On teaching approaches

[jess tauber]

The Eurocentric POV also does damage to sound play- whether ideophonic or augmentative/diminutive shifting. In many places where Europeans managed directly or indirectly to put their own educational notions into effect such play has been reduced or lost, even where it was a large part of the life of the language.

Ideophones were thought of as too childish or unserious, or not really in the language at all, while aug/dim shifts were seen as evidence that speakers had sloppy pronunciation.

Where languages still have robust systems of either or both forms of sound play (such as in Japanese or Korean) there still is no developed 'Western' method for teaching them, at any level, which leaves learners, especially second language learners, at a loss.

Jess Tauber
phonosemantics at earthlink.net