Systems

The "state of the art " in the three fields of contrastive analysis, error analysis and interlanguage is critically examined from the point of view of evolving an explanatory _ theory of a second langUage learner's petforsance. Each field is discussed with., respect to its outreach, theoretical assumptions, methodology, claimg ittand empirical validations thereof, ' scope of pra ical _studies, and' pedagogical implications. It is argued that conLrastive analysis, far` from being irrelevant or obsolete- as some critics have claimed,. remains; both theoretically and-methodologically, the most principled.--component of a theory of errors. (Author) I * , Documents acquired by ERIC include manyinformal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort * i to obtain the best copy available. Veyertheless, items of marginal * * raprodubibility are often encountered and this affects the quality