Phonology and Language Teaching

Extract

It is not surprising that many a conscientious language teacher is somewhat dismayed at the suggestion that his or her already arduous task should be further complicated by the introduction of scientific linguistic techniques. Languages have been taught for generations, nay for centuries, by more or less traditional standardised methods, and innovations in this work must naturally encounter the same passive, if not active, resistance that they, meet in other fields of human endeavour.

Not the least discouraging factors determining such attitudes are the controversial nature of many linguistic issues and the forbidding hierarchy of unfamiliar technical terms about whose meaning and regular application scientific linguists themselves are by no means always in accord. The progressive teacher wishing to gain insight into some aspect of linguistics must be armed with fortitude when embarking upon the reading of a serious linguistic paper, where he is liable to encounter such terms as suprasegmental, bipolar, dyad, idiolect and the like.