【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 uistics as well as the status it keeps in the broad area of language studies, it is appropriate now for us to take a look at the makeup of this branch of linguistics. We may classify contrastive linguistics along two axes, . theoretical vs practical, and microlinguistics vs. macrolinguistics ? This approach, called :linguistic typology”, has established a classificatory system for the languages of the world into which individual languages can be slotted according to their preferred grammatical devices: so now we can talk about “synthetic”,”analytic”,”inflectional’, “agglutinating” and “tone” language Theoretical and Applied Contrastive Linguistics ? ? Theoretical contrastive linguistics tries to find suitable models and theoretical frameworks for parison and to establish such key notions as congruence, similarity, and equivalence between the forms of different languages. ? Applied contrastive linguistics has as its objective the application of the finding of theoretical contrastive linguistics to the contrasting of two or more languages for certain practical purposes, notably L2(one’s second or foreign language) teaching and learning,translation,bilingual。lexicography,etc. ? Applied contrastive linguistics differs from theoretical contrastive linguistics in that it is preoccupied with the problem of how a universal category X, realized in language A as Xa, is rendered in language B(Xb), instead of with the way in which some general linguistic characteristics are realized in two or more languages: ? ? It can be seen that applied contrastive linguistics is unidirectional whereas theoretical contrastive linguistics is bidirectional or multidirectional. ? Contrastive linguistics, like descriptive and historical linguistics, is dependent on theoretical linguistics since no exact and reliable exploration of facts can be conducted without a theoretical background, providing concepts, hypotheses, and theories which enable the investigator to describe the relevant facts and to account for them in terms of significant generalizations. ? But contrastive linguistics is also dependent on descriptive linguistics since no parison of languages is possible without their prior description .In brief, then, contrastive linguistics is an area of linguistics in which a linguistic theory is applied to a parative description of two or more languages, which need to be geically or typologically related. The success of these parisons is strictly dependent on the theory applied. ? and Macrocontrastive Linguistics ? As we know too well, a linguistic system is made up of many layers or levels. These layers or levels are often considered to form a scale or hierarchy from lower levels containing the smallest linguistic units to higher levels containing larger linguistic units. So we have, from the lowest to the highest, such levels as phoic level, phonological level, morphemic level, lexical level, syntactic level, textual level and pragmatic level. ? According to the levels on which it is enacted, contrastive linguistics may also be divided into microcontrastive and macrocontrastive branches. ? Microcontrastive linguistics is the traditional or “classic” kind of contrastive linguistics. It is “codeoriented”, that is, oriented towards the contrast about langue (the system of a language) or “Competence”, ? which, in Transformational Grammar(TG), means a person’s internalized grammar or ability to create and understand sentences, including sentences they have never heard before. ? The goal of microcontrastive linguistics is to pare the universal as well as particular structural properties of human languages. Specifically, it concentrates on the four linguistic levels of phoics, phonology, lexis and grammar. ? Macrocontrastive linguistics represents a broader perspective of linguistic analysis and a relatively new departure in “pure” and applied linguistics. It offers considerable scope for new work in contrastive linguistics. ? The goal of macrocontrastive linguistics is to pare and understand how people use different languages to municate with each other. Specifically, it concentrates on two higher levels in linguistic description, that is, textual and pragmatic (James,1980:61) ? ? In the treatment of our subject we shall divide our time between these two areas of contrastive linguistics, with as much attention as possible paid to the practical side of the topics under purview. ? Since text is ing increasingly to the fore in linguistic and translation studies, we shall devote a substantial amount of space to it, on the belief that this will considerably aid in the improvement of the proficiency in both translation and writing of