Creating "quaint" speakers?

[Stephen Jones]

Why on earth should I want a subscription to Garners Weekly Grudges. My aging Aunt Lisbeth has equally bizarre and unfounded ideas about English usage, but at least she's family and thus a more sensible choice.

His peeve for this week about draconian bears no relation to English usage, or even the Oxford dictionary definitions.

[metal56]

What's a draconian bear look like? What does it eat?

[Stephen Jones]

What's a draconian bear look like? What does it eat?

It looks like a furious green idea sleeping wakefully, and it eats prescriptivists.

[metal56]

What's a draconian bear look like? What does it eat?

It looks like a furious green idea sleeping wakefully, and it eats prescriptivists.

Scary. Still, we two need not fear such a creature, right, Stevie?

[jotham]

Now see, if Stephen had taken that advice to heart, he would have written draconic bears, not draconian bears. I guess he needed that advice after all.

[metal56]

Now see, if Stephen had taken that advice to heart, he would have written draconic bears, not draconian bears. I guess he needed that advice after all.

Advice? Link?

[Machjo]

Sorry I've only skimmed this thread quickly due to lack of time, but based on what I think this thread is about, here are my comments:

Language is by definition an artificial construct, a technology if you will. The proof of this is in the fact that we need to learn it, and it is not genetically inborn. If that were the case, people of similar DNA would all speak the same language without ever having studied it. So what is everyone rattling on about when they say 'natural'? Do they mean 'familiar'?

[metal56]

So what is everyone rattling on about when they say 'natural'? Do they mean 'familiar'?

Both "quaint" and "non-quaint" English are familiar to most native speakers, i.e. we can recognise it when we hear/see it, but, to some of us, "quaint" English sounds odd, marked, unusual, i.e. unnatural.

[Machjo]

So what is everyone rattling on about when they say 'natural'? Do they mean 'familiar'?

Both "quaint" and "non-quaint" English are familiar to most native speakers, i.e. we can recognise it when we hear/see it, but, to some of us, "quaint" English sounds odd, marked, unusual, i.e. unnatural.

It sounds 'odd'?

We need clearer definitions than that in the EFL classroom. I remember an American walk out of a classroom once shocked at having heard the 26th letter pronounced 'zed' on an EFL cassette tape (and he was a mother-tongue speaker of English). Now certainly to his ears, 'zed' must have sounded quite 'odd'. He'd stated likewise that though he was aware of 'colour' he found it 'odd' nonetheless.

Some Americans find lieutenant with an 'f' sounds odd too. Some Canadians would consider 'I lost my keys' as opposed to 'I've lost my keys' to sound irritating, yet it's common in the US, and even in some parts of Canada (remember, Canada is a big country). '*beep*' or '*beep*' not only sounds odd, but even offensive to a Canadian, yet in Britain it might sound quite natural a reference to a cigarette. Canadians find 'Happy Christmas' to sound odd too, since we always say 'Merry Christmas'. But guess what: in Britain 'Happy Christmas' is perfectly acceptable. Some Britons will also refer to a TV set as a 'box'. I'd never heard that in Canada. 'Maize' sounds overly formal to some people, yet I use it all the time, while some usually use 'corn' to refer to any local grain. And elevator is a farm implement in some people's minds, lifts being found in cities. ' To some, a highway is any public trail in the woods as well as a major route for autos, cars, automobiles, as you like.

If we teach 'by ear', we'll be saying all but our English is 'wrong', and that will only confuse the students when a future teacher then says your English is wrong too 'cause it 'sounds odd'. There is nothing scientific or professional about 'teaching by ear'. Heck, in extreme cases, Gollum's English might sound quite natural indeed, with all its double plurals and 1st person singular with 's'.

This is what corpora are for. Different parts of their contents will sound odd to different people depending on one's personal idiom. So though a word or phrase might sound odd to my ears, if it is found in well-researched corpora, then I must assume that elsewhere in the English-speaking world it might be perfectly normal.


Another thing we must remember about corpora: they generally reflect English as it is used in specific countries, usually the US and the UK. If a Chinese were to communicate with a Russian, Russian and Chinese English corpora would be of far more use, with each learning English as it is actually used by the other. how many times have I witnessed complete communication breakdown between a Chinese and a Frenchwoman, a Chinese and a Pakistani, A Chinese and a Scandinavian, and even once a Chinese and an Australian, all of whom I could understand fine. I even thaught their English wasn't bad until I'd found that they can only understand perfectly standard US or British English, and take that as a model for international communication.

When we're talking about English as a national language, 'feel' for the language might be relevent. But for international or global communication, the native speaker, his English and how he uses it are completely irrelevent to a dialogue between a Chinese and a Russian. Neither knows what sounds 'natural' anyway, English being completely artificial to both.

[metal56]

We need clearer definitions than that in the EFL classroom.

Is "unfamiliar" any clearer a word?

Look up the definition of quaint and then come back. See how many examples of quaint English you find in the corpora. Etc. ,etc. And if native speakers say that some of your usage sound quaint, you, as a student, have to decide what to do about that. Go in sounding quaint if you like. It's a free world after all.

BTW, if I had said that some students use obsolete English, would you have asked "in whose opinion"?

[lolwhites]

I think Machjo's main point is "quaint to whom?" I once addressed couple of Venezuelan women as vosotras, which they found highly quaint, though Spanish women probably wouldn't have. And how much British English would sound quaint to an American, and vice versa?

[metal56]

I think Machjo's main point is "quaint to whom?" I once addressed couple of Venezuelan women as vosotras, which they found highly quaint, though Spanish women probably wouldn't have. And how much British English would sound quaint to an American, and vice versa?

Yes, that point was clear, but what's it got to do with mixed-nationality English teachers recognising that certain quaint usage abounds in the area of ESL and intermediate learners?

[Machjo]

I think Machjo's main point is "quaint to whom?" I once addressed couple of Venezuelan women as vosotras, which they found highly quaint, though Spanish women probably wouldn't have. And how much British English would sound quaint to an American, and vice versa?

Yes, that point was clear, but what's it got to do with mixed-nationality English teachers recognising that certain quaint usage abounds in the area of ESL and intermediate learners?

OK, maybe there's a misunderstanding, so I'll let it go at that. I'm just saying that we need to be careful not to point out oddtities too harshly, so as to avoid two native speakers from different countries contradicting each other, each telling the students that some phrase another teacher taught was wrong. For example, if a teacher a year ago should have taught "Happy Christmas", and then this year I, unaware that this is common in Britain, tell them that 'Happy Christmas' sounds odd, they'll naturally start to wonder whom (yes, believe it or not, 'whom' sounds perfectly normal to me, even when mixed with informal contexts, though i'm well aware it would sound odd to some) to trust. We just need to be careful with this, and if we're unsure (do you know British, Canadian, US, NZ, South African, Irish, etc. inside out?), then just specify that it sounds odd to your ears, thus avoiding confusion with other natives later on.

Also, let us not forget that native speakers react to the non-natives too. To take an example, more than 60% of the population in Canada's three largest cities speaks neither English nor French as a native language. As a result, native English speakers living in certain parts of these cities will modify their English for communicative purposes to a more 'bookish' form. Is such English artificial'? of course it is. But the reality of the matter is that most native English speakers who have lived in these cities for any length of time will eventually come to speak in such an English even unconsciously. At this stage, what might sound quaint, overly formal etc. to a suburbanite might sound perfectly normal to the 'cosmopolites'. Let's consider native English-speaking children born and raised in Quebec city, where English would be reserved for communication within the family and the school environment, French being the common language for shopping, taking the bus, etc. Certainly such English speaker, though by definition native-speakers of the language, and certainly quite fluent in the language at that, will have different notions of 'quaintness' from that of the monolingual native English-speaker living in an all-anglo suburb.

So this point of 'quaint to whom (oops, there's that 'whom' again, even being used in an informal context as I consider forum chat to be) is not to be underestimated.

[metal56]

(yes, believe it or not, 'whom' sounds perfectly normal to me, even when mixed with informal contexts, though i'm well aware it would sound odd to some)

It's an error to think that "whom" is in any way more formal than "who".

then just specify that it sounds odd to your ears, thus avoiding confusion with other natives later on.

Do you think there are universally recognised (I mean by Irish, Scottish, American, Indian, etc. English speakers) "quaint" forms?

At this stage, what might sound quaint, overly formal etc. to a suburbanite might sound perfectly normal to the 'cosmopolites'.

Yes, yes, all this is obvious, but we are not concerned with minority contexts in ESL/EFL, are we? We speak in general terms, from grammar to collocation, from familiar to unfamiliar language, from appropriate to inappropriate use and on.

[Machjo]

Yes, yes, all this is obvious, but we are not concerned with minority contexts in ESL/EFL, are we? We speak in general terms, from grammar to collocation, from familiar to unfamiliar language, from appropriate to inappropriate use and on.

Intersting. You might be right on this, I don't know for sure. But it would be interesting to do some research on this. I wouldn't be surprised if many, maybe even most, native English speakers live as minority language groups worldwide, with monolingual suburbanites being in the minority!

After all, it's estimated that only about 75% of Canadians are fully functional in English, and more than 60% speak neither English nor French in its 3 largest cities. And the town of El Cerrito, Texas has Spanish as its sole official language of government administration, though the state of Texas uses English officially, and the federal has no official language. And let's add to that that an estimated 1% of Indians speak English as a mother tongue (1% is alot for India's population).

And =now just from my own experience as a native English speaker (though I don't know how this reflects statistics of course)I myself have lived as a minority native English speaker for a few years in... Canada! And in order to find myself among a native English-speaking majority city, I had to take a bus from La Malbaie to Quebec city (3 hours), Quebec city to Montral (6 hours if I remember correctily), and then from Montreal to ottawa (1.5 hours). Or I could satisfy myself with a majority native-english speaking suburb near Montreal.

And when I lived in downtown Victoria, where the majority in town was composed of native English spekers, the majority of my friends weren't. So even when a native-speaker is in a majority native area, he might still find himself mostly among non-native speakers. I myself happenned to do volunteer work with multicultural groups, have two native languages (English and French), and belonged to a minority religious community, so all these factors may have influenced my behaviour to lead to such a circle of friends, too.

So if this is the case in Canada, then how much more so in non-English-speaking countries.

Again, I wouldn't be surprised if minority native English speakers outnumbereed majority native-English-speakers worldwide, though that could be interesting research.

If you already have research on this, I'd love to see it.

Let's consider South Africa too> I don't know language statistics for that country, but I know Afrikaans is next to English there.