CW2.2 A very troublesome vowel

In English there is a vowel described by phoneticians as ‘a central vowel with neutral lip position’. This phoneme is written as /ə/. It is almost impossible to describe in words what it sounds like (perhaps something between a light grunt and a sigh?), and it is the last sound in the normal pronunciation of the word teacher. /ə/ is very common in unaccented syllables in English. When a word like was is stressed, the ‘a’ vowel is pronounced as in the words dog or gone. That is how it would be pronounced in sentences like I was there yesterday. But when the word was is not stressed, the vowel is ‘reduced’ to /ə/. This how you would pronounce was in the sentence I was there yesterday. It is almost /wz/, with that light grunt between the /w/ and the /z/.

So the word was has, in effect, two different pronunciations, depending on whether it is stressed or not. There are a good number of other words which behave in the same way. One of them is for. Say the sentences below to yourself, placing the stress on the word me in the first.

(a) The present was for me.
(b) ‘What for?’ she asked.

Notice the different pronunciations of for. Now use these two sentences to complete the statement below (it is based on the statement earlier about was):

When a word like for is stressed, the ‘o’ vowel is pronounced as in the words ___ or ___. That is how it would be pronounced in sentences like _________________. But when the word for is not stressed, the vowel is ‘reduced’ to /ə/. This how you would pronounce for in the sentence ______________.

No wonder learners find /ə/a very troublesome vowel!

CW2.3 A mass of Russian morphology

Russian morphology is extremely complex. The two tables below give just a few details of the morphology of Russian nouns and adjectives. The information is taken from Fennell (1961), with my own (extremely crude) transcription from the Cyrillic alphabet. The first table shows the forms of just masculine nouns. There are three main types, shown in the three columns. Each row shows a different case: Nom. stands for nominative, Acc. for accusative, Gen. for genitive, Dat. for dative, Instr. for instrumental and Prep. for prepositional. For details of the uses of these cases, you are invited to consult any one of a number of books offering a background to language studies and linguistics – Crystal (1990) for example.

The second table shows the forms of one main adjective type (called ‘hard’ – in fact there are two categories of ‘hard adjective’; just one is given here in order not to make the picture too hopelessly complex!). You do not need to be able to make sense of the words to understand the point being made. Just look at the endings of the words and note how they differ.

Masculine nouns

Hard Adjectives

CW2.4 More areas of syntactic difficulty

Swan (2005b) is a reference book on English usage. It contains examples of typical mistakes that EFL learners make. Six of these characteristic errors are given below, with the ‘correct’ version provided in brackets.

For each error, try to state the rule that has been broken and how it has been broken. Where possible, speculate why the error occurred. In some cases, it may be that you can find the possible cause in the structure of another language that you know. For example, you may find yourself thinking ‘that’s how you say it in French’. Short answers are given below; your own might well be longer and more detailed.

CW2.5 ‘Head’ in French

Mackey (1965, cited in Wilkins 1972: 120) exemplifies some of the difficulties that occur if the learner expects the lexical field of words to be the same from one language to the next. The table below illustrates some English uses of the word head and shows the French equivalents. Learners who think they can use the French word tête wherever the English head is used are in for a shock.

CW2.6 Giving bad advices

One particularly troublesome classification of nouns in English is into countable and uncountable. A countable noun is one which can be put into the plural. (The usual way of doing this is by adding the morpheme –s, so the countable nouns dog, cat, mirror become dogs, cats, mirrors). But some nouns are not usually put in the plural. Examples are information, research, advice. It is very common to hear someone whose L1 has different rules saying *I can give you some informations or *He gave me bad advices. If you want to convey a plural idea in association with uncountable nouns, there is usually a phrase which will do it for you. In the case of information, research and advice,you can use piece of to make a countable phrase which can be put into the plural, as in two pieces of information. Another noun which is normally uncountable in English is hair (when you are talking about someone having blonde, dark or grey hair, for example). In some languages (like French), hair in this sense is plural, so a French learner of English might say *She has blonde hairs.

CW2.7 Mistaking a greeting for a request for information

Garfinkel (1967: 44) reports on a sociological experiment where student experimenters are asked to engage an acquaintance in ordinary conversation and to insist that the acquaintance clarify the sense of some ordinary remark. One of the conversations went like this (S = subject, E = experimenter):

                       
Can you think of any other situations where to ask for clarification of some ordinary remark would seem strange?

CW2.8 How to obtain sweet potatoes

Keenan and Ochs (1979) describe aspects of the Malagasy language, spoken in the Republic of Madagascar. ‘Regarding request behaviour’, they say, ‘the European may often find himself as having been understood to have made a request where in fact none was intended. For example, on one occasion, Edward [an American] in making idle conversation with a neighbour, happened to remark on the large pile of sweet potatoes in front of the man’s house. About twenty minutes later, having returned to our own house, we were surprised to see the man’s son appear with a plate of two cooked sweet potatoes! On reflection, it was clear that our casual remark was interpreted as a request by our neighbour’ (p. 156).

Malagasy is, incidentally, one of those languages where the conventional greeting question is Where are you going? (ibid., p. 149).

CW2.9 Some differences in English and Russian rules of use

Here are some more examples from Thomas (1983):

1. In Russian konesno means of course, and it is often used to convey an enthusiastic yes (something like yes indeed in English). But Russian speakers will often use of course in a wrong sense in English, as in the following:
1. Is this a good restaurant?
2. Of course.

What Speaker B (a Russian) here means is Yes, it really is; but an English speaker would interpret this reaction to the question as meaning something like What a stupid question!

2. Po moemu (in my opinion) and kazetsja (it seems to me) are often used in Russian much as we use I think in English. Often, this causes no problems at all (Thomas’ example is St Sophia’s is, in my opinion, the finest example of Byzantine architecture in the Soviet Union). Problems come when Russians use the expressions for less weighty opinions, where their use sounds pompous to say the least: It seems to me there’s someone at the door, or In my opinion the film begins at eight.
3. The usual way to ask directions in Russian is by use of the simple imperative, as in Tell me (please) how to get to … In English, we prefer something a little more indirect (such as Excuse me, please could you tell me …).Russians who transfer the Russian way directly into English risk sounding brusque and discourteous.