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Contrastive linguistics has a much longer history than is commonly assumed in the literature on the subject. This monograph is an account of contrastive studies conducted in England and documented in written materials originating between the middle of the fifteenth century and the end of the eighteenth century. These materials show that contrastive studies were conducted systematically, covered a large scope of language data in various languages, and occasioned a number of theoretical and methodological issues, anticipating those that have constituted the mainstream of modern contrastive studies. Among them were negative and positive transfer, with the accompanying efforts to counteract the former and utilize the latter, as well as the notorious difficulties with establishing the necessary tertium comparationis, though not expressly formulated, inevitably hovering in the wings, and occasionally prompting new methodological techniques.
List of contents
Contents: Predecessors of contrastive studies - The sign theory - Developments in the methodology of contrastive studies - Foreign language teaching - Differences and similarities as related to foreign language learning - Counteracting errors - Universal grammar - English compared with other vernacular languages - Pedagogical comparative grammars.
About the author
Tomasz Pawe¿ Krzeszowski, Professor Emeritus of the University of Warsaw; Professor at the School of English, Academy of Management (¿ód¿/Warsaw); Areas of academic research: contrastive linguistics, cognitive linguistics, axiological aspects of language, metaphor; Major works: Gramatyka angielska dla Polaków, Contrasting languages: The scope of contrastive linguistics, Angels and devils in hell: elements of axiology in semantics.
