Re: Foreigner(s)

Per Rønne wrote:

Robert Lieblich <r_s_lieblich@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[ ... ]

I decided to perform my own mondegreen by "misunderstanding"
"mondegren" as "Mendelssohn." I suspect most native speakers
understood, perhaps emitted a feeble chuckle (if that), and carried
on.

I hope this untangles any confusion.

It does; but you know I'm not a native speaker of English.

True, but you could play one on TV.[1]

At any rate, I was pointing out that I had taken the risk of confusing
at least some of the non-native speakers and that any confusion was my
fault, not yours. No matter what reference or allusion one of us
might attempt, some are going to get it and some not. (We have
"whoosh!" for some such situations.) Sometimes it surprises us that a
particular person misses some "inside" humor. I guess I meant to
indicate that it did not surprise me that you missed this one and that
there was no reason to expect you to get it.

BTW, quite a number of Danish universities have decided to teach all
courses in English in the future. Some of the strongest opposers of this
idea are the professors at the Department of English at the University
of Copenhagen; they know that it will deteriorate the quality of the
teaching. Amongst other things, the teachers won't be able to use irony
or silly humour in class.

"Mondegreen« is an example that shows they are right.

It impresses -- even astonishes -- me how well so many Europeans speak
English. I can barely stumble through the barest pidgin-style
communication in any language other than English. But I acknowlege
that there are still limitatations to how well anyone not a native
speaker can communicate. As an native of the US who has lived only in
this country (aside from four childhood years in Canada), I still do
not fully understand all UK usages, and I probably never will, and of
course there are all sorts of references to British culture and
history that I still do not understand. As a result, much that is
posted to AUE goes whooshing right past me, native English speaker
though I am.

I really don't know what to say about the problem of selecting a
language for university instruction in Denmark. The US is unlikely
ever to confront an analogous problem nationwide. The issue of
language of instruction *has* become a political football in many
parts of the US, but it relates primarily to teaching schoolchildren
whose primary language is Spanish. Some schools teach most of the day
in Spanish, because that's what most of their pupils speak, devoting
the rest of the day to helping the students develop fluency in
English. There are those who complain when this pattern is followed,
and others who complain when it is not.

It does not help that most Americans who start as native English
speakers seem not to care at all about learning more than one
language. In Europe, as best I can tell, the attitude is exactly the
opposite, and I know many Europeans whose English is excellent even
though it's their third or fourth language. No wonder we insist that
everyone else learn English -- we're not about to accommodate THEM.
This attitude is starting to break down, but its consequences will not
be overcome for generations.

[1] Another American cultural reference. For many years a TV
commercial featured an actor whose regular job was to portray a doctor
in a show set in a hospital. The commercial began "I'm not a
physician, but I play one on TV." He then recommended the sponsor's
product. This has spun off a type of cliche (what they call a
"snowclone" on Language Log) in which people say or write "I'm not
a/an __________, but I play one on TV."[2]

[2] And why, you ask, would anyone take medical advice from an actor
just because he played a doctor on TV? Lots of people asked that.
The ad agency insisted that the commercial had helped sell its
product. But the commercial's memory has far outlived the commercial
itself.

--
Bob Lieblich
Fluent in Pig Latin
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Tribe Looks Forward to Past
    ... > THE GUARDIAN, LONDON ... In English, for instance, speakers switch between at ... > half the people are using themselves as a reference. ... does any language lack such confusion? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Leodhasach & Hearasch - Gaelic help please
    ... course our own traditional language is even more neglected than Gaelic is. ... who speak English soon get the gist of it. ... is someone who truly appreciates Scottish culture in that you won't find ...
    (soc.culture.scottish)
  • the tomasites , english and the filipino
    ... And they came to teach English as part of the "policy of attraction" ... a Filipino is deemed illiterate even ... Even a secondary Spanish school like Colegio de San Juan de Letrán ... wrote a textbook to teach the English language as early as 1902. ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
  • Re: the tomasites , english and the filipino
    ... this change was documented in books written in English or other ... European languages not Tagalog or any other of the Filipino dialects. ... second language, unfortunately it seems that we did not use these ... Even a secondary Spanish school like Colegio de San Juan de Letrán ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
  • Re: OT: Six out of 10 young Americans cannot find Iraq on a map
    ... Language became a political and an emotional issue as early as the ... proposed English Language Amendment, ... Despite the myth that German had once come close to replacing English ... The story of the German Vote is occasionally trotted out by ...
    (alt.guitar.amps)
Loading