Seite 11 [11]
FOREWORD
——o—
This book is intended for students of English in Hungarian universities whose
study programs include a course in Contrastive Linguistics (CL). It may also
be useful to practising teachers and translators.
Around the middle of the 20" century, CL set out as applied linguistics,
claiming to be able to solve all the problems of foreign language teaching by
comparing the phonological and grammatical structures of the learners’ native
language (L1) and the foreign or second language (L2). However, it soon tran¬
spired that foreign language learning does not depend solely on overcoming
the difficulties caused by differences in phonological and grammatical structure:
learners must also acquire communicative competence in L2, and that besides
L1-L2 contrasts the process of language learning is affected by a number of
other factors, such as individual variability, order of learning, level of profi¬
ciency, etc. As a result, the usefulness of contrastive linguistics for language
learning and teaching was challenged, and with the advent of the communica¬
tive approach in foreign language teaching CL fell into disfavour and disuse.
In response to the criticisms levelled against it, CL developed in new direc¬
tions. One direction was abandoning its practical orientation and developing
into a theoretical research field; another was extending its boundaries beyond
phonology and grammar, taking into consideration the results of such emerg¬
ing linguistic disciplines as discourse analysis and pragmatics.
Second-language teaching today is dominated by the communicative ap¬
proach, which does not pay too much attention to L1-L2 contrasts. However,
there is no doubt that linguistic contrasts play a role in language learning,
particularly at the advanced level and in L1-L2 translation. For trainee teach¬
ers it is important to be aware of L1—L2 contrasts, since knowing to what
extent the mother tongue impacts the acquisition of various elements of a
second or foreign language may help them identify and understand the learn¬
ers’ difficulties that may be due to these contrasts. In general, it is considered
that comparing L1 and L2 can help learners to achieve the grammatical aware¬
ness needed in some tasks, such as translation, which crucially depends on
overcoming linguistic (and cultural) contrasts. Therefore, CL must have a role
in teacher and translator training (Heltai 2016).
Most foreign language degree courses at Hungarian universities include CL
as a compulsory or optional course, particularly for students training to be
teachers. However, it remains an open question what exactly a university course
in CL should include. In teaching a course called English-Hungarian
“Qe