Re: Ashamed of [T]? (fy: /T/ -> /t_d/?)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>


> On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 08:54:45AM -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
>> I'd call it "shame"; perhaps discomfort?  I'll admit to feeling
>> a little silly pronouncing Spanish the Castillian way.  Cerveza and
>> zapato
>> make me feel as though I'm lisping, and having grown up with Mexican
>> Spanish, it's extra work for me to remember what is an "s" and what
>> isn't.
>
> I swap back and forth between Latin American and Castillian
> pronunciation depending on my interlocutors.  I don't know why, though.
> As a non-native speaker, I could just stick with what I was taught, in
> which case I sound mostly like I have a Cuban accent (no doubt tinged with
> some Americanism).  But when speaking with my friend from Pamplona I
> automatically drop into Castilian mode.
Where were you trained?  I learned Spanish in Southern California.

Much "eastern" Latin American Spanish drops final "s," I find.  Among the
Puerto Ricans, I think, and also the Argentinians.  (Am I correct?).  So
that often I'll hear buena noche for buenas noches.  Is it also a Cuban
trait?  (it makes comprehension fiendish for me).

> Fortunately, I have a very visual memory for vocabulary - whenver I
> think of a word, the spelling automatically comes with it - so
> *remembering* what's an 's' and what's a 'z'/'c' isn't an issue.  But
> even so I have to fight a slight tendency to turn all [s]s into [T]
> due to analogy (ceceo).
Me, too.  Even though I share with you a visual memory of language (that's
interesting, isn't it?), the temptation to turn all /s/ sounds into /T/ when
I'm "practicing" Castillian is hard to fight.  The final "s" in zapatos I
usually pronounce the same as the initial "z."  But I produce spoonerisms,
too, in my native language.  Kelen Heller. (I almost typed that below!)

In English, I can see the words as I speak them written out before me, and I
can fake typing them (on a table), at a slightly slower speed than I speak
them.  I used to know the alphabet in American Sign Language (I played Helen
Keller in _The Miracle Worker_ ) and for years, I'd spell out compulsively
with my hands words that I was thinking or saying.  (I learned to drop that
unacceptable behavior!!)

In foreign languages, I see the words written in my head before I utter
them.  But what's interesting is that I also need to see them written out in
the air when someone else is speaking, and that doesn't happen as easily.
Aural comprehension must take place in a different section of the brain's
language center, and for me, perfect aural comprehension of a foreign
language is the last and hardest skill to achieve.

>> I've produced similar hilarity in students I'm trying to
>> teach the Welsh lateral fricative to.  But [T], I think, has more
>> negative
>> charge in many cultures.
>
> Hilarity I can understand; the extreme negative reactions, not at all.
> Besides, I think [K] is such a *fun* sound!  I don't know why [T] isn't
> regarded similarly by those whose languages lack it.
Either misuse of the word "disgust" or a bias towards one's own language.
I suppose if I were asked to make a "raspberry" for a phoneme in a
hypothetical foreign language whose culture accepted and encouraged the
spray of saliva, I'd probably laugh, and feel some reluctance.  But I would
have to accept it.

Sally

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