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Narrative Speech vs Spontaneous Speech | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 17 of 21 30 January 2015 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unfortunate? That makes it almost sound like either a moral failing or some sort of great loss. I am quite happy with the way my German is progressing. I am not actually that resistant to FSI drills, I just don't personally feel the need for them at the moment. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5563 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 18 of 21 30 January 2015 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There's an interesting book by Daniel Kehlmann, "Thinking, Fast and Slow" about how the
conscious and the subconscious work with respect to interpreting statistics, deciscion making etc. It doesn't cover language, but I think conscious/narrative/deliberate/non- spontaneous speech could be likened to a program that constructs sentences based primarily on vocabulary and grammar rules, while the unconscious/spontaneous speech is something based on grabbing example phrases and constructions out of a database of experience. (Actually, I found the book a bit long winded, but the ideas are interesting. He's on youtube of course) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4739 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 21 30 January 2015 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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One other factor that might confound L2 learners listening to unrehearsed speech is the
increased importance of rhythm, intonation and emoting. It probably goes without saying that these factors are more important in unrehearsed speech than in written language, because of course they aren't present in written language. But I would agree that they are also much more essential in unrehearsed speech than in "narrative speech." When we don't have time to structure our speech we really on conveying our emotions to get across what we're trying to say, and while it's not as effective as a well-prepared speech, this type of communication is used all the time and clearly serves its purpose. The fact that transcribing this speech- stripping it of rhythm, intonation and spoken emotion- renders it nearly unreadable is only further proof of how important these factors are. When learning a new language, I'm sure most of us spend some time on developing the proper rhythm and intonation, but to truly master this on either an active or passive level is an enormous accomplishment. There are very subtle differences between and even within languages as far as how to express emphasis, deemphasis, comparisons, and the whole range of emotions. Deepening your understanding of these abilities will surely help you to understand spontaneous speech. I wouldn't necessarily say this is the most important factor- grammatical and vocabulary shifts as well as general cultural context are probably at the top- but it would certainly behoove anyone who wants to get close to native-level ability to assess whether they have deeper to dig here. Whether it's worthwhile, of course, is another matter. Even limiting yourself to narrative speech will give you an incredible view into the culture of the language you're studying, and if you understand what you want to understand I'd say you're doing pretty well. But especially for anyone who wants to make their L2 a real part of their life, I think this is an area that is well worth exploring. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 20 of 21 30 January 2015 at 10:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
My bad. Whenever I think of FSI I start to salivate and my tongue gets away from me. Edited by luke on 31 January 2015 at 3:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 21 of 21 31 January 2015 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The reason we can understand native spontaneous speech quite well even though it may be full of all
kinds of disfluencies, gaps and even outright mistakes is that we are able to "smooth out" the language because of our deep knowledge of our native tongue. In essence, we know what the person wants or is trying to say if we have enough clues or material to work with. This is the big difference between a native speaker and even an advanced learner. We see this even with rehearsed dialectal language we may find on television shows. It may be different from the way we speak but it's usually not much of a problem because we can spontaneously figure out what is truly being said. Edited by s_allard on 01 February 2015 at 5:40am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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