Week 10
An Australian young adult female band, an impetus to this post.
Motion: THW take higher-education English tuition to the Next Level
Role: Member (gov.)
I listened to the music of the above ^ band some time ago. It was your by now typical girl band, trying to make themselves germane in a male-dominated music industry. I could not decide whether they were singing in American or British English. Accents notoriously fade away when Anglo-Americans are singing; if you don’t believe, try listening to Def Leppard, so it came with that territory. I decided that they were British, based on the slightly naive looks on their faces. Then I set out to find out. The truth was that the band hailed from Australia. It was neither American nor British.
The Aussie accent is nasal; it reminds us more of the British accent, but it is its own kind. Geographically, Australia is closer to the US, but an entire ocean separates the two. The funny thing is that the easiest way to identify that band as an Aussie band would have been a visual clue: bare shoulders. That is a tip off to Australia. American or British female singers would not bare their shoulders, for their climates are cold enough in both so that there was no reason. Also, coyness may play a role. Another thing is their name: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers. The name is so rude that in the UK & US, it would not fly. It reminds me of another female-fronted Aussie band, Amy(l) and the Sniffers: rude as well. So, not American, not British, they are from down under, or Terra Australis.
A-Levels
Here, senior high schoolers end their curriculum with the so-called “ylioppilaskirjoitukset”, whose nearest but not solid eq. in the UK is A-levels and in the USA SAT. Fifteen or ten years ago, the reading comprehension test was about how some people acted as real-estate agents on foreclosed properties. Consequently, they were dealing in apts. to people for squatting. That was a time ago, and I do not even know how insanely challenging the texts are by now. Exposure to English is so deep here, given all the A.V. entertainment from the UK and US an average Finn receives that listening and reading comprehension exams are already MORE challenging in English than they are in exams on our two domestic languages, Finnish and Swedish, or any other continental or world language.
We know that language is not merely syntax and a vocabulary. It is also three other things: concepts (things that are endemic to speakers of said language and thin on the ground elsewhere in the world), fanaticisms (the particular, unique preoccupations of the people who speak that language in a native manner) and phoneticisms (the way in which their spoken language differs from the written language). You have to learn all of that to be able to navigate in a linguistic pond astutely. I could in all honesty do all of that, but then again I am older, so how is a farmer’s son whose daily existence may revolve around mink cages supposed to understand such hard challenges to his cognitive system?
Higher-Learning Seats Need to Follow Suit
Because of the above, my claim and statement is that we should let universities make their curricula more challenging. We cannot let our higher education tread water if and when our junior and senior high school pupils are already treated with such mid-insanely challenging material. Universities have made their curricula tough in requiring their students to read a lot, especially fiction, when it comes to students of the English language. However, there are also polarly opposite means.
Let Us Raise the Bar
My grand idea is that a particular class should be divided into five camps of learners in terms of phonetics & pronunciation. Traditionally, people have been divided into speakers of US or UK English, depending on their character and foreign experiences. Some are naturally more drawn to Alison Moyet and Monty Python (and the rest), and the others to Elvis Presley and The Sopranos (and the rest). For all that, there are indeed more countries that speak English on a native level. Students should also learn other Englishes. I am leaving colonial Englishes out, because Hong Kong English is an English with Cantonese influences and Indian English an English with Farsi, Hindi, Sanskrit or Urdu influences – and it does not serve a purpose to teach those to Western students, who do not share that other ethnic constituent language.
What I am envisioning is 5 major types of English: American, Australian, English proper, Irish and Scottish English. Namely, I feel that Canadian, New Zealand and South African English do not differ in their own right enough from the rest, or they have a similar colonial baggage as ˆ. Incoming students should be assigned respectively to speak like the above-mentioned native speakers in small subdivisions of 3–7 students and receive 101, 202, 303 and 404 tuition in speaking like a native. Coming out of the university, they might be quizzed: “Where did you learn to speak into your nose like that? In Australia?” To which they would respond: “No, at a European university.”
Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Tarpeellinen puhe tekee selväksi, että englannin kielen tason on noustava kauttaaltaan eikä pelkästään nuorimmissa ikäluokissa. Jos sen taso nousee päiväkodeissa, sen täytyy nousta myös aikuisten päiväkodeissa eli yliopistoissa. Vastapuolen tehtäväksi jää puolustaa status quo’ta.
Polar Ice Standpoints Society 