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This question is Not Answered
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captainproton
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98623
Thu, 12 May 05 03:23 PM
Why do L2 speakers of English sound foreign as a result of different phonetic patterns?
Any ideas would be appreciated!
Joined on
Mon, May 9 2005
New Member
02
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Guest,
4 yr 193 days ago
Most probably because they are foreign and English is their L2:)
Seriously, it's because speech articulators are shaped (to produce sounds of a particular lg i.e L1) at the early age. Hence when you start learning a foreign lg at the age, say, 15, it
is very difficult to make a natural foreign sound.
Guest,
4 yr 169 days ago
It is thought that many factors go into the shaping and retention of accent:
Motivation - are you learning the language for a specific purpose or because you like the people who speak it and want to become part of their society?
Prestige of your own and the FL accent.
How much do you interact with people who speak the FL?
Do others understand/accept your accent?
Are you immersed in your L1 culture?
Do you fear alienation from your L1 culture?
The idea that one's physical body changes is not considered the most importnat factor anymore.
And definitely NOT least, language and the way we talk are so intimately bound up in our self-image, that we may not be able to separate it in order to adopt "foreign" phonetics!
All these things are less influential on us as children, but become much more important around puberty.
This resistance to language change is what's called "fossilization".
For some people, it isn't permanent and may be reversed to some extent if these factors change!
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paco2004
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108562
Tue, 14 Jun 05 02:44 AM
I think what most ESLs (at beginners level) will find English difficult to learn is that its spelling system is inconsistent with the pronunciation. Most of European countries made the spelling systems of their languages consistent with pronunciation when they made national states during 18 and 19 centuries. But Britain and USA didn't do such a reform. That inconsistency wouldn't matter much to native speakers, but it is a heavy burden to ESLs.
paco
Joined on
Wed, Nov 17 2004
Senior Member
4,095
In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English.
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Philip
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111823
Thu, 23 Jun 05 03:48 PM
The basic problem is 'interference'. This is what we bring from L1 to the L2 situation. It can be word order, vocabulary, misuse of cognates, phonetics, etc. A few examples:
English speakers have problems with L2 because we reduce most unaccented syllables to schwa; most other languages are much more precise with the articulation of all vowels, so schwa sounds very foreign to the ears of those who speak the other language natively.
"I went last night to the movies" sounds foreign to the American English speaker, but it is perfect word order in some languages (German, for example, I believe).
English words with 'th' are difficult for non-native speakers because those two sounds (voiced and non-voiced) do not appear in very many Indo-european languages.
Joined on
Thu, Jun 23 2005
Veteran Member
8,733
At reise er at leve! - H. C. Andersen
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pieanne
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111832
Thu, 23 Jun 05 04:11 PM
"I went last night to the movies" sounds foreign to the American English speaker, but it is perfect word order in some languages (German, for example, I believe).
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I think in German they would put "last night" first, which would cause an inversion, and they would use "present perfect":
"Letzte Nacht bin ich ins Kino gegangen"
Joined on
Thu, Jan 20 2005
South of France ...But I'm Belgian!
Veteran Member
7,517
I'm glad to help, but I'm not a native! And please excuse my typos...
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Philip
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111854
Thu, 23 Jun 05 05:11 PM
You are probably perfectly correct. I mentioned German because I have heard this exact wording from a lady I've known for a long time. But then she speaks German, Hebrew and Arabic as well as French and English, so I'm not sure which language is causing this interference.
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pieanne
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111856
Thu, 23 Jun 05 05:15 PM
Lol!
French wouldn't be simple past either: "hier soir je suis allé au cinéma/je suis allé au cinéma hier soir".
Can't venture anything in Hebrew or Arabic! ![Smile [:)]](/emoticons/emotion-1.gif)
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Philip
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112802
Mon, 27 Jun 05 03:14 AM
We (you and I) got off the subject here. It matters not what language uses "I went last night to the movie": what is important is that in some languages that would be the word order, and that would make a L2 speaker sound 'foreign'.
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