I'm very interested in how the brain "translates" accent into understandable speech. Are Engilsh speakers, with its infinite accents, better at this? Furthermore, is the way we learn our first language reflective of our general way of thinking?
In Egypt, people were often baffled by the slightest mistake in accent. I lived near a street called tram street, which in Egyptian Arabic should be pronounced ahhh- taahh-rehhm. There is a very slight rolling of the R in there. Although my general arabic accent is quite good, this one word was impossible for me.
One time, I sat in a taxi and tried to explain to the driver what street I wanted. We agreed that there are three main streets that run across Alexandria. We agreed that we were at the moment on one of them, and it was not the one that i wanted. We agreed that I didn't want to be on the sea. In my mind, this alone should have been enough, but he began to rattle off all of the smaller streets, until finally i was able to pronounce tram street correctly.
Another time i was in McDonald's, and said i wanted my meal a cahm - bow. (As in Combo. With fries and a drink. I actually forget what they call it in America now, but in Korea its called a "set.") I was met with a blank stare. What i meant to say was cum-bow. There was no mental training to search for similar words, to do internal interpretations of meaning. The language was an all or nothing deal, where you either hit a bullseye of meaning, or grazed the target as gibberish. The fact that there was literally no other similar word i could have been trying to say in that situation was entirely besides the point.
While I was in Egypt and bitter and angry, I interpreted this as a clear sign that Egyptians were retarded. Now I'm beginning to realize that it has a whole lot more to do with how we are taught to learn language.
So now in Korea...
i sort of lost it yesterday. I was teaching little Bennie and Angie phonics stuff out of there phonics book, and there's a page that has
P + ark = Park.
That's it though. The book doesn't follow through with the whole Electric Company thing, it just moves on.
However, i have about 20 minutes of material that i have to stretch to fit a 45 minute class, so i thought i'd build on it.
wasn't going to happen.
They could read "ark"
and they could read "park", because they already knew it. But when i switched to an "M", i met blank stares. It's not that the kids didn't know what sound an M makes. (And furthermore, its not like there written language isn't phonetic either.) It's just that they're trained to memorize, not to problem solve.
I wrote "ark" "Mark" "Park" and "Hark" on the board, and had them repeat the pronunciations of each.
Then i added "Gark." (again, meaning isn't important here, this is a phonics class.)
One of the girls said "gorilla."
She knew the letter g, but the way her brain was wired to learn, she had to say a word that she already knew.
I was ready to cry.
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3 comments:
Bernard Shaw has said that when it comes to phonics, few languages are more arbitrary than English. He demonstrated this by the following:
Ghoti can be used to spell fish.
Use the gh sound from "tough."
Follow by the o sound from "women."
Finish with ti from "tuition."
Voila! -- ghoti = fish.
To be honest, I can't blame your (our) students for being afraid of abstracting from English phonics. When I was learning English as a child (my first language is Russian), I remember learning the words does and goes. I asked my teacher why they sounded so different. She looked at me like I had seven heads and said, "This is a d. This is a g. Are you an idiot?"
Finally, tell your kids about abstracting phonics after you show them "tough," "though", and "through."
On the other hand, interesting observation about accents and fluidity of verbal symbols. I wonder how much this has to do with cultural isolation in a given culture's history. For instance, Russian speakers readily recognize a multitude of accents (Georgian, Armenian, Chukchi, what have you) just as English speakers can. Could this be because a variety of cultures have adopted these language through history, creating a natural variation in dialect and accent, whereas Korean, for instance, has been spoken only by Koreans, allowing for a more monolithic conception of spoken language? But then, this wouldn't hold up with Arabic... Who knows.
Anyhow, interesting post.
I also thought about how it makes more sense as a phenomenon in Korea than in Egypt.
I think (although i'm not sure) that the reason Arabic speakers have trouble understanding "English" Arabic accents is because of how we understand accents in general:
In english, accents are usually based around vowel changes. While regional dialects may change the stressing of consonants (strong hard T's vs. soft T's, for example), i can't think of a single English instance where an accent changes a consonant entirely.
In Arabic, the reverse is true. Vowel sounds are fairly constant, while consanats change completely.
To give only 1 example -
The "standard arabic" Q, which should sound like a hard K, is pronounced like a G in parts of Oman, and as a glotal stop in Egypt.
Thus "pen" could be "kalim," "galim," or "alim," and still be understandable. However, change the "lim" part to a "lum," and you might as well be saying "pello" instead of "hello."
Anyway, thanks for the comment, these are all ideas i need to spend more time thinking about...
ive been reading a lot of infomercials on the rosetta stone. i hear NASA uses it.
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