Contrastive linguistics

The contrastive linguistics (especially in Eastern Europe also called confrontational linguistics) deals with the system adhere synchronous comparison of similarities and differences of two or more language systems on phonological - phonetic, morphological and syntactic- semantic level. Important areas of work are: contrastive phonetics, contrastive syntax contrastive semantics, pragmatics and contrastive. It has its origins in the structuralism of the fifties as a new basis for a more effective foreign language teaching.

Languages are bilateral ( and multilateral, mutually ) or unilateral face ( from a language to another ) in a particular phenomenon (eg month names ) together and described in their similarities and differences.

The phenomena in the languages it can be convergent, divergent or equivalent.