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womblingfree

Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject:

Mark wrote:

And, as for language, it is principally verbal. There are gestures/facial expressions/etc. as well as conceptual elements to language, but language is verbal communication. If you can't recognize the words that the other person is saying, you will be unable to communicate.

Communicative competence is the basis for all modern language teaching over the past 45 years. It's what seperates the theorising of linguistics and the socio-cultural research and practical application of applied linguistics.

We aren't just talking about facial expression etc. The whole interactional nature of humans goes far beyond words. Language is just one aspect of communication. As we communicate we use many strategies of which words are but one.

It is possible to communicate effectively with someone who is speaking in an entirely different language. In fact I'd say that caught between someone repeating pattern sentences and someone speaking their L1 entirely and using other communicative strategies one is more likely to experience the genuine personality of the latter. This is certainly the case at all the schools I've worked at.

A person with poor linguistic competence may have excellent strategic competence. Likewise a person who speaks the language may have very poor pragmatic competence, etc.

As for this katakana thing, it's not English, it's not a variety of English, it's a Japanese style of writing to fit foreign words into the phonological sounds of Japanese. Using Japanese pronunciations of foreign words in Japanese is not speaking English or a variety of English. Using some Japanese pronunciation in an attempt to speak the English language is.

Many English vareties may be 'impenetrable' this doesn't just apply to people learning English but to native speakers as well. What seperates a variation from a mistake is the pattern of its usage within the community.

Whether or not a dialect is impenetrable depends entirely on who's doing the listening.

Mark

Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 500
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 2:40 am Post subject:

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

Yes, but you have to be clear about what you're talking about: language or communication. Language is verbal (or manual in the case of sign languages). Communication is more than language, yes, but you objected to my saying that language is verbal. But it is verbal.

You can communicate with someone speaking a different language? Really? What, precisely, can you communicate? Simple things, yes, but there's surely a limited range of communication that is possible.

womblingfree wrote:

As for this katakana thing, it's not English, it's not a variety of English, it's a Japanese style of writing to fit foreign words into the phonological sounds of Japanese. Using Japanese pronunciations of foreign words in Japanese is not speaking English or a variety of English. Using some Japanese pronunciation in an attempt to speak the English language is.

Many English vareties may be 'impenetrable' this doesn't just apply to people learning English but to native speakers as well. What seperates a variation from a mistake is the pattern of its usage within the community.

Whether or not a dialect is impenetrable depends entirely on who's doing the listening.

I don't think you're understanding what I mean by Katakana English. It's not spelling English words in Japanese, it's pronouncing English words according to the phonetic and phonological principles of the Japanese language. Many speakers use much more than "some" Japanese pronunciation.

As for "impenetrable" speech, yes, it depends on the listener, but also on the speaker. Some speech can be considered generally impenetrable by large percentages of NS and NNS. This, by the way, applies to both NS and NNS speech. There are English accents that could fairly be considered impenetrable by NNS and even some NS.

As for this, "What seperates a variation from a mistake is the pattern of its usage within the community", I agree with it, but I have to make one objection. This applies to native speakers, I think. Any variations that occur in NS speech will respect the fundamental principles of the English language. This is not necessarily the case in NNS speech. And, as well, a NS community uses the language to communicate with itself, therefore variation is basically fine. When people speak across groups, be the speakers NS or NNS, most people learn to standardize their speech to some degree and they lose a lot of their regional language.

It just sounds to me like your saying that any way Japanese speak English is fine because they're just another language community and nobody has the right to tell them how they should speak.

But, I just think that the purpose of language is communication, and since Japanese will use English to communicate with non-Japanese, it's in their best interest to make their language as clear and easy to understand as possible.

womblingfree

Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 3:15 am Post subject:

Mark wrote:

Yes, but you have to be clear about what you're talking about: language or communication.

In the context of language teaching the two are inseperable.

Mark wrote:

As for this, "What seperates a variation from a mistake is the pattern of its usage within the community", I agree with it, but I have to make one objection. This applies to native speakers, I think. Any variations that occur in NS speech will respect the fundamental principles of the English language. This is not necessarily the case in NNS speech.

Someone speaking in a thick Cornish dialect is likely to be more incomprehensible than an intermediate Japanese student speaking English, etc... English does not belong to traditional native speaking countries anymore, there are countries using it as a second language or lingua franca which have as much right to teach their own varieties as the Americans or English.

Japan doesn't have its own standard English but there is commonality in the variation people make. Even an accomplished Japanese English speaker is likely to drop articles and use /L/ /r/ interchangably, and there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

The example you gave of a relatively inexperienced learner talking about a movie would be perfectly understandable, although it's not really a dialect just someone using the tools at their disposal to communicate in English, in that case a basic knowledge of sentence structure and a few English words pronounced according to Japanese phonolology.

Mark wrote:

When people speak across groups, be the speakers NS or NNS, most people learn to standardize their speech to some degree and they lose a lot of their regional language.

What people? What standard? Nigerians talking to Indians? Japanese talking to Koreans? Standard Singlish? Standard patois? People will use whatever linguistic and communicative skills at their disposal to make themselves understood, and in some cases people will use their dialect to make sure that outsiders don't understand.

This is why teaching communicative competence is far more important than some ideological 'standard' that only exists in written form and which doesn't even apply to native speakers.

Mark

Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 500
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:24 am Post subject:

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

Yes, but you have to be clear about what you're talking about: language or communication.

In the context of language teaching the two are inseperable.

I'm not so sure about that.

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

I agree with this statement and didn't say anything in objection to it. I also said that NS dialects may be considered generally incomprehensible. However, I assume that the Cornish obeys the basic principles of English in terms of phonology/morphology/etc.

However, I would say that learning a difficult-to-understand brand of English reduces the practical value of that English. Why not strive to make your English as comprehensible as possible?

womblingfree wrote:

Japan doesn't have its own standard English but there is commonality in the variation people make. Even an accomplished Japanese English speaker is likely to drop articles and use /L/ /r/ interchangably, and there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

If that's all they do, then that's probably fine. It will cause some communication problems though.

Look at it this way: Japanese makes a distinction between long and short versions of the same vowel sound. English doesn't make that distinction. So, what do we do? Should English speakers be expected to learn that distinction? I would say yes, because if they don't, they will have a very difficult time communicating in Japanese.

womblingfree wrote:

The example you gave of a relatively inexperienced learner talking about a movie would be perfectly understandable, although it's not really a dialect just someone using the tools at their disposal to communicate in English, in that case a basic knowledge of sentence structure and a few English words pronounced according to Japanese phonolology.

Really? My experience does not support the idea that the example I gave would be easily understood by people who are not very familiar with Japanese English.

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

When people speak across groups, be the speakers NS or NNS, most people learn to standardize their speech to some degree and they lose a lot of their regional language.

In the case of NS who live in Japan, many people end up sounding almost the same, regardless of where they come from. Their speech "internationalizes", so to speak. People from Singapore, for example, are unlikely to speak in pure Singlish when they visit another country. They will try to avoid regionalisms and speak in a way that is generally comprehensible. If they don't, they will have difficulty communicating.

womblingfree wrote:

This is why teaching communicative competence is far more important than some ideological 'standard' that only exists in written form and which doesn't even apply to native speakers.

Linguistic competence is part of communicative competence, yes? I don't know which "standard" you're dismissing here. By "standard", I mean speaking in a way that conforms with the basic linguistic principles of the English language (including respect for the phonemes of English) and avoiding regionalisms when speaking to people from other places.

I think you're talking about the idea of imitating a native speaker's accent, which nobody is suggesting.

Let's say you're learning Hindi. Hindi differentiates between /p/, /ph/ (aspirated "p") and /b/. So, that's three bilabial stop phonemes. If you don't make a three-way differentiation, you will have difficulties being understood. This is something that native English speakers would have great difficulty with, but it would have to be learned. If you can't learn that distinction, you will always have communication difficulties in Hindi.

On the other hand, if you're learning French, you'll be okay. Because of the aspiration of /p/ in English, our /b/s tend to be only very lightly voiced. In French, /p/ is not aspirated and /b/s are very strongly voiced. But since both languages have a two-way distinction with respect to bilabial stop phonemes, you can transfer the English pronunciation to the French language. Aspirating your /p/s and not putting enough voicing on your /b/s is a hallmark of the English accent in French, but French people can understand the difference. It would be better to try to pronounce /p/ and /b/ the French way because that will make your French easier to understand. But if you can't, it's not a major problem.

It's not to do with some idea of a "written standard", but obeying the underlying principles of the language you're speaking. If you can't do that, you will always have communication problems. Every "mistake" or "variation" is not the same. If you deviate too much from the underlying basis of the English language, you will make yourself more difficult to understand.

Mark

Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 500
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 6:48 am Post subject:

Anyway, I think we're disagreeing over small points. I apparently think learners should make more of an effort than you think they should have to make. You apparently think listeners will make more of an effort to understand than I think they will make. I agree with the "World Englishes" idea and I'm not suggesting NNS should try to imitate some native speaker accent. However, I do think that any NNS would be wise to pay attention to the phonemic inventory of English.

womblingfree

Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:39 pm Post subject:

Mark wrote:

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

Yes, but you have to be clear about what you're talking about: language or communication.

In the context of language teaching the two are inseperable.

I'm not so sure about that.

They became inseperable in relation to language teaching when Dell Hymes added 'Communicative' to Chomsky's 'Competence.'

The problem before this was that people were taking formal linguistics and trying to apply it to language education for which it was largely unsuited. Hence the creation of Applied Linguistics.

It's been the bedrock of language teaching ever since.

Mark wrote:

I had a student from SIngapore who spoke excellent English with a lot of Singlish mixed into it. She was in the bottom English class. Why? Because her test scores were consistently low as she was not conforming to a standardised English test. Despite this I could spend hours conversing with her with little problem whereas people considered 'better' could barely speak a word.

Countries like India, Nigeria, Singapore, have their own varieties of English. Whether they are comprehensible to people from England or America really doesn't matter. They have their own standards and are used as a lingua france within their own communities where they are perfectly understood.

Countries such as Japan, China, Korea, etc, don't have their own standardised English dialect. They look to the West as 'norm providing facilitators'.

Now these points are controversial and in constant discussion amongst academics and SLA researchers. Personally I think that the majority of SLA research is hugely flawed in its bias towards idealised Western speech patterns rather than how people actually communicate.

Here's a reading list from the last time this topic came up, read it and then make up your own minds:

womblingfree wrote:

...to avoid ten more pages of forum ping pong here's a list of stuff to look at for anyone interested in the topic:

Issue 40/1 of TESOL Quarterly presents a good case for the inadequacies of current SLA theories and where we should go from here.

Also Firth & Wagners paper on SLA research (1997) is very interesting, as is Sridhar (1994) 'A reality Check for SLA theories'.

On the other side of the fence are Selinker (1972) & (1992), also Gass (1998), 'Why Apples are not oranges'.

A great book which reprints some of the papers I just listed and which is full of debates including this one is 'Controversies in Applied Linguistics' edited by Barbara Seidlhofer.

Pick up a copy of Jennie Jenkins, World Englishes, whilst your at it.

Enjoy Wink

I'm outta here!

Mark

Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 500
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:49 am Post subject:

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

Yes, but you have to be clear about what you're talking about: language or communication.

In the context of language teaching the two are inseperable.

I'm not so sure about that.

They became inseperable in relation to language teaching when Dell Hymes added 'Communicative' to Chomsky's 'Competence.'

Yes, in the broader sense, they're all connected. But, surely you can separate out one element and give a phonetics tutorial. Or focus on some other element.

womblingfree wrote:

The problem before this was that people were taking formal linguistics and trying to apply it to language education for which it was largely unsuited. Hence the creation of Applied Linguistics.

It's been the bedrock of language teaching ever since.

Yes, fair enough. I don't think anything was said against this point.

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

I don't think you really followed my point. I said that NS, including NS of Singlish, will internationalize in a foreign country like Japan. I've also met speakers of Singlish who have lived for some time in multinational English environments and you would never guess they were from Singapore. It's just something that happens to most people. I assume that people lose some of their regional accents when they move to London and take up a profession.

On a related note, when I was in college, a girl from Scotland was required to take an English test as a foreign student, and she was placed in the ESL class! I'm not sure why, it seemed to have something to do with her British punctuation being regarded as mistakes or something. Anyway, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone so insulted!

womblingfree wrote:

Countries like India, Nigeria, Singapore, have their own varieties of English. Whether they are comprehensible to people from England or America really doesn't matter. They have their own standards and are used as a lingua france within their own communities where they are perfectly understood.

That's very important. English is used as a lingua franca inside these countries between people who speak different first languages (particularly Nigeria). Apparently, Hindi is still a better bet in India than English in terms of a lingua franca. English is more for the elite. They need English for the practical reason of inter-ethnic communication and develop their own variety of English to fill that need. As for "Whether they are comprehensible to people from England or America really doesn't matter", I'd disagree a bit. It's not the first concern, but it's certainly an advantage if it's comprehensible.

womblingfree wrote:

Countries such as Japan, China, Korea, etc, don't have their own standardised English dialect. They look to the West as 'norm providing facilitators'.

These countries don't need English for use within their borders, only outside their borders. So, it's natural that they look for some model to base their language on. If I wanted to learn Chinese, I'd probably try to learn Standard Mandarin and base my language as much as possible on that official dialect.

womblingfree wrote:

Now these points are controversial and in constant discussion amongst academics and SLA researchers. Personally I think that the majority of SLA research is hugely flawed in its bias towards idealised Western speech patterns rather than how people actually communicate.

I don't really think the points are controversial. I've never met any serious language teacher who thought the primary goal was to get students to perfectly imitate native speakers. I don't know anyone who thinks NNS should have to hide their identity and background when they speak English.

However, if you learn a foreign language, it's best to learn it in a way that will allow you to be understood by the largest number of people. This is only practical.

womblingfree

Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 1:47 am Post subject:

Mark wrote:

These countries don't need English for use within their borders, only outside their borders.

Mark wrote:

if you learn a foreign language, it's best to learn it in a way that will allow you to be understood by the largest number of people.

Mark wrote:

I don't know anyone who thinks NNS should have to hide their identity and background when they speak English.

Mark wrote:

I don't really think the points are controversial.

http://www1.gifu-u.ac.jp/~terasima/douglas0lummis1originalenglish.pdf

http://www.jceps.com/?pageID=article&articleID=21

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_imperialism

http://www.raco.cat/index.php/LinksLetters/article/viewFile/22673/22507

http://gamma.sil.org/asia/ldc/parallel_papers/victor_n_sugbo.pdf

http://www.gsid.nagoya-u.ac.jp/project/apec/outcomes/paper96/10/tsuda-en.html

Canagarajah, S. 1999. Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ishino, H. 1996. Terebi to shingo/gairaigo (TV and new vocabulary/loan words). Nihongogaku, 15/10: 28-35

Kramsch, C. 1993. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kubota, R. 1998. Ideologies of English in Japan. World Englishes, 17/3: 295-306.

Kumaravadivelu, B. 2003. Problematizing cultural stereotypes in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 37/ 4: 709-719

Littlewood, W. 2000. Do Asian students really want to listen and obey? ELT Journal, 54: 31-36.

Pennycook, A. 2000. Disinventing standard English. English Language and Linguistics 4/1: 115-124.

Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Quirk, R. & H. Widdowson (eds.) 1985. English in the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Takahashi, J. 1991. Kokusai kaigi-ni miru nihonjin-no Ibunka Koushou. (Japanese Cultural Perspectives as seen at International Conference). Tokyo: Kawashima Shoten.

Trudgill, P. 1999. Spoken standard English. In T. Bex & R. J. Watts (Eds.), Standard English: the widening debate. London: Routledge.

Tsuda, Y. 1990. Eigo shihai no kozo (Structure of English Domination). Tokyo: Daisan Shokan.

You'll have to argue it out with them Wink

Mark wrote:

a girl from Scotland was required to take an English test as a foreign student, and she was placed in the ESL class! I'm not sure why, it seemed to have something to do with her British punctuation being regarded as mistakes or something.

Any more details, pm me. This is going in my next paper.

Mark

Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 500
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:55 am Post subject:

womblingfree wrote:

Mark wrote:

These countries don't need English for use within their borders, only outside their borders.

Mark wrote:

if you learn a foreign language, it's best to learn it in a way that will allow you to be understood by the largest number of people.

Mark wrote:

I don't know anyone who thinks NNS should have to hide their identity and background when they speak English.

Mark wrote:

I don't really think the points are controversial.

Mark wrote:

Any more details, pm me. This is going in my next paper.

I'm not sure I exactly understand this post. I've read some of the articles you've put up. Are you suggesting that these resources will disagree with the points I made?

I made 4 points. Surely, the first is not arguable. Japan, China, and Korea do not need English for use inside their borders.

The second is just practical and common sense.

The third is something you support, yes? Note, that I said "should not have to hide their identity".

The fourth just says that the whole World Englishes framework is not very controversial anymore. In the context of EFL or English as an International Language anyway.

Not really sure what you're disagreeing with in these points.

Anyway, as for the Scottish girl, I have no real other details to give. I don't even remember her name. She obviously wasn't made to actually take ESL. She had to go to some sort of interview and they let her out of taking ESL. But, IIRC, she said that her placement in ESL had to do with the differences in punctuation between Britain and North America. Things like 7.84 versus 7,84 as well. There could have been some issues with spelling and vocab as well.

It's funny looking back on it, but man, if you want to see someone insulted to the core of their being, all you have to do is see them get told that they don't qualify as a native speaker of their native language.

womblingfree

Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:39 am Post subject:

Mark wrote:

Are you suggesting that these resources will disagree with the points I made?

Some agree, some disagree, all discuss. Those articles cover everything you said and more as I haven't got time to reply to everything in the depth it deserves. Each issue is worthy of a Phd in itself. Briefly:

Quote:

Japan, China, and Korea do not need English for use inside their borders.

Many would agree that they don't need English inside their borders, few would agree that this is the case. The use of English language within Japan in particular is hugely controversial. See Kubota, Tsui, Tsuda, Ishino.

Quote:

The second is just practical and common sense.

The idea that learning languages is merely to communicate with as broad a range of people as possible leads to language death and a whole host of other problems. See Jenkins, Pennycook, Kachru etc.

Quote:

The third is something you support, yes? Note, that I said "should not have to hide their identity".

It's not a question of supporting or not supporting, English has been used and arguably continues to be used at the expense of local and individual cultural and linguistic knowledge. Sometimes displacing them almost entirely. See Street, Rampton, Jenkins, Pennycook, Sugbo and everyone else.

Quote:

...the whole World Englishes framework is not very controversial anymore. In the context of EFL or English as an International Language anyway.

The World Englishes debate is massively controversial, as are EFL and EIL. See particularly Pennycook, Kachru, Jenkins, Sugbo, Crystal and Widdowson.

Those are just some of the issues. It's not as simple as agreeing or disagreeing with any one point. To make a case for or against any would take a lifetime of research, some of which is posted in the articles listed.

If people want to understand these issues and the controversy they create in any depth extensive reading is necessary.

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