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How many words for conversation? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5228 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 89 of 100 12 September 2011 at 1:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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Voilà, Iversen and some other participants see why I have been fighting tiresomely against the way the term fluency is bandied around here and elsewhere. Since fluency refers to fluidity of speech and not proficiency in use of the language, it really has nothing to do with culture. Fluency in a foreign language tends to increase with proficiency, of course, but they are two different concepts. One can speak fluently with a small vocabulary; it happens with a lot of native speakers. I would think that overall proficiency, especially for testing purposes, increases with size of vocabulary to some extent. Vocabulary increases with education and "culture." A university professor or a professional writer are certainly more proficient in the use of language but not more fluent than a manual labourer when observed in their respective environments.
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| oldearth Groupie United States Joined 4693 days ago 72 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 90 of 100 12 September 2011 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Since we're trying to be precise, can someone please clarify the meaning
of "word family"? It's been used throughout this thread. Are you all simply speaking about words with the same root? For example, would these Spanish words from Latin directus all be counted as one family? derecha > right (side, direction) derecha > right (legal right, human right) derechista > right-wing, right-winger derechamente > rightly, correctly ...etc Are there vocabulary resources that organize words by family/root? Some obviously appear together in the dictionary because of spelling, but a simple dictionary lookup alone will miss compound words with added prefixes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 91 of 100 12 September 2011 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The notion of 'word family' is even less precise than the words 'word' or 'headword'. A headword is roughly spoken the thing written with bold types in a standard dictionary. The authors of the dictionary may have had fuzzy criteria for marking some words like that, but it is easy to make statistics.
'Words' include endings, and endings in this respect include things that geneally are put in morphological tables. But already here there are some problems. You could argue that irregular words with several roots in their tables represent several words which complement each other, but this is normally not done. On the other hand there are derivations which can be made from most words of a certain cathegory (such as adverbs on -ly in English). It is mostly a matter of tradition that explains why these adverbs aren't seen as morphological forms of the corresponding adjectives. Sometimes such a derived form isn't possible, but this also happens for recognized forms like comparatives and superlatives. We have also had discussions about the word border: for instance in Polish a 'by' sneaks into some verbal forms, but it can also occur as an independent word. And in Portuguese weak pronouns can sneak in between the root and the ending in futures and conditionals. Word borders aren't something you can take for granted. And when we come to the notion "word family" the situation becomes even more chaotic. There are cases where the use of a certain prefix is so stereotyped that you just as well could see it as a morpheme (such as "ge-" in German), but there are also cases where the use of an affix clearly is a deliberate act which in other languages would correspond to the use of an independent word. So the line between word forms and independent words is more than dubious. On the other hand there are words which differ so much that you hardly can see that they are based on the same root, but they are, and they are formed according to a certain pattern - cfr. "speech" and "spoken". Do they belong to the same word family or not? The answer will to a high degree depend on your etymological skills. In practice those who chose to count word families will have to do some rather arbitrary choices. Personally I have chosen to count headwords (which just means that I have left most of the arbitrary choices to somebody else), but when you learn new vocabulary the notion of word families is very relevant in spite of all its fuzzyness. In some languages (Russian, Bahasa) the derivational patterns are simply the key to get a reasonably large vocabulary reasonably fast. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Barrabbas Newbie Joined 5859 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Studies: German | Message 92 of 100 14 September 2011 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hello Iversen, Yes, this is an elusive yet interesting and enjoyable topic; a topic in which one who lives with words is helpless but to indulge. I cannot resist to play in the mud like a boy. It brings me much joy and reconciliation of spirit to contribute to the craft; to make new friends; to begin anew the quest for understanding and wisdom, while avoiding the deluge of light and knowledge, which more often than not serves as an impediment rather than a facilitator. A young child sticks his hand in the flame only once. Shall we not take this same approach in our quest? Thank you for your thoughtful post. I will respond point by point. And in so doing hopefully we can peel back some of the layers of darkness that shrouds our commonality as a species, and, with luck, enable us to discover a few buoys on the way to enlightenment. ...... Iversen: "Fluency is essentially the ability to speak like water running out of a faucet". Barrabbas: Can we refer to "fluency" also as 'degrees of proficiency' in a given area? The reason for this is because I think we need to take things apart before we attempt to put them back together. It stands to reason that there are 'degrees' of "fluency". One may be a little fluent here, yet not so much there. A sound definition of "fluency" is that one can live in and *function normally* within a given society without assistance. If, for example, someone needs help to interpret an electric bill due to some difficulty with language or the math in that language, or both, then it is safe to say that this person is not fluent. Perhaps this person is 'verbally' proficient, but not proficient in reading (yet there are those with whom the situation is reversed). Then what? Do we say that he or she is "fluent" and leave it at that? Or do we say that he or she is fluent verbally, but not in reading, since there seems to be 'levels of fluency' in different areas? I think that the 'collective standard' by which "fluency" should be measured, must on average reach a certain level of overall proficiency. However, strengths and weaknesses in one isolated area are not by themselves indicators of a lack of fluency. I think the basic areas: math, reading, writing, comprehension, and verbal, all need to be considered collectively before any conclusion of "fluency" can be determined. Iversen: "However even at the bottom level you would normally also demand that the speech is understandable, which entails that it to some extent is correct and that the pronunciation isn't way off". Barrabbas: Yes and no. Yes because I can understand your desire to standardize speech and communication, or, "fluency", as a general idea, but no, not so much in a multiethnic society such as America. Here, in America, there are cultures within cultures. People can live and work and exist in their own ethnic communities with varying degrees of difficulty, or no difficulty at all. When someone from within said community attempts to "reach out" or "make a move to assimilate" (as I have heard it described on more than one occasion), that person knows, or soon finds out, that a much greater linguistic demand sets upon him quickly. Inasmuch the 'standard' set for that person is not the same standard that a native speaker would set for himself. Can I understand that person no matter how terrible he sounds? Yes. Is that person ready to get a job at some company and perform to the same level as everyone else? No. Is this person "fluent"? It all depends on how we are defining fluency. Iversen: "...You may not need to know the specific vocabulary of philosophy or science or literature or politics". Barrabbas: Agreed... as long as the individual can otherwise *function normally* within said culture. Iversen: "When you advance to the level of advanced fluency it is expected not only that you can speak, but also that you make few errors, that your accent is under control and that you can speak about a wide array of subjects". Barrabbas: This begs the question. Can a beginner in a language be referred to as "fluent"? The reason why I ask is because you mention "advanced fluency", which implies that there are different levels of fluency. Therefore the question arises: how far back towards beginner and absolute beginner must we go before we can say that he or she is 'not' fluent? Parroting a few phrases does not count as "fluency", nor does ordering food in a restaurant of the target language. Iversen: "You will also find native speakers who don't care about fashion or cooking or birds and who therefore have a deficient vocabulary in those areas". Barrabbas: This is interesting because "fluency" is related to the speed and accuracy with which an unfamiliar subject is comprehended. The greater the degree of saturation in the target language/culture, the sooner a completely unfamiliar subject can be understood. Hence the reason for the inseparability of language and culture. If a foreign diplomat were to only study the 'language' of a culture in which he intended to work, and had no familiarity with its morays and customs, then he would sound like an automaton, a Borg. He might have a good vocabulary, even a very good vocabulary, but no understanding of how and why such concepts are applied or how they are related to each other. Iversen: "Learners at any level will by definition have more holes and bigger holes in their vocabulary than the average native speaker, but the principle must be that you can't demand more of a learner than you would of a randomly selected native speaker". Barrabbas: I respectfully disagree. In fact, this postulate is self contradictory. One cannot on the one hand have "more holes and bigger holes", and, "simultaneously", be on "even terms" with one who does not. A native speaker will, always, be able to assimilate and comprehend more quickly unfamiliar material in his native language than a non native speaker because he or she has a vast knowledge base from which to draw. Knowledge builds on knowledge etc. In languages too: the more you know the easier they are to study and learn. This is very basic and I'm sure you simply overlooked it. To quantify "fluency" is indeed a difficult task. In my opinion it is not fair to allow ones weaknesses - specialized knowledge aside and speaking only in general terms - on technical issues to determine "fluency". If one can live, work, pay bills and otherwise *function without deficit or assistance*, then one is *functionally proficient* i.e. fluent. As mentioned above, by indulging in a little reverse engendering we shall try to imagine where "fluency" enters the picture. By doing so we hope to gain a clearer understanding on what "fluency" actually is. It is obvious that when an absolute beginner learns some canned dialogue, for example from say Pimsleur, and is then able to say 'hello, how are you, nice to have made your acquaintance, what time is it, and goodbye', he or she is not "fluent" in any way. You could say that 'thinking' in a language is the first sign of fluency, although fluency remains even at this point, elusive. I prefer to think of fluency in terms of *overall functionality*, as described above. Asterisk use is intended to indicate a 'working terminology'. These are subject to correction and/or redefinition. Back to you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 93 of 100 14 September 2011 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
There are many questions here and I can't deal with the whole thing now. Let me just say that in my message I purposely used a definition of 'fluency' which deals with things like speed and ease rather than correctness - correctness is handled by the word proficiency. But it is a simply fact that fluency often also is taken to include correctness, cultural awareness and a lot of other things. In this discussion where we deliberately try to take things apart (as you formulate it yourself) the all-comprehensive and 'fuzzy' definition of fluency will bring more confusion than clarity so I opted for the more precise one (and defined it in clear terms to avoid misunderstandings). It would be nice to have another word for this kind of fluent speech, but I'm not sure what that might be - you are welcome to propose a better term without the ambiguity of 'fluency'.
Who said the learner and the native speaker are on even terms? Actually the point is that learners typically have holes in their vocabulary, and that it is unrealistic to expect things to be otherwise. And if you don't expect a native speaker to know all kinds of special vocabulary then it would be even more silly to expect it from a language learner. And as far as I can see you don't disagree with that. Edited by Iversen on 14 September 2011 at 8:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Barrabbas Newbie Joined 5859 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Studies: German | Message 94 of 100 15 September 2011 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
Iversen: "Who said the learner and the native speaker are on even terms"? Barrabbas: My bad! I had it backwards. I thought you meant that there is 'no' difference between them. I went over it and can plainly see that we agree here. Sorry for the misunderstanding. If you have time, sometime in the future, I would appreciate feedback on my previous post. Iversen: "...You are welcome to propose a better term without the ambiguity of 'fluency'". Barrabbas: I see what you are saying and I will give it some thought. Very interesting. ...... I really do care about the subject and I think you do too. I will look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5228 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 95 of 100 15 September 2011 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Not fluency again. This subject has to be the ultimate bad penny that keeps returning all the time here at HTLAL. I won't give my usual tiresome rant on the subject, but I would just like to remind people that proficiency is really the term used in the world of language assessment to describe overall language ability and performance. Fluency technically refers to fluidity of speech. Under this definition there is no such thing as advanced fluency or basic fluency. There is low, medium or high - or the equivalents. On the other hand, one can speak of advanced proficiency using any one of the standardized scales.
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| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 96 of 100 15 September 2011 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Under the definition set of this forum there is certainly something called "basic fluency" and another called "advanced fluency", but as S_allard I have come to the conclusion that we need to separate the ability to produce fluent (i.e. free-flowing) speech from the ability to speak/write correctly (with the knowledge about a certain language that this implies). We just need another technical term for the former because 'fluency' on its own is so ambiguous.
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