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Please, proficiency not fluency | ||
Tags: Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6971 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 25 of 59 13 August 2010 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'd like to make sure I understand fully what the proposed concept is. I think I have right that it doesn't refer to reading or writing, or even to listening comprehension, only to speaking. I am less clear about which particular aspects of speaking are and which aren't covered by it and would appreciate a clarification. Edited by frenkeld on 13 August 2010 at 6:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5355 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 26 of 59 13 August 2010 at 6:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7131 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 27 of 59 13 August 2010 at 9:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I dislike the term fluency as it's bandied about (not just here) which is why I rarely bother to enter these debates and even agreeing a definition will not stop a multitude of threads being started with the word in the title. The trouble is, I'm not sure that someone announcing that "I'm proficient in <insert language of choice>" helps either - it gives me no greater insight into their abilities than announcing that they're fluent in <insert language of choice>. The only assumption I am prepared to make is that with a starting point of no knowledge at all, they're somewhere to the right of that. The thing is, there's a perfectly acceptable measurement of proficiency (there I've said it) in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the Wikipedia article here gives some helpful comparisons to relate those to other standards (North American, for example). The reason I like the CEF is that the documentation also provides self-assessment criteria for defined competencies - those being Listening, Reading, Spoken Interaction, Spoken Production, Writing. So instead of announcing that I'm fluent or proficient in French I can actually say that IMHO I currently rate myself: Listening: B2 Reading: C1 Spoken Interaction: C1 Spoken Production: B2 Writing: B2 Now someone else can look at both the criteria and my self-assessment (obviously relying on my honesty here!) and form a clearer idea about my competence in French (or lack of it). The relevant documentation is here Edited by Andy E on 13 August 2010 at 9:53am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5458 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 28 of 59 14 August 2010 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I can't agree more. Using such a set of standards, we can at least decide to talk about the same things. One aspect of the CEFR model is that it sets communicative goals and not linguistic or structural goals within languages. For example, there is no set number of "words" per level. The emphasis is on the ability to really use the language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6039 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 29 of 59 14 August 2010 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
We sometimes talk about "mastery", or "mastering" a language.
Sorry, that is not the case. Most English speakers make no link whatsoever between "fluent" and "fluid". I remember discussing what it meant to be "fluent" in a language when I was a teenager. None of us really knew what it meant -- me, my brothers, my sisters, my parents. We thought it just meant "good at", and were trying to work out how good was fluent. I didn't learn the technical meaning until I started studying university languages at the age of 25. Personally, I try to avoid any word that has a different colloquial and technical meaning. I only talk about "fluency" to people in the technical community. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5326 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 30 of 59 14 August 2010 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks for this clarification. I would like to add a little story about a curious word whose meaning I learned as a child or teenager, I don't remember exactly. The word was "slagon" (German "Slagon", with a French pronunciation). My mother used it in sentences like "Look at this funny advertisement, pretty funy, this slagon!" Or: "I don't understand what these people say, they speak in a strange slagon, so I don't get the meaning." You may be able to guess that this word was actually a hybrid of "slogan" and "jargon", I had no clue about this and used this word on several occasions and in my mind. The one or other person with a better vocabulary than me may have given me a strange look, but I did not really get suspicious. Some strange day I finally made the connection between the words "jargon", "slogan" and "slagon" - and noticed that there was no room in the German language for my beloved neologism, its place was already taken by enemy creatures. A rather embarassing and irritating moment, but a good lesson just as well. (I think from this day on I was aware that "native competence" or similar conceptions are just an abstraction, and not something one can take for granted.) I could give more examples of wrong vocabulary acquisition from my own experience, there are quite some words whose meaning I had to relearn, not only after "scientific" studies, but just simple words, but I think everybody has made similar experiences, and may just not remember or want to "confess" it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6971 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 31 of 59 14 August 2010 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I will accept that it would require a somewhat keeer eye to connect "fluent" and "influential", but "fluent" and "fluid"? Seems kind of obvious - it's just that most people don't use etymology for a precise meaning of an ambiguous term, only as a rough guide, which is the right approach anyway. Suppose you did make the connection in your family gathering? Would that make the precise meaning of the term immediately clear? Not really, but it would be of some help - that's as far as the etymology can be expected to help. The word "fluent" simply has a broder meaning in an everday context than it does in a technical one, and there is nothing wrong with that. To say that the broader meaning is not what it should be because of the etymology of the word is in my view an attempt to legislate what cannot be legislated. Edited by frenkeld on 14 August 2010 at 6:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6039 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 32 of 59 14 August 2010 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hang on, are you genuinely telling me that I'm wrong here? Or are you suggesting that my entire family is below average intelligence? >:-( Because seriously, it is not obvious. The word "fluent" is not used at all in everyday English except for languages, so there is no reason to make any connection. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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