Pronunciation Decay
Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:59 pm
Recently, I came across a rather interesting concept in Chapter 11 of “German”, published in 1958 by Henry Holt and Company, authored by Helmut Rehder and Freeman Twaddell:
“Something surprising and discouraging is probably happening at about this stage of your learning German: it is likely that your German pronunciation is getting worse rather than better! But the reason for this undesirable decay is in itself encouraging: you are learning a large number of German words and phrases so well that you are beginning to pronounce them “naturally”, and without thinking of them as a special pronunciation habit. Of course, it is a sign of very important progress that you now know several hundred German words and phrases so well. The only unfortunate feature of this familiarity is the pronunciation result: as soon as a German word or phrase becomes completely familiar to you, you will tend to pronounce it with your deeply ingrained English pronunciation habits – that is, you will tend to treat a familiar German word as if it were part of your ordinary every-day English vocabulary and pronounce it with your ordinary every-day English habits.”
My questions to the members of the forum are:
(a) have you experienced this type of “pronunciation decay” at some point in the early stage of your learning, or
(b) do you find that the vastly greater access to audio recordings, when compared to the period* when the authors made the above observation, simply eliminates the onset of the phenomenon, or
(c) would you care to make any other comments on this topic?
*Addendum: The textbook "German" was published in 1958 and was destined for use in a classroom setting. Although two LP vinyl records (representing 90 minutes of audio recordings) were available for use in the classroom, I have found no mention of the availability of other supplementary materials such as reel-to-reel tapes for use in a language laboratory. In any event, this textbook was published prior to the wide-spread adoption of the audio-lingual method and, furthermore, my own recollection of the period is that very few schools would have had the funds necessary to setting up such facilities. Thus, the "voice model" for the students would have been the instructor plus the vinyl records, assuming that the schools funded their acquisition ... and what about the record player?
Merci à l’avance!
“Something surprising and discouraging is probably happening at about this stage of your learning German: it is likely that your German pronunciation is getting worse rather than better! But the reason for this undesirable decay is in itself encouraging: you are learning a large number of German words and phrases so well that you are beginning to pronounce them “naturally”, and without thinking of them as a special pronunciation habit. Of course, it is a sign of very important progress that you now know several hundred German words and phrases so well. The only unfortunate feature of this familiarity is the pronunciation result: as soon as a German word or phrase becomes completely familiar to you, you will tend to pronounce it with your deeply ingrained English pronunciation habits – that is, you will tend to treat a familiar German word as if it were part of your ordinary every-day English vocabulary and pronounce it with your ordinary every-day English habits.”
My questions to the members of the forum are:
(a) have you experienced this type of “pronunciation decay” at some point in the early stage of your learning, or
(b) do you find that the vastly greater access to audio recordings, when compared to the period* when the authors made the above observation, simply eliminates the onset of the phenomenon, or
(c) would you care to make any other comments on this topic?
*Addendum: The textbook "German" was published in 1958 and was destined for use in a classroom setting. Although two LP vinyl records (representing 90 minutes of audio recordings) were available for use in the classroom, I have found no mention of the availability of other supplementary materials such as reel-to-reel tapes for use in a language laboratory. In any event, this textbook was published prior to the wide-spread adoption of the audio-lingual method and, furthermore, my own recollection of the period is that very few schools would have had the funds necessary to setting up such facilities. Thus, the "voice model" for the students would have been the instructor plus the vinyl records, assuming that the schools funded their acquisition ... and what about the record player?
Merci à l’avance!