Thinking in Xhosa and speaking in English: the theory and practice of contrastive analysis

Abstract

The aim of this article is to highlight the role that cross-linguistic influences play in South Africa's multilingual context, specifically with regard to English and African languages. Past and present perspectives of the role of cross-linguistic influences from a second language acquisition and sociolinguistic position are discussed as a background to this study. Discourse and grammatical examples from African English are given as illustrations of the nature of cross-linguistic evidence. The pedagogical significance of the role of cross-linguistic influences is also briefly examined.