Job Discussion Forums

[MoniqueG]

[Lynn]

I probably use "like" and other fillers. I'm not sure. I've never recorded myself. I do know that I use the phrase, "I don't know" way too much. I sometimes hear myself starting sentences with that phrase. I don't know, guess it's just my way of being passive.

[Deconstructor]

Wa a teyya boy there ain't nothin' wrong with here pertty language. We ain't destroyin' nothin just communicatin'. Hot damn!!!!

[matttheboy]

every language has fillers (think 'quoi' in parisian french or 'este...' in argentine spanish for example) and the more native you get the more you're going to use these fillers as a part of everyday speech. if i were to speak berlitz spanish in buenos aires, i'd stand out like a sore thumb. although my accent tends to give me away, by speaking like a local i'm not immediately marked out as someone who's just arrived and doesn't know anything.

so what's the problem if non-native speakers end up talking more like native speakers?

[Deconstructor]

[Guy Courchesne]

Summer break can't come soon enough for you, can it Deco?

[Sally Vaite]

What about this? I just happens to be one of my pet peeves ( admittedly probably an irrational reaction). It drives me up the wall when student says.. "Gonna" as opposed to "going to". Even worse when you see it in a written text!

I suppose for every english teacher, it is a question of finding the right balance between what is in common usuage and what is precisely correct. I read somewhere that a New York university was criticised because the students commonly wrote " should of" instead of "should have". And this was in a thesis yet! So just because a native speaker might use it doesnt mean it is always correct.

One time an english teacher friend of mine and I tried to add as many "actually"s in a our normal speech as possible. Just to see if anybody else would notice.

Ex. Actually I didnt actually see them actually steal the money, actually.

Strangely enough, you can add a lot of them before any native speaker actually notices. Try it yourself with you friends!! If you also use "like" you could possibly go on for hours before any other native speaker picks up on the game.
Later, I told an advanced class to try the same thing and to my surprise, the speech sounded so much more natural. Of course there was a lot less information and a heck of a lot more words.

[Chancellor]

[Chancellor]

[Sally Vaite]

I think I figured out about the"gonna" comes from. It must be from the transcriptions of song lyrics -- ( dont get me started on rap lyrics!!) and from the fact that students all over the world detest reading anything- let alone, anything of higher quality. Other than this, you might cite the sad decline of education as it democratised.

[Chancellor]

[wildchild]

Chancellor,

Do you include yourself with those who have poor enunciation?
Think is really spelled as tong. Really my dear boy, if you are going to pass yourself off as proper (even with your name), you definetly have some work to do.

(source: etymonline.com)

[Chancellor]

[wildchild]

I am trying to show that languages and "enunciation" change with time. Normally, language change is normal, it happens, to everyone, even the "proper" folks. Quite a few century ago, someone surely said something very similar about think to what you have said above about gonna. For example, those who said tonga would say that:

Think appears to simply be the result of poor enunciation on the part of people who were less educated and/or lower on the economic ladder - well, that and people simply talking faster than their mouths are capable of properly enunciating the words.

Chancellor says:

[JZer]