LL-L 'Language proficiency' 2006.07.31 (08) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 31 July 2006 * Volume 01
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Oops! Again ...

***

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L 'Language proficiency' 2006.07.29 (07) [E]

>From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Etymology
>
>I wonder how passive processing of written language fits in with this then, and,
>even more interesting to me, how written language is processed that isn't really
>meant to be pronounced, thus is in a way also non-oral.
>
>When I read Modern Chinese, I tend to pronounce it in my head in Mandarin. At
>least I think I do. When I read Classical Chinese, I usually do not pronounce it
>at all, in my head or otherwise, though I might occasially check if the old
>rhyming scheme in poems still works in Mandarin. (I think that this is how
>Japanese speakers handle Classical Chinese poetry.) In fact, I avoid pronouncing
>Classical Chinese altogether, because pronouncing it in any modern Chinese
>variety doesn't do it justice and isn't really understood. (People need to see
>the written version to understand it.) Pronouncing it in reconstructed Middle
>Chinese is useless unless you have a roomful of listeners that are familiar with
>the same reconstruction, which probably never happens. So, in effect, it's a
>purely written language bridging the divide between written oral language and
>pictographic writing. One of my Classical Chinese poetry professors made us
>orally render (in effect translate) poems in modern language (either Mandarin or
>English, depending on the course level), which I found more useful. I imagine
>that this is rather similar to interpreting sign language into oral language,
>since there are great structural differences and translating a single symbol very
>often requires several spoken words.
>
>Do you think this is valid, Sandy?
>
I find it very interesting that you read Classical Chinese poetry
without thinking about the sound. It makes me think of the many Deaf
people who can't speak, and yet can read English - although it's much
rarer for them to be able to write anything like correct English. It
also makes me wonder about the possibility of reading and translating
languages without having to worry about how they sound, because of
course one of the things that puts me off learning new languages these
days is not being able to hear them.

In speed reading, thinking the sound of the words you read is known as
subvocalising. In some speed reading theories, there's such a thing as
the "sound barrier" (about 800 words per minute), that's considered to
be impossible to break unless you learn to read without subvocalising.
But in other theories of speed reading, subvocalising is considered
important, though I'm not sure why - perhaps some people can't get away
from the idea that you have to hear a language, even if only in your
head, in order to understand it.

As a hearing or former hearing person learning sign language you're
faced with quite a spectrum of signing styles. "Signed English" aside,
many Deaf people will still mouth English words (often silently or
incomprehensibly, I think, though I'm only judging this from hearing
people's reactions as I can't hear it myself) as they sign in BSL. I
think this happens because of the fact that the Deaf think of spoken
language as somehow more formal than signed language. You can observe
this at any Deaf Club when someone stands up to make an announcement -
someone who normally uses BSL will switch to Signed English with English
mouth patterns in order to make the announcement, or (much rarer these
days) might even fingerspell the whole announcement. I think it may
often be true that those Deaf who don't know English well enough to do
this feel discouraged from making announcements, which is a pity
(there's a bit of irony here - while English is treated as if it's
somehow more valid, very few would disagree that BSL without English
overlays is a far superior way to express yourself in sign).

These sort of habits often give the learner the impression that this is
how BSL is used, and for a a year or two learners will typically use
mouth patterns while signing. Eventually, however, they notice that
there are many signers who don't use English at all while signing. This
may not have any immediate impact on their signing styles, but as their
comprehension of such signing styles improve, they eventually notice
that full BSL is much _faster_ than spoken English.

This makes them realise that if they want to be able to use full BSL,
then they _can't_ go on using mouth patterns or even subvocalising -
English is just too slow. If you don't believe this you might try
watching an interpreter on a TV programme and see how slowly they seem
to be signing compared to the speaker. Oral languages are just slow!

And eventually, if they want to be an elite signer, they learn to sign
without thinking in English at all, or thinking any sort of sounds while
signing.

So I don't know Ron, it depends on how all this compares with your
experience of reading Classical Chinese!

I'm not really sure if signing is faster than spoken language in actual
communication. The Deaf I know certainly seem to prefer to describe
things rather than name them, and this draws things out a bit. For
example, if you ask someone in English what they do, their job probably
has a name - they might say, "I'm a farmer," and if you want to know any
more you'll probably have to ask. A Deaf person is much more likely to
say something like, "Farm, awake at five, cows in rows, milking
machines, fetch bags of feed, big long troughs, pour it all in like
this..." It's just not nearly so boring when it all goes by you in a
flurry of images and actions!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Thanks a lot for the elaboration, Sandy.

In the meantime I have done two things:

(1) I've tested myself and have come to the conclusion that I don't sound-read
when I take an initial, cursory look at a text, but the Mandarin pronunciation
does come into my head when I read more slowly and intently, figuring out the
semantics in context, also being aware of some characters having more than one
possible pronunciation (often a different tone) when it is used in different
ways. So, in a word, I skim over a text to get an initial "picture" before
"analyzing" it.

(2) I've asked three native Chinese speakers, two of them Mandarin speakers and
one Cantonese speaker, and they said they sound-read in any case. This is the
way they had been taught to do it, they have little or no background in
linguistics, and they are barely aware that the language of Tang poems was
pronounced very differently. (They seem to think of it less in terms of
different languages than of different styles.) So they don't care, whereas I
seem to care "too much." (To me it's like reading Latin but pronouncing it in,
say, Catalan.) I asked them if they expect listeners to understand without
knowing or seeing the text. The Mandarin speakers said "No," but the Cantonese
speaker's longwinded answer seemed to mean "Sort of," probably because Cantonese
preserves most of the old sound differences and has seven tones (as opposed to
four tones in Mandarin).

In the case of even the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphic writing you can't apparently
avoid sound-reading. Each glyph suggests a consonantal construction _Ã  la
sémitique_. If the meaning is the literal one of the pictograph, then there's a
vertical stroke underneath meaning that you should take it as literal. If it
denotes something else with the same pronunciation, then there's a mouth symbol
underneath, meaning "sounds like." In addition, to the right there is a
classifier sign. For instance, the sign for house (_pr_) might have a mouth
underneath it and the sign for two walking legs to the right. This denotes the
word _pr(y)_ 'to go out', 'to leave'. So, sound plays an important role here,
and "pictographic" may not be such a good label. It's a bit like playing
charades: making a sign for "house" (e.g., a roof shape with both hands),
pointing at an ear ("sounds like") and signing walking legs with two fingers.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron 

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