Study native tongue well to learn another

<b>Forum for the discussion of Applied Linguistics </b>

Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2

Post Reply
jotham
Posts: 509
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:51 am

Study native tongue well to learn another

Post by jotham » Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:46 am

I read an interesting article today entitled Mexico Quietly Helps Emigrants to U.S. Learn Spanish.
Though it delves into political issues and ramifications, my curiosity was piqued by underlying linguistic issues. I've always thought that many foreigners don't communicate well in English not because they have poor instruction in English, or because their English per se is poor, but rather because they aren't adequately educated at all — even in their own language — thus their ability to communicate effectively is compromised regardless of language.
Here are some quotes:
The programs aren't substitutes for U.S. curricula, but educators familiar with them say they provide a lifeline for adult students with little formal education by helping them become literate in Spanish — and by extension, English.
Then he heard about a new program called "Plaza Comunitaria," or Community Plaza, at Chattanooga State Technical College, where he could study Mexican elementary and middle school subjects online, with assistance from volunteers who receive stipends from Mexico. That seemed less daunting than jumping directly into English, and he quickly enrolled.


Much to his surprise, he was soon confident enough to study an hour a night in Spanish and an hour a night in English, earning his middle school diploma from Mexico along the way.


"When I achieved understanding of the Spanish and how to conjugate those verbs, it was so much easier to understand how to conjugate in English," he said. "It also sets an example for my kids. They see I struggled, so they should reach even farther."

fluffyhamster
Posts: 3031
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again

Post by fluffyhamster » Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:24 pm

Do verbs in English conjugate (have a lot of conjugations)?

But to answer your question, no, being educated (especially if it's as to "best usage") isn't a necessary prerequisite in learning a second language, but I'm sure that it helps (and I've banged on a few times about how e.g. Japanese teachers of English could really do with teaching Japanese as a foreign language beforehand, so they'd become more aware of e.g. the range of exponents for a given function, and not teach just the prescribed syllabus so much); certainly, I'm hoping that when (more like if ever) I finish writing that complete course in especially spoken English, I'll be much more aware of what I need to learn in any additional foreign languages I might then decide to turn my attention to in the future (as well as obviously much better able to teach at least the English). One knows one's native language best, so it's a natural (and possibly the best) way to increase one's "language awareness" generally.

woodcutter
Posts: 1303
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
Location: London

Post by woodcutter » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:50 am

I think orthodox linguistic views would be that the ability to communicate well is not dependent on learning "educated" language if you are talking to someone from the same milieu. How would you challenge that? I think it could be challenged, but I fear Jotham will bring his very un-PC notions of intrinsic excellence into it.

Clearly linguistic anaylsis of your own language allows to understand grammatical explanations of others though - if those are necessary, or helpful, which most of us think is true.

jotham
Posts: 509
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:51 am

Post by jotham » Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:18 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:Do verbs in English conjugate (have a lot of conjugations)?
English certainly has fewer conjugations than Spanish, though some verbs are more fertile ground than others: he is, they are, he was, they were...
Even though his own native language has more rules concerning conjugations, which he speaks naturally, he never studied them sufficiently enough to help him learn how to conjugate in another language, a language that has far fewer conjugations.
Last edited by jotham on Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:29 pm, edited 3 times in total.

jotham
Posts: 509
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:51 am

Post by jotham » Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:21 pm

woodcutter wrote:I think orthodox linguistic views would be that the ability to communicate well is not dependent on learning "educated" language if you are talking to someone from the same milieu. How would you challenge that? I think it could be challenged, but I fear Jotham will bring his very un-PC notions of intrinsic excellence into it.
I'm not speaking of stellar English worthy of editors and writers, but rather the English of educated people in all kinds of walks of life. Businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and especially scientists are all educated and show ability to communicate jumbled jargon, but they often write pretty lousy.
Educated English (whether or not stellar) is something immigrants should strive for. Stellar English is something that already-educated native speakers should (or could) strive for.
And who says excellence is "intrinsic"? In fact, I've argued that it isn't; that it must be strived after with sweat, blood, teears, and many years. It's as intrinsic as algebra, if not less so.

woodcutter
Posts: 1303
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
Location: London

Post by woodcutter » Sun Sep 28, 2008 11:47 pm

You seem to subscribe to the view that there is something inherently better about the sounds and structure of educated English as opposed to dialect, a view which most professional linguists reject on the grounds that the sound and structure is always changing.

For myself, I think it is the situations it is used in and the assumed attitudes of the speakers which make it more useful/pleasant (the latter only sometimes).

fluffyhamster
Posts: 3031
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again

Post by fluffyhamster » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:12 pm

woodcutter wrote:For myself, I think it is the situations it (=educated Engish presumably) is used in and the assumed attitudes of the speakers which make it more useful/pleasant (the latter only sometimes).
"Of course" it will suit more "formal" situations, but what do 'assumed attitudes' and 'more useful/pleasant' mean exactly? That snobs put on airs and graces, and that dialect (or hell, that artificial averaged-out descriptive construct called Standard English) isn't useful? You'd probably have been best to leave the post at just its first paragraph.

jotham
Posts: 509
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:51 am

Post by jotham » Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:30 am

woodcutter wrote:You seem to subscribe to the view that there is something inherently better about the sounds and structure of educated English as opposed to dialect,
Hm, not quite. Many educated people write and thus communicate deplorably, and many people without education are brilliant and talented communicators. If those people learned and had access to the tools of polished English, they would be even far better.
I believe that there is such a thing as excellence, clarity, and beauty in speech, and those that diligently seek to discover principles attaining unto such will undoubtedly find it and be able to teach others to boot. Many educated people, however, often seek to put on airs through obfuscatory language — making themselves sound like the smartest people in the room — and thus end up uncommunicating. They may be educated, but in the communicative and attitudinal arena, they stink.

woodcutter
Posts: 1303
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
Location: London

Post by woodcutter » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:27 am

Yes, it is easier to give examples of educated English making communication more difficult. Could you give us an example of how "polished" English makes communication easier? And also a sentence more beautiful than another for reasons unrelated to ease of comprehension?

(obviously people sometimes do not structure a text well or always refer to what they ought to be referring to, but I'm not sure that is to do with "educated English", though it is a skill that can be worked on).

woodcutter
Posts: 1303
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
Location: London

Post by woodcutter » Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:47 am

I'm sad if Jotham can't find some examples to back up his views, because I think this is a very crucial discussion. People who teach English literature - thus the people who teach English to the English speakers - would nearly all agree with him, I think, and the way they analyze text is informed by this view of certain kinds of language having intrinsically superior quality.

I can never understand why the English profs and the linguistic profs aren't violently slugging it out in the hallways.

Rp
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 3:23 pm
Location: Canada

Study of native tongue

Post by Rp » Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:29 pm

I was wondering if I might ask a question on this topic? Not being in an EFL environment, what "class" of English do you generally teach, or should I say, formal or more informal?

fluffyhamster
Posts: 3031
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again

Re: Study of native tongue

Post by fluffyhamster » Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:11 pm

Rp wrote:I was wondering if I might ask a question on this topic? Not being in an EFL environment, what "class" of English do you generally teach, or should I say, formal or more informal?
In terms of TEFL/ELT, informal might as well mean "(to be) spoken, or redolent of speech even when read silently", and formal=more "written", dense, ponderous etc), but that is not to say that ELT dialogues (as printed) aren't pretty "scripted" and redolent of writing as much as if not moreso than speech, whilst many printed texts proper ("blocks" of text, in paragraphs etc) "obviously" have little immediate translatability in terms of speech, in improving productive skills (i.e. they are pretty "raw" input, and will often remain as rather passive knowledge). But in some respects this blurring of boundaries is not too bad a thing (it helps kill two birds with one stone, enables students to speak and write on the basis of the one hazy "variety"), and studying one or the other pole can lead to extremes e.g. there are surely better ways to build spoken "fluency" than to ponder the genuine disfluencies in, say, CANCODE data ("ironically" native-speaker stuff, that!) too long.

To try to answer your question more directly however, I myself try to teach natural but fluent patterns of speech, and indicate how such speech (which would then become "speech") would look printed in full as opposed to contracted, ellipted etc. I might even, when the threshold between speech and writing had been truly crossed, indicate the so-called "prestige" forms, but in no way would I place these above the majority usages (unless I had good reason to believe that to not use such "prestige" forms would put a student at a disadvantage e.g. in an application to study or work at a snobbish institution).

Huddleston and Pullum address the failure of prescriptivists to distinguish between standard and non-standard dialects and formal and informal style (you can have both formal and informal style in Standard English, both of which are perfectly correct, but precriptivists seem to want only standard and also formal English forms, and will view informal standards as somehow incorrect). See the first five pages of the excerpt available here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521848 ... eader-link

Post Reply