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Please, proficiency not fluency | ||
Tags: Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5455 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 17 of 59 13 August 2010 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
This seems to be the heart of the issue. We assume that fluency implies a high level of proficiency. In a neighbouring thread (How do you know you are fluent?) people are talking about reading fluency and writing fluency. In my view, one can be totally fluent in a language and yet illiterate. It sound incongruous to all of us, but it still happens today. As long as fluency is perceived as a synonym of proficiency, we're going to have this problem of "kinds of fluency". Now we have to speak of speaking fluency to differentiate it from reading fluency and maybe even hearing fluency. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not optimistic about changing people's linguistic habits. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5352 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 18 of 59 13 August 2010 at 1:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6968 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 19 of 59 13 August 2010 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
As s_allard explained on several occasions, in academic publications on the subject, fluency is a more restricted concept than overall high proficiency in a language. First of all, it refers only to speech, and I am not sure it even refers to all the aspects of speech in that context. Edited by frenkeld on 13 August 2010 at 2:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5323 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 20 of 59 13 August 2010 at 1:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ignorance is indeed one of the main driving forces for language change. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5352 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 21 of 59 13 August 2010 at 2:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6968 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 22 of 59 13 August 2010 at 2:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree with johntm93 that if a word has a clear meaning in contemporary speech, its etymology is not relevant. There is a Russian word "галстук", derived undoubtedly from German "Halstuch", but which in Russian means an ordinary "tie", or "necktie" (Krawatte). I hope I will be forgiven my 'ignorance' for using the word "галстук" in its Russian meaning when speaking Russian even though its meaning has diverged from that of the German word. And a word can have its meaning evolve withing the same language too, etymology be damned. Edited by frenkeld on 13 August 2010 at 2:26am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6968 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 23 of 59 13 August 2010 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, in a more technical sense, if I understood s_allard correctly, not only does it refer exclusively to speech, but it doesn't even refer to all of the aspects of speech. In an everyday sense, I am like you - I would imagine if someone speaks 'fluently', he damn well better be able to understand what people are saying in reply, so good listening comprehension is implied by common sense. I would also imagine one should be able to read as well at that point (perhaps Mandarin aside), simply because most people do some amount of reading while learning to speak. Writing can be murkier - it takes a bit of training to learn to write coherently even in one's native language, so in a foreign language someone focused heavily on speaking might find himself struggling with writing for a while. An yet, when the terms are used in a formal setting, they have to be more careful with definitions. Which of the two meaning of the word, the everyday or the technical one, should rule the roost in the forum is a matter of opinion, of course. I would imagine that in the discussions people will do whatever comes naturally, so one could realistically only try to bring in the more technical definitions of fluency/proficiency into the proficiency classifications. Edited by frenkeld on 13 August 2010 at 2:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5455 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 24 of 59 13 August 2010 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I am certainly not against lexical democracy nor the evolution of usage. The problem isn't whether fluency is synonymous with proficiency or not. In my opinion, the technical usage in linguistics that I refer to gives us a conceptual tool that allows us to discuss certain questions in a more precise and scientific manner. I'm not trying to shove linguistics down people's throats nor say that only university-certified linguists should be talking about language learning. I'm trying to find a middle ground between professional linguists and language-teaching specialists who probably think that we at HTLAL are a bunch of bumbling amateurs who don't know what we are talking about and the community of language learners who are seriously interested in learning languages on their own.
I know that some of us take a rather jaundiced view of university language courses and the science of linguistics, but we have to recognize that there are entire departments devoted to the study of language and to the teaching of foreign (often called "world") languages. These language professionals are generally not interested in self-study or independent learning as we are, so our paths don't cross. But that does not mean we should not learn from the advances or insights that professional linguists can bring to our debates. As an aside, I prefer to reserve the term linguists for persons in the field of linguistics and polyglots for those who speak multiple languages. Many people here do not make that distinction. As I said earlier, many times our debates get bogged down or meander off in all directions because, in my humble opinion, the words or concepts we use are not precise. Those of us who have been around this site know that every week there is at least a new thread where somebody wants to know how to learn 10 or more languages in the shortest possible time or how to become fluent in a few months. These are very legitimate questions. The problem is that much of the time we can't agree on some very basic concepts or terms and the debate just fizzles out. The reason I want to reserve fluency for its technical usage is that it has a precise meaning that I suggest is useful in discussions about fluency and not about everything under the sun. If we're talking about how to develop fluency in a language, we'll talk about specific learning strategies that will focus on speaking either conversationally or in narrative form. We won't be sidetracked by issues of writing emails, reading great literature or listening to podcasts unless these subjects come to bear on the fundamental goal of developing an ease of speaking. So, I say let's reserve fluency for fluency and let's use proficiency for overall language skills. It's only a proposal that may or may not interest many people. While I'm on a roll here, there is another technical distinction that I like to make because it is also at the heart of endless debate. That is the concept of word. So many times we have discussions of how many words one has to know in order to speak a language. 500? 3000? 5000? 10000? or more. Remember Pareto's law? 3000 words cover 95% or most conversations. On numerous occasions, I have said that a word is not really a word but often a set of lexical units or very different meanings and usages under a single phonetic form. For example, the verb "to do" in English has more like 30 to 40 different usages, if not more, hiding under the same form "to do". This is an important concept for two reasons. First, when we learn a foreign language, the most common words have the most meanings and idiomatic usages. This can be maddening and frustrating because we are constantly finding new ways to use the same words. Secondly, this explains how one can be very fluent and have long conversations with a relatively small number of words. A so-called poor vocabulary of 500 words is in fact closer to 3000 or 4000 usages or units, As long as one stays within a certain range of technical vocabulary, it can be totally sufficient for most purposes. To come back to the original subject here, the fundamental question is whether the concept of fluency, as proposed here, brings clarity and precision to the debate? If it doesn't, or if most people vote that it's just another way of saying proficiency, well, we'll just go along our merry way. It's only a proposal. Edited by s_allard on 13 August 2010 at 4:30am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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