VERBS AND SPEECH DYNAMICS

I have already mentioned the fact that no magical methods of teaching so widely advertized by various language schools will ever help any student or learner to acquire the real mastery of any foreign and even native language without penetration into the speech mechanism and speech dynamics.
What do I mean by that “speech dynamics”? That might remind one of the term “fluency” or “smoothness” or something like that but I put a little bit different meaning into that collocation. Smoothness can be ruled out immediately because only “a smooth landing” is really useful but any “smooth speech” is very often quite meaningless and even harmful.
“Fluency” is probably closer to that “speech dynamics” because it implies one’s ability to find proper words in proper structures while struggling painfully through the real ocean of alien words in a foreign language and trying to express one’s own intentions and ideas without any “smooth” and “evasive” tricks hiding your ideas. Silence, silent smoothness and evasive remarks may serve as a very reliable weapon and tactics for one’s life but not for any learning process.
Fluency is a very useful factor for any learning process but its meaning is sometimes “blurred” and not quite definite, to my mind “speech dynamics” based mainly on verbs sounds more practical and more definite.
I do not claim any rights for invention of any scientific terms and sophisticated definitions because they are dull and do not inspire anyone towards meaningful acquisition of any language but rather “blanket” the gist and mislead the learners.
However, speech dynamics and speech mechanism sound very dynamic (excuse my tautology) and active since they are based on verbs in different speech patterns and interactive models. The main function of verbs is to manifest human actions and activities applied to any sphere of any particular learner’s life in its practical aspect.
From my own experience of communication in Chinese and Turkish I remember that it quite sufficed to learn some two hundred most popular verbs and some ten structures in order to explain myself almost in any practical situation in a hotel, in a cafe, on a tour with a guide, in the city asking for direction or bargaining in the market.
What really hinders a development of speech dynamics? Lack of verbs on the tip of your tongue? Or probably the fear that after your properly used verb in a good structure will have such a response that you will not be able to understand and answer adequately?
Actually there are many situations which do not require any response at all, only a certain reaction with a final result. When I ask either a Chinese or a Turkish chamber maid in their native languages (chamber maids are hardly expected to know English ): “Can you change my towel please?” then I do not expect them to answer me, I only need the result manifested in their immediate handing me out a new towel. I do not even need the word (an object) “the towel” because I can simply point out to the object I need. As for a proper verb – one must know it exactly because we should know what to do with this object (either to change, or to clean, or give us as a gift etc).
In a Chinese hotel I checked my way of addressing people in their native language and even learned some ready phrases like “Maojin huan keyi ma?” – when a chamber maid was passing along the corridor with the clean towels trolley I asked her this question without using any gestures and obtained immediately what I needed. Even if I had forgotten how this word “towel” should sound in Chinese I could have used gestures indicating with my finger (which is not good, of course) what object I need but a verb was indispensable.

In other situations like “Can you wake us up at six in the morning?” or “Can you clean our room later?”, or “Can you show me this place on the map?”, or “How can I get to the center?” I also obtained final results – they woke us up at the time we needed, they cleaned the room when we went to the beach, they explained how to get to the place we required etc.

There are many other similar instances which do not require any intermediate response or specification – if you are properly understood your request will be fulfilled. What they call
“the language barrier” is actually a psychological barrier when people are afraid that they do not pronounce foreign words correctly and they will be laughed at for their mistakes etc.

Even if a situation implies that your question requires some specification then you can learn several “question-response-confirmation” patterns abound in many textbooks including my arbitrary collection of patterns and models.

It will be even better if you try to have some training on usage of different verbs in predictable structures in order to develop your speech dynamics.

Speech dynamics is based on verbs used in different structures.

I will come back to these structures and speech dynamics later.

Instructor/ trainer Alexander Khodovets