On Monday of this past week, the Center for Language Studies at Radboud University hosted a non-nativeness day where various language scientists gave short presentations about the work they are currently doing related to non-nativeness. Even though we are technically affiliated with the Donders Center for Cognition and not the CLS, the point of this day was to bring together researchers from various departments so we were able to attend. And so, from 10am-4pm I sat in the Erasmus building in room E.02.50.
Before I talk about non-nativeness day, I would like to take a quick break to explain Monday morning. Because the symposium was all day, there was food available and spectators were thus supposed to register about 1.5 weeks before non-nativeness day. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to register so I never received the updated information telling me where the symposium would take place, and I wasn’t entirely sure I would even be allowed to attend. All I knew was that the website said Grotiusgebouw, but gave no room number or time. So at 8:15 in the morning, I walked over to the Grotiusgebouw and started wandering around in hopes of seeing a sign for CLS non-nativeness day. Nothing. I tried the Aula building (auditorium), and nothing. I tried the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (which I have learned is technically not Radboud University) and asked at the front desk; nothing. I returned to the Grotiusgebouw and asked at the front desk, where they transferred me to another desk and a woman who works reception for the law school, who looked online (and confirmed the information I had found saying Grotiusgebouw) then called somebody in the CLS, who explained that there had been quite some confusion but gave a different building and room number. By this point I felt bad for making this very nice and helpful woman spend her time calling people and helping me try to figure out where non-nativeness day would take place, even though I wasn’t entirely sure I would be able to attend the conference (due to the not-having-registered thing). But she gave me a post-it note saying Erasmus 12.02.50, so I thanked her and walked back across campus to the Erasmus building, took the elevator to the 12th floor, then walked around in circles a couple times before confirming my suspicion that 12.02.50 is not a valid room number. Then I went down to the 2nd floor and walked in circles some more before finally finding signs with the agenda for CLS non-nativeness day and signs pointing to room 02.50. By this point, it was 9:40 and it turned out the conference was starting in 20 minutes. I was exhausted and frustrated before I even got there.
Sitting in the conference though, it was a reminder of why I have chosen CSD and Linguistics as my majors. I have missed Friday morning CLS talks and having the opportunity to learn about what people in different departments and labs are doing. For me, the exciting part of linguistics is how interdisciplinary it is and the fact that there are so many different directions to choose from. I’m still not sure what direction I will choose, and listening to talks that ranged from “Instructional videos in a foreign language; the effectiveness of subtitling and dubbing” to “How native and non-native listeners process minist, minisr, and minis” in a span of just a few minutes showed that there is so much more that I still haven’t begun to delve into.
Many of the speakers talked about reduction and the ways that people understand reduction in their L2. For those of you who did not spend hours hearing about reduction last week, let me explain: reduction basically means casual speech and covers topics such as assimilation and the occasional dropping of functor morphemes. In English, this is often reducing unstressed vowels to the schwa and either dropping or combining close consonants (think saying “what did you do” quickly and casually).
Surprise, surprise: reduction is difficult for speakers in their L2. Foreign language classes teach students the citation form of the language, and often give little exposure to casual speech. Students listen to their teacher, who is speaking the language carefully to make sure it is learned correctly, and they listen to each other (other L2 speakers without a firm grasp on the language). They spend comparatively little time listening to native speakers talking to one another.
It takes time to learn what reductions are and are not allowed in the L2, as the same phonological rules do not apply to every language. Speakers who have not learned these patterns have a hard time processing what they are hearing, even if they know the citation form well.
The whole time I was listening to these talks on reduction, I couldn’t help but think of my CSD classes this semester on working with people who are hard-of-hearing. Perhaps the most important rule when working with people who do not have perfect hearing is to speak clearly and directly. Do not mumble, look away from the person, or use unnecessarily complicated syntax. This is not because the person does not understand the language, but because so much brain power is being used just to process the auditory signal that there is no good reason to make that task even harder. Without even consciously realizing it, I have been transferring those rules to conversations with non-native English speakers while here. At the beginning of a conversation I use fewer reductions than I do in casual speech, and my sentences are shorter and more direct. As I speak to somebody more and get a better understanding of their English fluency, I subconsciously reevaluate and become more casual if it seems appropriate.
After learning more about reduction, I have learned that my natural tendencies have probably helped to make conversations flow better while here. I have to wonder though…how does listening to citation speech from a native speaker in a casual setting affect processing? The research I heard makes me predict that it is easier, but I wonder if it is also unexpected and thus initially more difficult (at least for the more fluent and experienced L2 speakers).