Different or Incorrect?

Both of these readings made me think more deeply about the connection between language comprehension and language production. Kenstowicz’ article touched upon our ability to discern when something sounds wrong, but not to accurately say why. For example, we attribute the distinction between “writer” and “rider” to consonant pronunciation, when in fact it’s owed to the “length of preceding vocalic nucleus” (Kenstowics, 71). Of course, when asked to explain how or why two words are different, it’s unlikely the average speaker will respond with “preceding vocalic nucleus,” but until I read this article, I would’ve assumed that the speaker would’ve had the right idea, if not the right technical language. 

 

The fact that native English speakers collectively learn the subtle rules of language, and yet attribute these subtleties to the incorrect root cause sparked my curiosity about how understanding of languages changes to differentiate between what sounds “different” (for example, British English to an American English speakers) vs. “incorrect.” I wonder how deeply this distinction is tied to issues of stereotypes surrounding race, class, and gender, and whether the understanding of something as “different” vs. “incorrect” varies geographically within the US. Based on what I learned from Gussenhoven’s article on the physical production of noise paired with Kenstowicz’ idea about “collective phonetic illusions,” I imagine that perhaps the differentiation between “incorrect” and “different” is taught (either explicitly or implicitly) whereas the “collective phonetic illusions” are learned universally. 

Gussenhoven’s focus on the physiological and anatomic process of speech production served as a good base-level understanding of the ways in which language learning and speech is a physical process. Though, for example, there are significantly more plosives in French than in English, a child in a French family and an American family have exactly the same capacity to produce what they might later consider uniquely “French” sounds. Gussenhoven’s section about pitch, and how pitch — or the interpretation of pitch — is the source of “declarative vs. interrogative meaning” made me think about how linguistic norms are learned, and how those norms evolve generationally or within the span of an individual’s life. Why is it that a 14 year old girl’s pitch at the end of a sentence when responding to a question in class may differ from that same girl’s pitch in the same circumstance 10 years later? Furthermore, how do these small alterations connect to a larger evolution in language, and perhaps a shift in what is considered correct?