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Timeline to developing an accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 81 of 100 07 April 2014 at 9:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's normal to have several mental representations of a word like "nation". There are individual differences as well.
Not listed in order or complete: A primary definition. Nation spelled "n-a-t-i-o-n". Sound in native language. Contexts such as "one nation under God" and the opening salutation of Stephen Colbert. Some emotional connection with the word. Sound in other languages such as French. As far as pronunciation, there are similar complexities: Is the word heard properly? (not so hard with "nation" in French/English). Does the speaker know how to say it properly? Physical practice in context. Sound combinations that are like native language have been done millions of times. If the foreign sound combination is unusual, or a slight variation of the usual, there will be "habit interference". "Mental interference" - everything else swirling around in the person's head when they are saying the word. It seems there are many components in accent production: Does the speaker hear the phoneme? Can the speaker produce the phoneme? How similar/different is phoneme with other native and non-native sounds? How much does the speaker feel invested in pronunciation? (pride in native country or target language) Self-talk like "I have a bad accent" or "I speak perfectly". Interference within the individual's head. E.G. Similar to this, like that. Practice in context. Performance anxiety. Freshness of speaker. Habit. Some of these can be addressed through work on phononolgy, culture, attitude, and oral practice. Edited by luke on 07 April 2014 at 9:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 82 of 100 07 April 2014 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's certainly not the case that French speakers say "nation" perfectly in English. They will often tend to have more stress on the second syllable than on the first (applying L1 rules) and to add a longer vowel before the last n (or a vowel that resembles French schwa, which is not exactly like English schwa), which should be a syllabic n (while n exists in French, syllabic consonants don't). It's hard to know whether the speaker is saying the word wrong because they have an inaccurate mental representation of the word (missing info on stress and the syllabicity of the n) or if all the facts are there but are simply badly executed because the L1 phonological rules interfere in the delivery. Either way, if the phonological rules are inaccurate, then the speaker's representation of the L2 is inaccurate and being able to pronounce all the right sounds would still yield the wrong pronunciation. In other words, a lot more is going on than the simple physical execution of sounds, which implies, in turn, that making all the right phonemes is not sufficient for proper pronunciation. Edited by Arekkusu on 07 April 2014 at 3:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 83 of 100 07 April 2014 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Careful reading of my post will show that I did not say that French-speakers pronounce "nation" perfectly in English. Here is what I actually said: "...For example the words nation has two very different pronunciations in English and French. French-speakers should have no problem making the sounds of the English word. All the sounds exist in French. For English- speakers the French word is a bit more challenging because of the nasal sound, but it's not that difficult. The real problem for both groups is the confusion that stems from the fact that the identical word exists in their native language. They tend to pronounce the word according to their own language. This applies as well of course to similar looking words like photograph and photographe. " There seems to be some confusion here about what constitutes the right sounds of a language. If we are speaking only about phonemes and not what are called suprasegmental elements, i.e. stress, pitch and rhythm, then of course speaking the right phonemes is not enough. But if use right sounds of a language to mean pronouncing the sounds correctly, i.e. all the phonology, then by all means knowing all the right sounds means being able to pronounce correctly. In any case, I believe that the debate hinges on three issues: 1. How do learners hear or perceive the meaningful sounds in the language? 2. How are these sounds represented internally? 3. How are these sounds produced? All of this within the context of the presence of a native language. I don't negate the presence of the first two factors. I just believe that the third is the most problematic and difficult to master. Edited by s_allard on 07 April 2014 at 4:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 84 of 100 07 April 2014 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Knowing all the sounds separately isn't enough. English speakers can produce the zh in words like pleasure or leisure, but most of them substitute the word-initial one for j.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 85 of 100 07 April 2014 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
We don't hear sounds in the absolute: languages aggregate continua of variations into sounds (eg. English aspirated and unaspirated k are understood as being a single sound). The assumption that these L1 aggregates apply equally to the L2 interferes with our perception of L2 sounds (eg. two k's in L2 are perceived as one -- exactly as in the Korean 'ka' example Luke presented). The inappropriate filtering of L2 sounds through L1 rules yields an inaccurate internal representation. Unless we disagree on this premise, it's inevitable that production will be affected by the mental representation the speaker has of the L2 sounds, even if the speaker has the ability to make all sounds. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 86 of 100 07 April 2014 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As I wrote, there are three issues: perception, representation and production. Let's look at them one by one:
1. What do learners hear? Are we to believe that English-speakers do not hear all the meaningful sounds of the target language? For example, do English-speakers not hear the difference between la roue and la rue in French? Or that Russian-speakers do not hear the o in piano? Or that Spanish-speakers do not hear the difference between vowel and bowel? Of course, they hear the sounds. The problem is that these sounds are not perceived as being meaningful. 2. How are these words stored mentally by the learners? Frankly, I don't know because I haven't researched the issue enough. As I mentioned earlier, the writing system is often a cause of confusion. Does the Russian-speaker store something like piana? Or the English-speaker la roo? I'm not sure. 3, What we do know is that when it comes to speaking, the learners will initially exhibit strong influence of their native language because it takes lots of practice to retrain the vocal apparatus. What I'm reading in the debate here is that the problem of good pronunciation lies in mental representation and not in production. I disagree strongly. Issues of perception and representation are important, but I believe the heart of the problem is in production. When working with learners, what do we concentrate on? Perception, representation or production? It's by far production. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 87 of 100 07 April 2014 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
And that's a problem because it completely bypasses a big part of the issue. Edited by Arekkusu on 07 April 2014 at 5:37pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 88 of 100 07 April 2014 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know what other people do, but I've found that working on production produces (no pun intended) the best
results. There's obviously nothing wrong with lots of listening but the fundamental way of working on pronunciation is repeated imitation of the sounds under the guidance of a teacher. How do you get a learner to pronounce rue properly? You work repeatedly on the articulation of the sound and by contrasting it with other sounds. The learner hears the sound perfectly. That isn't the problem. How it's stored I don't know or care. With lots of corrective feedback, we can bring the learner to produce the sound relatively accurately. Then we have to consolidate that sound in various words and contexts. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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