Methods of research, used in contrastive studies

Contrastive research is carried out with the help of several methods. Thus, comparing of isomorphic features can very often be performed with the help of the deductive and the inductive methods (deduction – the process of reasoning using general rules or principles to form a judgement about a particular fact or situation – від загального до конкретного; induction – the process of reasoning using known facts to produce general rules or principles – від конкретного до загального). The deductive method is based on logical calculation, which suggests all admissive variants of realization of a certain phenomenon in speech of some contrasted languages. For example, the existence of the attributive AN and NA structure of word-group patterns in English and in Ukrainian is indisputable. Compare: the green pasture – the pasture green
(G. Byron), зелене пасовисько – пасовисько зелене. Consequently, the deductive method of analysis can be rather helpful and not only when contrasting syntactic level units.

The immediate constituents method (the IC’s) is employed to contrast only language units with the aim of establishing their constituent parts in one or some contrasted languages. The IC method is often employed to single out constituent parts of the syntactic level units both at the sentence level and at word-group level. Thus, the sentence He learns many new words every week can be subdivided into the following constituent word-groups: 1) He learns (predicative word group); 2) many new words (attributive word-group); 3) every week (adverbial word group). At word-group level a further splitting is observed: He/learns; many/new//words; every/week. The Ukrainian equivalent of this sentence has the same types of word groups with the identical division into ICs: 1) Він/вивчає; 2) багато/нових//слів;
3) кожного/тижня.

The transformational method is more often employed than the ICs method. The American linguist Noam Chomsky within the generative grammar introduced the notion of transformation. Many scholars dealing with the contrastive linguistics research employed the notions of deep and surface structure since the statement that different languages can have the same deep structure allowed them to contrast language units with different surface structure. Thus, transformation may reveal the difference in the form of expression in the contrasted languages. Compare: Вас запрошують взяти участь у науковій конференції (an indefinite personal sentence, active voice), which has for its equivalent in English You are invited to take part in the scientific conference (i.e. a definite personal sentence with a passive voice verbal predicate). Transformation may often be required by the peculiarity of the syntactic structure of the source language (or the target language) unit. Compare: The lesson over, all students went to the reading hall. сan be rendered into Ukrainian with the help of employing predicative word-groups Після того, як заняття закінчилися (Оскільки заняття закінчилися…) or with the help of the prepositional noun phrase, expressing time Після закінчення занять студенти пішли …. The nominative absolute participial construction The lesson over (i.e. being or having been over) has to be substituted i.e. transformed into an adverbial clause of time or cause (Після того, як заняття закінчилися/ Оскільки заняття закінчилися, всі студенти пішли до читальні).

Apart from these some other methods of analysis are helpful for the establishment of structural or semantic isomorphisms and allomorphisms in the contrasted languages. According to the linguist I.V. Korunets’ this is the contrastive linguistic method, which is usually employed to investigate a restricted number of genealogically related or non-related languages. The object of contrastive linguistics in general is the meaning, form and functioning of certain language units, their features or phenomena. Unlike contrastive typology, contrastive linguistics does not treat language features or phenomena with the aim of establishing isomorphic or allomorphic features and universals. Divergent features or phenomena in the languages under contrastive linguistic investigation are considered to be irregularities or exceptions to some general rules. The aim of contrastive linguistics has never been to establish systemic relations on a global scale, or to establish universal features. Despite all this, the contrastive linguistic method, when employed both synchronically and diachronically, allows to establish valuable theoretical and practical results, providing the reliable data on various aspects of languages under investigation. Thus contrastive linguistics contributes greatly to the typologies of the investigated languages [10; 20–24].

M.P. Kocherhan is of the view that the method of contrastive analysis is the totality of the ways of language research and description with the help of its systematic comparison with another language with the aim to reveal its peculiarities on the background of common features (зіставний метод – сукупність прийомів дослідження і опису мови шляхом її системного порівняння з іншою мовою з метою виявлення її специфіки на фоні спільних рис) [11; 77].

The method of contrastive analysis is directed first of all towards revealing the differences between the two or the larger number of languages (the unique features – унікалії) though it does not ignore common features of the contrasted languages. It is as if the reverse side of the comparative-historic method: the comparative-historic method has as its aim to establish the correspondences between the contrasted languages; the method of contrastive analysis, in its turn, searches, first of all, for the differences. This method can be applied to any languages irrespective of their genealogical, typological or areal origin for the analysis of the correlation of their structural elements and the structure all together mainly on the synchronic level of analysis taking into consideration all factors of their interaction, interpenetration and mutual influence on all language levels [11; 78].

The effectiveness of the contrastive analysis method depends on the appropriateness of its usage, that is what is contrasted and in what way it is contrasted. Depending on the direction of analysis, according to R.Shternemann [25], there can be distinguished one-sided and two-sided (many-sided) contrastive analysis (односторонній та двосторонній зіставний аналіз).

According to the one-sided approach the initial point of research is one of contrasted languages. Cross-language comparison is carried out in the direction “the initial language / or the source language – the target language” (вихідна мова – цільова мова). The source language performs the role of the system of correlated notions for the target language description. Such an approach reveals the meanings of lexical and grammatical phenomena of the source language that are reflected on the level of meanings of the target language and comprise those means of the target language which it has for rendering meanings of the source language. First of all, the structure of the meaning of a certain unit in a source language is determined, that is the semasiological analysis is carried out, later on this unit is projected on the amount of the meanings of the target language. For example, German wenn – English 1) when (temporal meaning) and 2) if, in case (conditional meaning).

The one-sided approach is very similar to the way of two-language or bilingual dictionaries compiling: for the word of the source language is accomplished with the equivalent correlative units of the target language. The results of the one-sided analysis are not reversible (результати одностороннього аналізу не є оборот­ними)). If we try to “reverse” the one-sided procedure, we will have quite other results [11; 79].

According to the two-sided (or many-sided) approach the basis for comparison is the “third member” (tertium comparationis) – a certain extra-linguistic notion, a phenomenon which does not belong to any of contrasted languages, but is deductively formed by a meta-language; and the ways by which it is expressed in contrasted languages are researched. The value of the two-sided approach is in the fact that it gives the possibility to reveal all language means to express something [11; 80].

For example, if the researcher is interested in the way the future action is expressed in English and in Ukrainian, he/she will find out that in Ukrainian there is only one future tense “майбутній час” where is in English we have 4 future tenses (Future Simple, Future Continuous, Future Perfect and Future Perfect Continuous) and besides two present tenses (Present Simple and Present Continuous) also have the ability to express a certain future meaning. Therefore, the two-sided approach gives the possibility to give a thorough description of a researched phenomenon. Since lexical and grammatical units are mostly polysemantic, this approach takes into consideration only those meanings which correspond to the basis of comparison. Thus studying the tense forms expressing the future meaning, we take into account only the “future meaning” of present tenses and not their “present meanings”.

The two approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of the one-sided approach is in the fact that it can be used without taking into account meta-language, and the drawback is that the comparison can be carried out only in one direction (the reflection of the second language in the mirror of the first language). The advantage of the two-sided approach is that two languages are treated as equal, whereas the disadvantage is that the comparison relies on meta-language which does not exist for the time being (there are different suggestions concerning it).

The differentiation between the one-sided and two-sided approach is close to the difference between semasiologic and onomasiologic approaches. According to the semasiologic approach facts are considered from the form to their content, and according to the onomasiologic – from the content to the form [11; 81].