losing your mother tongue

Re: Language acquisition Young vs. Old | Tisa | June 10th, 2005

Hi all,

Been following the "Language acquisition Young vs. Old" thread with interest, despite not teaching young learners. I like the way Dave and Sally laid out the various stages of SLA. Personally, I'd like to add another, a variant of Sally's point, I think. Have any of you out there, who spend little time dealing with native speakers of your own language, noticed that your own mother tongue starts to lose some of its 'native soundingness'? I don't know about you, but this is a stage that has had a real impact on my life, personally and professionally. On one hand, I hate not being able to find the right collocation and/or sounding stilted. On the other, I sometimes find it a real challenge to offer students the expression they're looking for. I've heard the occasional 'oui' instead of 'yes' pop out of my mouth, too, during such classes.

Tisa

Hi all | Chris Baldwin | June 10, 2005

Hi all

Just been given a bottle of grappa (the local poison) by a class as an end of year present, so I'm feeling good! Time to work now, though.

Tisa - I know what you mean about losing English. You could try a regular dose of BBC Internet radio - "Just a minute" or "I'm sorry I haven't a clue" are great, and can help us to keep in touch with Blighty. It's also a great resource for advanced students, at home, or in lessons.

Have a good one!

Chris
Italy

You're right, Tisa | Martin Lovatt | June 10, 2005

Hi Tisa,

I couldn't agree with you more. I'm beginning to wonder if I can claim to be a native English speaker anymore. The boss (my wife) said that when we visited friends and relatives in England in April a lot of my English sentences ended (unconsciously) in 'ne' and 'desyo!' (basically a Japanese version of tags). I work with other 'native speakers' so I really have no excuse, but I often feel I'm searching for words or expressions in English these days, even though they come readily to mind in Japanese (for example 'shikataganai' which can be translated in myriad ways depending on the context but which basically means "It can't be helped" or "there's no other way".)

And the strange thing is that when I speak Japanese (my Japanese is okay although it's not as good as it should be after more than 15 years of living here!) I don't use any English expressions at all. What's going on here?

There must be a pile of possible research topics there!

Anyway, it's definitely food for thought.

Best,

Martin
(pseudo-British-English-speaker in Fukuoka, Japan)

Re: You're right, Tisa | Sally Hirst | June 11th, 2005

Martin and Tisa,

That strikes a really strong chord. I worked in a big staffroom with a lot of bilinguals a few years ago. If the dialogue was in Turkish, but we needed professional terms people would code switch into English for those terms - Turks and Brits alike, similarly if the dialogue was in English, but the subject was more in the social/relationship line you were equally likely to hear Brits borrowing individual words from Turkish which works much better for some things. Sadly though, these are sweeping generalisations that in a time of downsizing I'll probably never get the chance to prove.

I love that relativism angle - what you can or can't express/understand/translate in the other language. I was hoping to find a way to explore it in LPP, but then the module was stopped before I got there, so it just distracts me at times when I am supposed to be working on other things.

I also spend a reasonable amount of time with native speakers, but having been in Istanbul for 15 years, sometimes feel the lack of exposure to current English. Some very on the ball learners who love to surf the net emphasize this - the last one they stumped me with was 'bling'. Though some quick e-mail queries to friends suggest it could be an age thing as much as an ex pat problem.

I can also see how the loss of L1 problem comes about. You get to the point where you just never do some things in English any more. So when I am on a visit back in Britain I walk into a shop to buy cigarettes and it's not that I can't explain what I want, but I suspect I am just not using quite the right phrase. This would be fine if I looked or sounded like a tourist - as it is I just get odd looks.

The side of this that worries me is that I understand far too much of my learners 'attempts' at English. In one sense they benefit a lot from my knowledge of their language. I can preempt problems, lay emphasis on things that the course books ignore, but tend to trip up Turkish speakers and so on. However, the fact that I can often intuit/guess what they are trying to say to an extent that a non-teacher or non-native speaker might not may not be doing them many favours.

Sally

Re: You're right, Tisa | Jerry Talandis Jr. | June 11th, 2005

Yeah, I have to agree with all of you on this one- living in Japan has really had an impact on my English. Besides having had similar experiences to all of you, I've also found that the speed of my speech has really slowed down. I tend to speak in a measured pace, with one thought per sentence. I'm constantly aware of what I'm saying and grading my vocabulary on the fly. I have a habit of choosing simple language whenever possible. This works great here, but when I go back to the States (or attend an Aston workshop!), I'm amazed at how fast everyone speaks, not to mention the high level of vocabulary. When I started this course, I literally had to have a dictionary nearby in order to deal with all the new words. I'm sure if I spent time in the States again, though, I'd get it back.

Jerry
Japan

A word of Thanks | Francesca | June 15th, 2005

To those touching the theme "loosing one's mother tongue":

This has been weighing me down for quite a while and it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one feeling "am I saying it right". I work with Italian teachers and they are all reluctant to say a word in English so I have to speak in Italian whereas in the family, it's half and half. I read a lot in English and do all of my paper work in English. I switch from one language to another without realizing it, I don't think I'm bilingual as I often need to translate and English seems to predominate in my dreams. I sometimes coin or invent a word that is neither English nor Italian. Have any of you had language interferences and invented strange expressions. A lexical analysis would be interesting. Reading your postings has brought a flush of language back - you have all given me a lexical brainstorming session.

Francesca