Other Versions of the CAH
While the CAH has intuitive appeal to both learners and educators,
in practice, there is no clear scientific evidence that difficulties in the
second language can actually be predicted based on the differences
between aspects of the two languages. Therefore, in recent years,
theorists have made attempts to moderate this hypothesis, especially
in the area of prediction. Wardhaugh (1970) has proposed what he
calls the weak version of the CAH. According to this version,
linguistic difficulties cannot be accurately predicted; rather, these
difficulties can be explained after the fact. That is, when a Spanish
speaker says in English “espaghetti” instead of “spaghetti”, the linguist
can explain this error in terms of overdifferentiation, that is, initial
consonant clusters that appear in the speaker’s second language do
not exist in his native language. However, the theorist is explaining
this error after it occurs rather than predicting its occurrence.
Another version of the CAH, which is perhaps a compromise
between the strong version and the weak version, has been proposed
by Oller and Ziahosseiny (1970) and is called the moderate version
of the CAH. According to this version, linguistic difficulties can be
predicted in certain patterns in the two languages. However, the
difficult patterns are not those where there are significant differences,
as proposed in the strong version. On the contrary, the linguistic
difficulties can be predicted in those patterns where there are only
slight or minimal differences. For example, the Spanish speaking ESL
learner will experience more difficulty learning to produce the
aspirated /t/ in the word tear than in learning to produce the /th/ sound
in the word there because the former represents a reinterpretation of
a sound in his L1, a minimal or subtle difference, whereas the latter
example represents learning a completely new sound in the target
language (overdifferentiation).
Exercise 6 UNIT TASK
Review the strong, weak, and moderate versions of the Contrastive
Analysis Hypothesis, and express your opinion, based on your
experience as a language learner and teacher, as to which theory you
think can be verified by scientific evidence. Supply illustrations and
examples to support your viewpoint.