[etni] Re: Re. Spik dis vay, etc
- From: Lev Abramov <lev.abramov@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: jophrabo@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:11:50 +0200
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 9:46 PM, joseph barnett <jophrabo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
... > My final word: ultimately the learner has to decide whether
he/she wants simplification or authenticity. Beginning a foreign
language by acquiring a faulty phonology will lead to irreparable
damage and poor pronunciation habits.
Joe, not only that. There are about 400 million L1 speakers of English
in the world; a roughly equal number of L2; and about 800 million EFL
speakers. Statistically, as an EFL speaker, I have thrice as many
chances to speak English to another ESL/EFL speaker than to a native
speaker. Hence, the main goal is to teach the students to produce
utterances that will be understood by other non-native EFL speakers -
people whose decoding/inferencing ability may be far from perfect, and
whose intuition (what we call "metalinguistic awareness") may not be
sufficiently well-developed.
Naturally, each EFL speaker tends to simplify the pronunciation trying
to assimilate it to their L1 phonetic toolkit. If this tendency is not
counterbalanced by the attempt to sound in a more "standard" manner -
as close to the "correct" pronunciation as possible - then a Chinese
EFL speaker and a German EFL speaker might find each other's EFL
utterances mutually incomprehensible.
Consequently, the goal of teaching proper pronunciation is not to
produce an imitation of a native speaker. The ultimate objective is to
teach students to speak comprehensible English for international
communication.
Non-natively yours -
Lev
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