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Everything your english teacher told you was wrong!
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I thought Travis did not make sense only because he was not a native speaker pretending to be one. But now I understand. He makes no sense because he has learned a few linguistic terms and thinks he is an authority. Most of the fancy terms he uses are of no interest or use to 99.9% of people who use language.
Prescriptivist, descriptivist, barycentre or whatever..... I can no longer see the original post, but it is mostly pretentious nonsense.
The more people like Travis who get involved in language teaching, the less people learn. Language learning is simple. Imitate good practice. The definition of good is whatever you find the most useful or attractive. For most learners, who are learning for practical purposes, it is helpful for the teacher to guide them to select models that will be as widely useful as possible. That is why we teach standard language. On most important points of usage, US English and British English agree, to the point that it is difficult to tell whether an author is English or American, or Canadian, or Australian, or West Indian (Naipaul) or Polish (Conrad).
As to the distiinction between a language and a dialect, that is largely subjective. Is Spanish a dialect of Latin, is Catalan? Why is Cantonese considered a dialect of Chinese, while Dutch is not considered a dialect of German? It is a matter of convention.
Really the distinctions do not matter. If you want to learn Cantonese, learn it. If you want to learn Dutch, learn it. But when you do so it will probably be in your interest to learn the most widely accepted standard form of the language. You will want to imitiate those people who use the language well, in the view of the majority of the users.
Prescriptivist, descriptivist, barycentre or whatever..... I can no longer see the original post, but it is mostly pretentious nonsense.
The more people like Travis who get involved in language teaching, the less people learn. Language learning is simple. Imitate good practice. The definition of good is whatever you find the most useful or attractive. For most learners, who are learning for practical purposes, it is helpful for the teacher to guide them to select models that will be as widely useful as possible. That is why we teach standard language. On most important points of usage, US English and British English agree, to the point that it is difficult to tell whether an author is English or American, or Canadian, or Australian, or West Indian (Naipaul) or Polish (Conrad).
As to the distiinction between a language and a dialect, that is largely subjective. Is Spanish a dialect of Latin, is Catalan? Why is Cantonese considered a dialect of Chinese, while Dutch is not considered a dialect of German? It is a matter of convention.
Really the distinctions do not matter. If you want to learn Cantonese, learn it. If you want to learn Dutch, learn it. But when you do so it will probably be in your interest to learn the most widely accepted standard form of the language. You will want to imitiate those people who use the language well, in the view of the majority of the users.
I see what your problem is now, from what you've said above. You're simply a reactionary who insists on rejecting modern linguistics for obsolete traditionalist views which have no basis in such. Of course, you go and appeal to antintellectualism to bolster your views, with statements like:
"Most of the fancy terms he uses are of no interest or use to 99.9% of people who use language."
and
"Prescriptivist, descriptivist, barycentre or whatever..... I can no longer see the original post, but it is mostly pretentious nonsense."
Uhm, sorry, but if that is the most of an argument that you can make, by simply complaining about "pretentiousness" and "fancy terms", such doesn't mean in itself. If the use of certain terms in their appropriate context, in this case one pertaining to the discussion or language-related matters, and register, in this case primarily a literary register with some spoken language features added in cases, is too much for one, then that is one's own fault. Likewise, that does not at all change the value of what is being said one bit.
I myself am not involved in language teaching at all, but clearly you have the view that modern linguistically-oriented views should not be brought into the classroom, where they may happen to displace such obviously "good" traditionalist views and practices. Furthermore, you seem to favor treating languages as monolithic wholes, without taking multiple registers or even diglossia into account. I would assume that you are against recognizing such as so from a teaching standpoint. For example, from this discussion, I would assume you would be against even considering informal spoken North American English as being significantly different from literary NAE, and that you would favor just teaching literary NAE alone, as if the everyday spoken language did not even exist or somehow were identical with the literary language.
As for whether Cantonese is considered a dialect of Chinese, that is only by non-linguists, as from a linguistic standpoint Cantonese is a language, and Chinese is a language *group*. For example, in speech, Cantonese is very distinctly noncrossintelligible with, say, Mandarin. In the case of Dutch and German, while written Dutch and German are somewhat crossintelligible, spoken Dutch and German definitely are not crossintelligible, and as from a linguistic standpoint spoken language matters more than written language, spoken crossintelligibility takes precedence here. (Note that here I am specifically not including Low Saxon with German, for the record.)
"Most of the fancy terms he uses are of no interest or use to 99.9% of people who use language."
and
"Prescriptivist, descriptivist, barycentre or whatever..... I can no longer see the original post, but it is mostly pretentious nonsense."
Uhm, sorry, but if that is the most of an argument that you can make, by simply complaining about "pretentiousness" and "fancy terms", such doesn't mean in itself. If the use of certain terms in their appropriate context, in this case one pertaining to the discussion or language-related matters, and register, in this case primarily a literary register with some spoken language features added in cases, is too much for one, then that is one's own fault. Likewise, that does not at all change the value of what is being said one bit.
I myself am not involved in language teaching at all, but clearly you have the view that modern linguistically-oriented views should not be brought into the classroom, where they may happen to displace such obviously "good" traditionalist views and practices. Furthermore, you seem to favor treating languages as monolithic wholes, without taking multiple registers or even diglossia into account. I would assume that you are against recognizing such as so from a teaching standpoint. For example, from this discussion, I would assume you would be against even considering informal spoken North American English as being significantly different from literary NAE, and that you would favor just teaching literary NAE alone, as if the everyday spoken language did not even exist or somehow were identical with the literary language.
As for whether Cantonese is considered a dialect of Chinese, that is only by non-linguists, as from a linguistic standpoint Cantonese is a language, and Chinese is a language *group*. For example, in speech, Cantonese is very distinctly noncrossintelligible with, say, Mandarin. In the case of Dutch and German, while written Dutch and German are somewhat crossintelligible, spoken Dutch and German definitely are not crossintelligible, and as from a linguistic standpoint spoken language matters more than written language, spoken crossintelligibility takes precedence here. (Note that here I am specifically not including Low Saxon with German, for the record.)
Personally, I'm surprised that someone finds Travis' posts difficult to understand. IMHO, they are well-written and really interesting. Thank you, Travis.
Anyway, I believe that the discussion of one's writing style is completely pointless, so let's get back to the topic, which is "Everything your english teacher told you was wrong!" Obviously, this statement is completely wrong putting that mildly. So even jjhlk understanding unsustainable of this claim re-worded it to "let's say it was occasionaly explained for the wrong reasons." I don't see why it shoudl be a problem. Teachers are humans, aren't they? So it should not come as a surprise that they can make mistakes or may not know something. I would rather like not a teacher who is "right" all the time, which is simple impossible, but someone who would be able to acknowledge his or her mistakes.
In fact, the notion of right and wrong in language is not absolute. It is relatively to the settings and even a personality of the speaker. Traditionally, the idea of grammatical correctness is tightly tied to the formal writings and the most prestige dialect of that language. In the past, English had only one such dialect - RP. Today, GAE has the equal status in the mind of most people, and it is quite possible that EE may become the standard dialect in the Great Britain. This is because any life language is in constant flux, even some people do not like that.
The standard language is just one dialect of the language, and as any dialect it does not have sharply defined boundaries as to what is acceptable and what is not in it. Even if there were such boundaries that would not remain the same over time. Naturally, the standard tends to be better defined and more conservative when it comes to formal writings or formal speeches and less so in everyday speech. Someone may even argue that everyday speech is not covered by the standard.
Mxsmanic said "ESL/EFL students need a clear standard that they can learn and emulate." The truth is that there is no clear standard. I think it should not deception about that. I believe what most ESL/EFL students need is clear understanding what kind of language and why they learn. Some students may be more interested in formal writings while others may want to start with less formal everyday speech. Students goals and preferences can differ and that should be taken into consideration -- "one size fits all" does not work well.
Then Mxsmanic wrote: "For non-native students of English, clear rules are essential. When and if they learn these rules completely and gain a high level of fluency, ... "
There are two problems with this assertion. First, there are no such thing as "clear rules." A simple variant of rules presented to beginners is obviously incorrect. A full set of rules for standard English, they can be fully understood only by linguists, and no person in the world can consciously follow them to produce speech fluently. That leads us to the second point: conscious learning of grammar rules does not become acquisition of that language. The process of acquisition is slow and one should be exposed sufficient amount of meaningful input in the target language for this process to occur. Knowledge of grammar rules is useful to some degree (it is especially so in the beginning to make sense of foreign text), but this knowledge alone is not sufficient for real proficiency. No one can gain a high level of fluency through memorizing grammar.
Another important factor for success is not only interest in the target language alone, but also in the country where it's naturally spoken and its culture. This can be learned through reading formal texts only. Sometimes popular songs or movies can be very effective to revive students interest in the language. Also some students will want to practice their English by chatting with English speaking peers. One way or another, many students will be exposed to different variates of English than standard one. In my opinion, a teacher should not deny existence of these varieties of English or limit his explanation by saying that is not a standard. Instead a good teacher should be able to explain in which settings this phrase may be appropriate and suggest a more "correct" version of it for more formal settings.
Anyway, I believe that the discussion of one's writing style is completely pointless, so let's get back to the topic, which is "Everything your english teacher told you was wrong!" Obviously, this statement is completely wrong putting that mildly. So even jjhlk understanding unsustainable of this claim re-worded it to "let's say it was occasionaly explained for the wrong reasons." I don't see why it shoudl be a problem. Teachers are humans, aren't they? So it should not come as a surprise that they can make mistakes or may not know something. I would rather like not a teacher who is "right" all the time, which is simple impossible, but someone who would be able to acknowledge his or her mistakes.
In fact, the notion of right and wrong in language is not absolute. It is relatively to the settings and even a personality of the speaker. Traditionally, the idea of grammatical correctness is tightly tied to the formal writings and the most prestige dialect of that language. In the past, English had only one such dialect - RP. Today, GAE has the equal status in the mind of most people, and it is quite possible that EE may become the standard dialect in the Great Britain. This is because any life language is in constant flux, even some people do not like that.
The standard language is just one dialect of the language, and as any dialect it does not have sharply defined boundaries as to what is acceptable and what is not in it. Even if there were such boundaries that would not remain the same over time. Naturally, the standard tends to be better defined and more conservative when it comes to formal writings or formal speeches and less so in everyday speech. Someone may even argue that everyday speech is not covered by the standard.
Mxsmanic said "ESL/EFL students need a clear standard that they can learn and emulate." The truth is that there is no clear standard. I think it should not deception about that. I believe what most ESL/EFL students need is clear understanding what kind of language and why they learn. Some students may be more interested in formal writings while others may want to start with less formal everyday speech. Students goals and preferences can differ and that should be taken into consideration -- "one size fits all" does not work well.
Then Mxsmanic wrote: "For non-native students of English, clear rules are essential. When and if they learn these rules completely and gain a high level of fluency, ... "
There are two problems with this assertion. First, there are no such thing as "clear rules." A simple variant of rules presented to beginners is obviously incorrect. A full set of rules for standard English, they can be fully understood only by linguists, and no person in the world can consciously follow them to produce speech fluently. That leads us to the second point: conscious learning of grammar rules does not become acquisition of that language. The process of acquisition is slow and one should be exposed sufficient amount of meaningful input in the target language for this process to occur. Knowledge of grammar rules is useful to some degree (it is especially so in the beginning to make sense of foreign text), but this knowledge alone is not sufficient for real proficiency. No one can gain a high level of fluency through memorizing grammar.
Another important factor for success is not only interest in the target language alone, but also in the country where it's naturally spoken and its culture. This can be learned through reading formal texts only. Sometimes popular songs or movies can be very effective to revive students interest in the language. Also some students will want to practice their English by chatting with English speaking peers. One way or another, many students will be exposed to different variates of English than standard one. In my opinion, a teacher should not deny existence of these varieties of English or limit his explanation by saying that is not a standard. Instead a good teacher should be able to explain in which settings this phrase may be appropriate and suggest a more "correct" version of it for more formal settings.
Steve K,
=>Why is Cantonese considered a dialect of Chinese, while Dutch is not considered a dialect of German? It is a matter of convention.<=
Because Dutch is totally different language that's why not a matter of convention.
=>Why is Cantonese considered a dialect of Chinese, while Dutch is not considered a dialect of German? It is a matter of convention.<=
Because Dutch is totally different language that's why not a matter of convention.
IS Cantonese a dialect of Chinese? I always thought Cantonese and Mandarin were seperate languages that shared a written language.
Cro Magnon,
Strictly speaking, Chinese is not a language but a group of languages.
"Its range of regional variation is comparable or greater than that of the Romance languages."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
Strictly speaking, Chinese is not a language but a group of languages.
"Its range of regional variation is comparable or greater than that of the Romance languages."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
Cro Magnon, technically Cantonese and Mandarin do *not* share a written language, as there is such a thing as written Cantonese, which is sharply distinct from written Mandarin. The matter though is that written Mandarin is used as the primary written language in most of China today, including by people who do not natively speak Mandarin, and who very well may not be fluent in Mandarin in speech. This is much like the use of written standard Hochdeutsch in German-speaking areas of Switzerland today, where the primary written language is standard Hochdeutsch, and Swiss German dialects are not used in formal writing, even though in most non-formal contexts primarily Swiss German dialects are actually spoken. Hence, someone who may primarily speak Cantonese may still primarily read and write in Mandarin rather than Cantonese.
Travis,
<<technically Cantonese and Mandarin do *not* share a written language, as there is such a thing as written Cantonese, which is sharply distinct from written Mandarin.>>
You obviously have no idea, whatsoever, about what you're talking about. There is, I can assure you, no difference between written mandarin and cantonese. Both languages use exactly the same characters (with some exceptions in Hong Kong Cantonese) when writing. Chinese languages use characters, not letters. This is why they can use exactly the same written sentence to convey the same meaning in two largely different languages.
Could you tell me where you heard that there is a difference between written cantonese and mandarin? You may be confused with the use of traditional chinese in Hong Kong and simplified chinese on the mainland. If this is the case, you are simply 'talking out of your ass'. Another option is that you are speaking about pinyin versus cantonese written using the latin alpabet. Pinyin is mandarin written using latin letters, however, there is no standard cantonese written using latin letters. If there were, would be major and obvious differences between the two. But, the bottom line is that someone from Hong Kong and someone from Beijing could always communicate through writing. There would be no confusion because one was writing in Cantonese and the other in Mandarin.
<<technically Cantonese and Mandarin do *not* share a written language, as there is such a thing as written Cantonese, which is sharply distinct from written Mandarin.>>
You obviously have no idea, whatsoever, about what you're talking about. There is, I can assure you, no difference between written mandarin and cantonese. Both languages use exactly the same characters (with some exceptions in Hong Kong Cantonese) when writing. Chinese languages use characters, not letters. This is why they can use exactly the same written sentence to convey the same meaning in two largely different languages.
Could you tell me where you heard that there is a difference between written cantonese and mandarin? You may be confused with the use of traditional chinese in Hong Kong and simplified chinese on the mainland. If this is the case, you are simply 'talking out of your ass'. Another option is that you are speaking about pinyin versus cantonese written using the latin alpabet. Pinyin is mandarin written using latin letters, however, there is no standard cantonese written using latin letters. If there were, would be major and obvious differences between the two. But, the bottom line is that someone from Hong Kong and someone from Beijing could always communicate through writing. There would be no confusion because one was writing in Cantonese and the other in Mandarin.
If there were, would be a major. . .
Should be:
If there were, there would be a major. . .
Should be:
If there were, there would be a major. . .
Kazoo,
If you are absolutely sure,you m ight want to change this piece in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese
If you are absolutely sure,you m ight want to change this piece in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese
Kazoo, the matter is that there is not a single unified written Chinese language, unlike what some Chinese nationalists, whose word I would never take on the subject, may say. And no, I'm not referring to the use of simplified characters versus traditional characters, as I'm not an idiot. Furthermore, I was referring to writing in Chinese characters above, even though, yes, you can write in Cantonese using various nonstandard romanizations Rather, there is just written Mandarin, which has become a standardized literary language for the whole of China, and various other (usually unstandardized) written forms of other languages in China, of which written Cantonese proper is the most commonly used.
For starters, contrary to popular belief, the Chinese languages are not grammatically identical to each other, and so even if the same words were used for words which are cognate with each other across the Chinese languages, said languages would still not be identical in writing. Secondly, extra characters are used in writing Cantonese which are not used in writing Mandarin, even when one totally disregards the whole simplified versus traditional characters issue. One should remember that not all words in Cantonese are directly cognate with any words in Mandarin. Thirdly, grammatical particle usage would specifically differ from that in Mandarin, and hence this cannot be handled by simply chalking things up to the tired old "we just pronounce the same characters differently" argument. The matter is that there is a specifically different written Cantonese outside of written Mandarin, which differs from it in more respects than just pronunciation, but just most people in China today in most formal writing use written Mandarin, even if they cannot fluently speak it.
For starters, contrary to popular belief, the Chinese languages are not grammatically identical to each other, and so even if the same words were used for words which are cognate with each other across the Chinese languages, said languages would still not be identical in writing. Secondly, extra characters are used in writing Cantonese which are not used in writing Mandarin, even when one totally disregards the whole simplified versus traditional characters issue. One should remember that not all words in Cantonese are directly cognate with any words in Mandarin. Thirdly, grammatical particle usage would specifically differ from that in Mandarin, and hence this cannot be handled by simply chalking things up to the tired old "we just pronounce the same characters differently" argument. The matter is that there is a specifically different written Cantonese outside of written Mandarin, which differs from it in more respects than just pronunciation, but just most people in China today in most formal writing use written Mandarin, even if they cannot fluently speak it.
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