the L2
E.g. The realizations/expressions of Possessive
meanings of Vietnamese in English
The unilateral CA can be done with 2 phases:
The first phase:
Establish the subsystem for CA in Language 1
E.g. possessive category in Vietnamese “tình yêu của
Lan”
The second phase:
List out the language means in Language 2
E.g. Vietnamese English
tình yêu của Lan the love of Lan
Lan’s love
2. Juxtaposition 
- decides what is to be compared with what, like with like
- identification of cross/inter-linguistic/cultural equivalent
- bilingual competence, enables one to make decisions
about the equivalence of element X & element Y in L1 &
L2 respectively X &Y: comparable
E.g. Vietnamese English
Vì thế mà bát cháo hành This onion soup offered
của thị Nở làm hắn suy nghĩ by Thi No made
nhiều. him think much.
- formal considerations/equivalences alone do not suffice
in establishing comparability or TC
E.g. Tôi thích thịt nguội I like the meat cold.
3. Comparison
1-The similarities and differences are compared
in three levels:
- form
- meaning and
- distribution of items in 2 languages which have
been collected
2- No comparison is possible without a full
description
3- The basic elements and structures should be
compared with each other
- compare ‘types’ rather than ‘tokens, i.e. not strings of
sounds/graphic substance but their structures
E.g.
Pronoun + 1st Person + Sing – Auxiliary – Past, Participle

I have arrived.

Pronoun + 1st Person + Sing – Prefix+ Verb+ Perfective +

Past + Feminine

Ya prishla
CA compares abstract elements rather than their concrete
realizations
 Three basic areas of comparisons:

CA of various CA of equivalent CA of equivalent

equivalent constructions rules (subject
systems across (interrogative, raising, adjective
languages negative, nominal placement,
( pronouns, phrase…); in interrogative
articles, verbs, phonology (sound inversion,
and in phonology clusters, syllables, passivization), in
consonants, diphthongs, & phonology
vowels); distributions of (assimilation,
subsystems sounds dissimilation,
(nasals, laterals) metathesis
Possible situations in each area of comparison:
(1) XL1 = XL2
when item X in L1 may be identical in some respects with
an equivalent item in L2
• Similarities of the two phenomena compared more
important
(2) XL1 ≠ XL2
when item X in L1 may be different in some respects with
an equivalent item in L2
• Differences are said to be more important
(3) XL1 + - L2
when item X may be present in L1 but absent in L2.
XL1 has no equivalent in YL2, e.g. Tone in Vietnamese
Possible situations in each area of comparison:
(1) XL1 = XL2
when item X in L1 may be identical in some respects with
an equivalent item in L2

• Similarities of the two phenomena compared more

important
(2) XL1 ≠ XL2
when item X in L1 may be different in some respects with
an equivalent item in L2

• Differences are said to be more important

Possible situations in each area of comparison:
(3) XL1 + - L2
when item X may be present in L1 but absent in L2.
XL1 has no equivalent in YL2, e.g. Tone in Vietnamese
4. Prediction
From assumptions of differences of L1 & L2,
hypotheses/predictions are made about learner’s transfer
of habit of mother tongue into the use of target language:
• Interference is created in certain deviant structures
• CA power: prediction of errors
- from influence of mother tongue
- the effects of target-language asymmetries;
- transfer of training;
- strategies of L2 learning; and
- communication strategies
• Strategies of L2 learning
resources in the hands, which can be applied for
learning a second language through
resourcing, repetition, grouping, deduction,
imagery, auditory representation, elaboration,
transfer, keyword method, inferencing, note
taking, and summarizing.
• Communication strategies
strategies that learners use to overcome these
problems in order to convey their intended
meaning. Strategies used may include
paraphrasing, substitution, coining new words,
switching to the first language, and asking for
clarification.
Pedagogical relevance of predictive capacity: to
predict a scale of incremental difficulty
Three possible interlingual rule relationships based on
positive and negative transfer potential:
• L1 has a rule and L2 an equivalent one.
• L1 has a rule but L2 has no equivalent.
• L2 has a rule but L1 has no equivalent.
Three types of choice in the Hierarchy of Difficulty:
The contrastivists identify the types of choices that
either language makes available, and relating
these choices
Hierarchy of Difficulty:
1. Optional choice:
possible selection among phonemes, e.g. English
can have /p/ or /b/ word initially
2. Obligatory choice:
the selection of conditioned allophones and the
limitations in distribution of phonemes:
- English word initial /p/ must be aspirated
- /s/ but not /z/ before /m/ at the beginning of a word
- distribution of /n/ or /N /
3. Zero choice:
existence of a certain sound in one language that
has no counterpart in another language, e.g.
Vietnamese has no counterpart for /5/ in English.
Order of Difficulty Comparison of Choice Type
Most difficult
L1 L2
1 ……….  Ob
2 ……….  Op
3 ………. Op Ob
4 ………. Ob Op
5 ………. Ob 
6 ………. Op 
7 ………. Op Op
8 ………. Ob Ob
Level Claim E.g. Prediction

Level 0 No difference between two languages as

Transfer  far as the certain item is concerned.
Hence, there is no barrier for the learner
and he can transfer without any difficulty
a certain sound, lexical item , structure

Level 1 Two items in one language become one

Coalesce- item or equivalent in other language . In
nce this case the learner must put aside the
item which he adapted and forget about it
while he is using the other language.

Level 2 An item from native language is not

Under- present in the target language. The
different- learner must avoid this item
iation
 Level Claim E.g. Prediction

Level 3 An item that is present in native

Reinter language has a new form or
pretation distribution in target language. 

Level 4 A completely new item which does

Over- not exist, or it has little or no
differen similarity to any item in the other
t- language. In this scenario the
iation learner must adopt the new
language item.

Level 5 One item in native language become

Split two or even more items in the target
language, which forces the learner
to make a new difference between
items.
About the Hierarchy:
- Does it make predictions?
- Are these predictions testable?
- How can they be tested? Error counts?
Production tests, perception tests?
- Originally developed as a guide to curriculum
development
Questions:
1. State 4 major steps of the procedures of CA.
2. Briefly describe the two phases of a unilateral CA.
3. Briefly describe the two phases of a bilateral CA.
4. Make a description of the lexical item “Giả” and its equivalents in
English, using a unilateral CA.
5. How can we generate a hypothesis or make prediction about the
learner’s difficulties in learning and mastering a language
construction or lexical item? For example, make prediction about the
Vietnamese learner’s difficulty in using “until” in English.
6. Design a diagnostic test to support a hypothesis about the
Vietnamese learner’s difficulty in using “until” in English.
End of Unit 3