ah/ awe

[Mark A. Mandel]

On Tue, 3 Oct 2006, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

#Mark,
#
#I know it's a dream.  But I think the quest toward one optimal pronunciatoin of
#English dialect for best communication is a good thing.  I don't know why you
#can't fashion this.  For an applicaiton think of air traffic control.  The
#standard is English.  The clearest pronunciation should be taught.
#
#Tom Z

Pronunciation isn't learned from teaching, but from living. By the time a
native speaker of any language begins school, his or her dialect* is pretty
well set for life. How do you think we learned pronunciation before we had
schools or literacy? This learning process is hard-wired in our nervous
system, and all the teaching in the world isn't going to overcome it. Others
in this conversation have tried to show you why it would be a bad idea even
if it were possible, and I will leave that effort to their good attempts.

*Merriam-Webster online:
1 a : a regional variety of language distinguished by features of
vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from other regional varieties and
constituting together with them a single language <the Doric dialect of
ancient Greek>

-- Mark A. Mandel
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]

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