Difference between "sounds" and "seems"

[woodcutter]

If you were trying to communicate that you didn't want to deal with or think about, or even listen to the problem being put to you, I think you would say

"Yeah, yeah, sounds like a good plan"

because of the connotation of mental process that "seems" carries. So perhaps the words themselves hold the clues as to selection.

[Duncan Powrie]

I can't detect (i.e. am not greatly bothered at the moment to try to detect) much difference between "is/seems/sounds/looks/feels (like) a good plan", and I doubt if you could ever really say for certain what influenced one "choice" over another, Larry! Does it really matter? Wouldn't these things just pass us by in conversation anyway? To insist that a speaker would choose only one in a given situation seems to be pointing towards prescription regarding thought processes (that OUGHT TO BE involved by any "serious" user), rather than a mere description of form! I wouldn't take Lewis's dictum that "a difference in form implies a difference in meaning" too seriously - at least not in every instance! We should be adding "only sometimes", certainly not "always", to his words there! I wonder if anything could be discerned even from a corpus?!

I would be more interested in wholly INAPPROPRIATE (by anyone's standards, native or non) phrasings of (especially learners') propositions, and how these came about (i.e. are they based upon actual differences in conceptualization, or upon dodgy input, or upon "overlearning"/inability to "accept" facts on the part of the learner? etc).

[LarryLatham]

Don't misunderstand my intentions, here, Duncan. I would never advocate that we teachers should identify a certain single distinct meaning of "seems" to teach our students so that they will know when to choose "That seems like a good plan." And then another distinct, identifiable, describable, learnable meaning for "sounds" that we can teach our students, and so on. That would be foolish.

What I do believe, however, is that any individual competent user of English has, imbeded in his brain somewhere, certain distinctions upon which he calls to make choices between the several available options when he puts together sentences and paragraphs. And I believe that these distinctions are tied to meaning in some way, so that his choices are made to fit his intended meaning. In other words, the speaker tries to make language that matches his intentions in the best way available to him. And alternatives are intentionally chosen, not randomly selected.

So a statement like: "There is absolutely no difference in meaning between (option A) and (option B)", which some here seem to be asserting, makes no sense to me at all. There must be a difference in the speakers mind, to my way of looking at it. And while it surely is our task as listeners to try to determine what nuances of meaning the speaker may be asserting by the choices he makes (since, as competent users ourselves we are aware of the different possibilities and what distinctions they may have in our mind), we cannot know for sure. All we know for sure is what he did say. And also what he did not say (but could have). But that's not anything different than the usual circumstance. We always are in the position of trying to figure out precisely what our interlocutors mean in a particular context. And it always is true that only the speaker knows for sure, and even then he probably can't say it any better than he alread did, because if he could he would. There always is a negotiation for meaning, and sometimes we don't get it right. Misunderstandings are a natural occurance in any speech community. Most of the time, they are fairly inconsequential. Sometimes they lead to war. Often the consequenses fall somewhere between.

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

If you were trying to communicate that you didn't want to deal with or think about, or even listen to the problem being put to you, I think you would say

"Yeah, yeah, sounds like a good plan"

because of the connotation of mental process that "seems" carries. So perhaps the words themselves hold the clues as to selection.

I wouldn't disagree with you here, woodcutter. But I would point out that this particular speaker in this speaking circumstance would likely also deliver his sentence with other clues (such as body language, nuance of intonation, nuance of modulation, etc.) that together with the choice of words should (in the speaker's mind, if he isn't being disingenuous) convey that he "couldn't care less". Interpretations are required of both the speaker and listener. Word choice probably has something to do with that process, too, even if by itself it doesn't carry the whole message.

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

Duncan, I mentioned "feels like" because while it is of the same species, it is obviously rather different, wouldn't you say? Only a poetic individual would be given to making a statement such as "it feels like a good plan", or someone with very few facts to go on! So it serves as a good example of how the individual words retain influence. (Though Larry seems correct as regards my previous example).

[Duncan Powrie]

Hiya Woody, sorry for the delay in replying. I suppose I shouldn't've put the "feels" in with the other items, but as it is a little odd (unlikely or unattested), perhaps we can therefore "drop" it.

Thanks for replying at length, Larry. Sure, I would agree that there must be something going on in our brains that ULTIMATELY makes us choose one form over another, but I don't know if this will ever be amenable to explicit explanation, at least not as far as learners are concerned. So yes, perhaps all we can do is set up oppositions (say what the speaker did NOT say) and "define by default". I don't think speakers, unless they are being very careful (as we often need to be on Dave's!) are consciously aware of making "choices".

Oh, I bought the Thompson book (re. SFG) after all, and found an interesting bit in it (near the start, of course) - especially what's in the first set of brackets following this one (Thompson's, not mine, in case you were wondering ):

"Note that the use of the term 'choice' does not necessarily imply a conscious process of selection by the speaker: what we aim to uncover through a functional analysis are the reasons why the speaker produces a particular wording rather than any other in a particular context (in some ways, it would be almost as true to talk of the wording choosing the speaker). In writing this book, there are certain choices that I am very conscious of making, for example, the decision to sometimes address 'you' directly rather than always avoiding this by using passives, etc. (both decisions are possible in a textbook, and I have consciously set out to sound 'interactive' in parts). But there are many 'choices' that I am constrained to make by the kind of context in which I am using the language: for example, it is very unlikely that I will use the structures asscociated with swearing, except perhaps in quotes. It is only in my consciously trying to imagine the 'wrong' choices that such choices even present themselves as possible: but the choice not to swear has nevertheless been made (or, rather, made for me). These are deliberately crude examples; but the principle applies in every detail of the wordings that I 'choose'." (page 9)

Not that you mentioned "conscious" explicitly - or that Thompson is making a case for behaviourism or connectionism (or even corpus linguistics, my fave!!) etc; Thompson in fact goes on to say that "TG takes linguistics towards biology" (ever inward, into the mind and brain), whereas "functional grammar takes it towards sociology".

Actually, interesting as the Thompson is, it does get a little demanding ...I may put it aside for now in favor of Brazil's A Grammar of Speech! (I saw a spanking copy in a bookstore the other day, lucky eh, considering it seems not to have been reprinted, and thus might have been lying on that shelf, since 1995!).

Hey, why don't we start a book review thread (or did I suggest that before) - one with capsule reviews, in which the next book is suggested (by processes of association or otherwise) by the present one? Especially regarding the books that really stand out, that we would e.g. want to put on a recommended reading list for a friend about to embark on a career in ELT.

Hmm in connection with your thread about the value of mistakes, do you think it is valuable AND NECESSARY for people to tread as similar a path as those who have gone before, so they come to the same conclusions, or do you think they should only be taught "the best" stuff, even though there is then a danger that they might not come to the same appreciation of it as we have? I often ask myself this question not so much in relation to teaching language, but in relation to teaching martial arts (where tradition is often paramount), or applied linguistics as a subject etc - that is, I am interested in how I got to where I am, and if I would (want to) be any different...ultimately, I always try to appreciate the value of everything, it has all played its role! Just wish there could be MORE OF EVERYTHING!!

***Edited-in bonus*** Quote from Brazil (section headed, "Language learning and teaching - Seeing the wood for the trees"): "There is, for instance, the fairly mundane question of where in the textbook, and hence often in the course, certain topics are discussed in relation to the treatment of other topics. Again, tradition has a powerful influence. The need for most grammars to serve as reference books means that they tend to follow a common pattern if for no other reason than that this is the only way to ensure users can find their way around them. But the organization of the book is the most potent model a learner has of how the language is organized: the patterns of similarity and difference and the generalizations that are presented therein tend to be taken to be unassailable reality. It is proper to question whether the map they are being given is necessarily the best we can provide."

[LarryLatham]

Hi Duncan,

I can't remember seeing a better, clearer, more lucid post from you before. Come to think about it, I can't remember many this good from anybody. It was a great pleasure to read, and I hope you had as much fun writing it.

As far as the SOMETHING going on in our brains when we choose language is concerned, I am aware that some readers here think this is nothing more than academic detail...of little interest to teachers and students of EFL/ESL. But I think it's more vital than that. One of the absolutes that occurs in every classroom in one way or another is, "Teacher, what does XXX mean?" My view is that whatever it is, it could mean any of several things, depending on many variables. Revel has added to this idea by pointing out that even such a small thing as raising one's eyebrows as (whatever it is) is said can have sometimes a huge effect on the meaning. Context has been shown to have a great effect. And, I believe, having students explore word choice, which is to say, what is chosen as well as what is not chosen but possibly could have been in certain circumstances, will vastly enhance their understanding and their fluency over time and many repititions. As Thompson says, on p.9, there may not be a conscious choice made, as in the sense of laying out all the possible words that could be used in a given circumstance, and then "choosing the best one." No, I am sure it doesn't work like that. Actually, I'll have to admit I don't know exactly how it does work, but in spite of that, until I see hard evidence to the contrary, I still think intentional choices are made, even if they might not be conscious choices. Prawn has said here (and I suppose that may be because Halliday has said) that speakers must have a stance. I agree. Speakers usually don't talk just to hear their own voices, but rather have some kind of agenda, whether it is formal or otherwise. There is something they want to say, and they want their hearers to understand the logical (to them, at least) points they make. So, to me, word choice is not some abstract or obscure detail to be wrestled with by linguistic professors in their ivory towers. It is a vital and potentially spirited part of the language classroom.

Hey, why don't YOU start a book review thread? I think the idea has merit. Most of us (on this forum, anyway) read, but who can read everything? Having some guidance from colleagues surely couldn't hurt!

do you think it is valuable AND NECESSARY for people to tread as similar a path as those who have gone before, so they come to the same conclusions, or do you think they should only be taught "the best" stuff, even though there is then a danger that they might not come to the same appreciation of it as we have?

An important question, I agree. Actually, I'm generally of the view that they really shouldn't be taught anything. I'd rather see teachers leading students to be individual learners. (Yes, I think this can be done even in a classroom with 30 or even 40 students in it.) Consider this: among native speakers, vocabulary (or, a term I have recently been looking at with favor, lexical field) is individual. Everyone has his own. True, there is a great deal of overlap for common general items, but so what? It doesn't follow, I think, that that means we must teach the common words in lists for all to learn. It is clear too, that there are great differences in the grammatical views of different speakers. Not even we teachers can agree in this area. Why must students all have identical views? That you ask these kinds of questions of yourself, as well as here so that others can weigh in, is a sure sign that we teachers haven't totally fossilized.

Interesting point from Brazil. I'm not familiar with his book. I gather, from your comments, that it's hard to find. Should I try very hard?

Larry Latham

[Duncan Powrie]

Thanks for replying, Larry!

I know I sound like I am itching to create vocabulary lists, and to teach (lecture?) explicitly, but actually, I also am wary of teaching without there needing to be an explicit reason to; that is, the only reason I am concerned with product is because relying on process would seem, to me at least, to risk relying on intuition too much (I suspect there would be much that would remain "uncovered", in several senses of the word!).

The most appealing inkling of an approach that I have seen recently is in the discussion of Microsoft's MindNet (Dolan, W., Vanderwende, L., and Richardson, S., "Polysemy in a Broad-Coverage Natural Language Processing System", in Y. Ravin and C. Leacock (eds) Polysemy: Theoretical and Computational Approaches. OUP, Oxford 2000: 178 - 204. Despite the title, this is actually a pretty approachable book, and boy, do these "Clarendon" imprints look, feel, smell and taste good! <<<Munch scoff chew...>>> ). One of its products is similar in a way to a "mindmap", and echoes one of the essays in the front of the first edition of the Longman Language Activator (perhaps by Philip Scholfield?).

Don't rush out and get the Brazil just yet - you might not be too impressed with his "linear grammar". I know that I for one didn't really pay it that much attention when I first saw it a few years ago...but now, maybe, I am in a "better" position to appreciate its simplicity and "obviousness". From what I have understood so far, he is not too taken with grammars that combine "constituents", nor with discourse analysis (starting with texts and working downwards); he seems to just want to concentrate on the "online" production of speech, a word at a time!

I can see how that makes sense - I mean, we may litter our speech with e.g. "discourse markers", and of course these have a cumulative communicative effect, but they are just one more word in a long chain of words, and I doubt if we are consciously aware of using them (that is, we do not set out to create texts when we speak...but obviously, we do set out to do something every few moments. It is that something, and how it is functionally achieved through whatever forms, that Brazil seems to want to concern himself with).

Another juicy quote to whet your appetity (got my brain's stomach rumbling, anyway!): "Why do we want a linear grammar? It is essentially the above supposition that this book sets out to explore. It develops one tentative view of how a purpose-driven grammar - as opposed to a sentence-oriented one - might be constructed; and, crucially, it does so without having recourse to notion of constituency of the hierachically organized kind."

Maybe I will write a review of it, when/if I finish it. What could be even more fun would be to have a thread where at least two people read a book simultaneously, and discuss whatever has caught their interest whilst reading!

[LarryLatham]

Maybe I will write a review of it, when/if I finish it. What could be even more fun would be to have a thread where at least two people read a book simultaneously, and discuss whatever has caught their interest whilst reading!

I've never tried this with writing. No reason, though, that I can think of why it wouldn't work. I sure like to do this "live", so to speak, with one of my friends who shares my enthusiasm for the world. He and I get into some fabulous arguments over all sorts of things. It's one way to keep your brain alive, and to keep it from getting too stiff to work without pain. Language students aren't the only people subject to fossilisation.

Larry Latham

[SD]

Could anybody tell me the difference between "sounds"and "seems". One of my students asked the rules and I could not formulate any!

Examples:

It sounds like a good plan
It seems like a good plan

thanks

I don't think there are any rules. To me "sounds" is a stronger word. It sounds more positive, whereas "seems", is, to me, a weaker word. The speaker has, perhaps, more doubt about the plan being good with "seems". The speaker, I think, is more confident about the plan being good with "sounds".

[woodcutter]

Well, here's a thing. Chi-8 asks a stimulating question, this ill-bred Woodcutter fellow makes a dubious response, while Duncan and Larry prefer to hare off after the deepest secrets of the universe.

There's nothing wrong with the odd bit of philosophical exposition or the odd mini-essay. It seems to me though, that the meat and drink of a forum such as this should be fairly short, pithy and to the point posts. After all, as we sit here in front of our little screens, we are but a few clicks away from some of the finest academic essays ever written. We look at a chat forum in order to find a little human touch, a bit of give and take concerning digestible ideas.

Looking at my "seems" above, we can see what a lonely, self-important word it can be. I would say, SD, that sounds, which cannot be used in this way, is a more social and therefore friendly word, but you couldn't really call it stronger.

[Duncan Powrie]

Monsieur Woody, I know my essays don't always say much, but then, neither (sometimes? often?) do short posts; and the length of a post is no sure indication of its pithiness!

Anyway, do people REALLY need to ask what the difference is between "sounds" and "seems"? I am sure that some answers can be found in good dictionaries, and if you are serious about teaching, you won't be just addressing these (student) issues on an ad hoc basis, but arranging whatever you come up with in relation to the copula, simile, metaphor etc. And posing what you think is a clever question on Dave's on a rainy Sunday afternoon (or Monday lunchtime, or whenever we have a spare "minute" or are perhaps bored) isn't going to ultimately do the hard work for you (get you familiar with all the forms and their corresponding metalanguage, or arrange them into a half-way decent ordering for teaching and/or learning).

I just wish we all (and I include myself here) knew enough already, and were now at the point where we wanted to apply it (or even, in fact, were considering chucking it all out and starting afresh). That to me is what Applied Linguistics is about, about what stance and direction to take in organizing and (unsurprisingly!) applying what you know. Perhaps you feel you have hit upon the perfect method already (re. your other posts), but there are those of us who are not so convinced (partly because we are not content to take the content, which has a direct impact on the method, quite so much on trust!).

As it is, there is too much subjectivity on show, with people saying what some item means to them (and maybe them alone), so it is hard not to feel this whole forum is almost becoming a prescriptive one regarding usage (some have remarked as such at least once before now). I would take more of an interest if it were clearer exactly where the examples on show were coming from - are they even spontaneously elicited, let alone genuine examples of use (all they seem to be are decontextualized inventions, in need of "recontextualizing" to support whatever view we take of them regarding their meaning/use); how, then, can we trust any of these intuitions so much that we would start formulating pedagogy upon them?! That may seem an obvious and boring question to you, but it is, I think you'd have to agree, a very important one to which we need to return again and again, sick and tired of it though we may be, lest we abandon principle entirely (ominous crack of thunder and following flash of lightning illuminates evil Dr. Woodystein's clifftop language school - how was that for a nice human touch?! ).

[SD]

Well, here's a thing. Chi-8 asks a stimulating question, this ill-bred Woodcutter fellow makes a dubious response, while Duncan and Larry prefer to hare off after the deepest secrets of the universe.

There's nothing wrong with the odd bit of philosophical exposition or the odd mini-essay. It seems to me though, that the meat and drink of a forum such as this should be fairly short, pithy and to the point posts. After all, as we sit here in front of our little screens, we are but a few clicks away from some of the finest academic essays ever written. We look at a chat forum in order to find a little human touch, a bit of give and take concerning digestible ideas.

Looking at my "seems" above, we can see what a lonely, self-important word it can be. I would say, SD, that sounds, which cannot be used in this way, is a more social and therefore friendly word, but you couldn't really call it stronger.

I appreciate what you say here. Still, "seems" means "appear". While something may seem or appear a certain way to someone, it doesn't mean that something is a certain way to someone. On the other hand if something "sounds" a certain way to someone, then to me there is a greater chance that something is a certain way to someone.

Here is one way it might be illustrated.

That sounds like a good idea. Let's do it.

That seems like a good idea. Let's think about.


Yes, "sounds" is freindlier and idiomatic. I can see that. But I also hear it as a word with more certainty than "seem". I understand this has much to do with individual perception. It's quite debatable. I can understand a case being made for "sound" not being more certain as well.

[LarryLatham]

There's nothing wrong with the odd bit of philosophical exposition or the odd mini-essay. It seems to me though, that the meat and drink of a forum such as this should be fairly short, pithy and to the point posts. After all, as we sit here in front of our little screens, we are but a few clicks away from some of the finest academic essays ever written. We look at a chat forum in order to find a little human touch, a bit of give and take concerning digestible ideas.

I certainly hope I have misunderstood you here, woodcutter, because on the face of it, this is pretty insulting. It looks as though you think none of us here could possibly have an original idea, or even a good one. (If you want good ideas, just click over to the "finest academic essays ever written.") I really don't consider any of my writing here either the "odd bit of philosophical exposition" or "the odd mini-essay," and suspect others who post here don't think that of their writing either. Perhaps I'm not reading you right, but if you think this stuff is too heavy to digest, you could always start a lighter thread if that is your preference.

Larry Latham

[Duncan Powrie]

Okay, woodcutter, maybe what Larry and I should have been doing is returning to the beginning of the post and addressing whatever was the original concern (although I suppose you could say that it has been answered reasonably well )...certainly, "essays" exchanged between just two people can start seeming to "exclude" others, and get a little fetishistic or m*st*rb*t*ry or whatever you would like to call them...but it is fun to let your quill pot run dry from time to time, let me tell you, and if you seem to find an ideal reader out there somewhere from time to time who responds positively and makes this whole computerized palaver seem a little bit more human, well, who'd say no to that?!

Obviously, nobody can dictate what should or shouldn't be submitted to a forum, and neither should they try! All we can all really do is just hope that others exercise some self-restraint and politeness, and that we will all somehow muddle along, ostensibly merrily, in the process. Believe it or not, I wasn't going to post much more on this thread until you suggested I shouldn't!