Contrastive Analysis and Second Language Acquisition

1. Precursors to Contrastive Analysis

While contrastive analysis as a systematic discipline emerged in the mid-20th century, its intellectual roots extend much further back. Early comparative philology in the 19th century, focusing on historical relationships between Indo-European languages, established methodologies for systematic language comparison. Wilhelm von Humboldt's work on language typology provided conceptual frameworks for understanding structural differences between languages without necessarily attributing these to historical connections.

The Prague Linguistic Circle's work in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly that of Vilém Mathesius, introduced the concept of "characterology"—systematic comparison of languages regardless of genetic relationship. This approach emphasized functional and structural contrasts rather than historical connections, laying important groundwork for later contrastive studies.