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OCR
CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS It was soon realised, however, that difficulty depends not only on linguistic but also on psychological considerations. In spite of this, it stands to reason to suppose that differences may and do lead to difficulty, although the degree of difficulty cannot be predicted on the basis of linguistic difference alone. Let us examine the six categories shown above in some more detail. Number 1 is the case where there is no linguistic difference. An example is the Hungarian /s/ sound which is articulated in the same way as English /s/, so we do not have to learn how to pronounce English /s/. It seems clear that this is an easy learning task. Similarly, the Hungarian word mad4dr corresponds to English bird in most contexts, so again learning and using bird correctly (at least in its basic meaning) is unlikely to cause great difficulty. Adjectival modifiers in Hungarian precede the noun, and they remain in the singular with a plural noun, just like in English. In French and Romanian they come after the noun, while in German and Russian they precede the noun but are pluralised before plural nouns. It is easy to guess that the Hungarian pattern can be transferred to English (positive transfer may work), and learning this pattern does not constitute a large learning task, while in the other above-mentioned languages the differences may lead to difficulty. Convergent phenomena, or convergent categories (Number 2) were claimed to cause relatively little learning difficulty. Hungarian makes a distinction between könyv and füzet, while English often uses book as a correspondent of both words; the Hungarian words vörös és piros may both correspond to English red, and oktatni and nevelni may both correspond to English educate. Experience shows that such differences are indeed easy to handle. However, sometimes they may cause difficulty, e.g., when one wants to make a distinction in English between oktatás and nevelés, sajt and túró, or cseresznye and meggy. In Number 3, we find cases where L2 lacks a structure or item that is present in L1. According to the hierarchy of difficulty, this difference usually causes moderate difficulty. In the present author’s experience, this may be true in general, yet the degree of difficulty cannot be predicted: e.g., the difficulty of learning that the Hungarian endorsing item (rdmutatdsz6) before clauses (Tedd azt, amit akarsz — Do what you want) has no equivalent in English may work out differently for different learners. In vocabulary learning and use, expressing or translating into English culturally bound terms (disznótor, disznotoros, cifrasztir, diszmagyar, etc.) may cause serious problems. In Number 4, the distribution of structures or items is different, which can also cause moderate or more serious difficulties. Thus, for example, Hungarian has a velar /n/, but its distribution (and phonemic status) is different from that of English /n/. The distribution of various grammatical structures and lexical items may also show considerable differences (for example, the distribution of content, satisfied and happy is different from that of elégedett and boldog, and the distribution of friend is different from that of barát). + 21°
