Study Hall

This same phenomenon can be seen in the early language developmental stages of children speaking their native language. During this developmental stage children cultivate the ability to distinguish and enunciate various phonemes.

Often a child uses dissimilar phonemes interchangeably without distinction. In these situations the child exclusively employs the more easily pronounced phoneme. When the child then hears the phoneme pronounced correctly, they typically insist that this is exactly how they had said it.

At this point they have not developed the ability to distinguish between two dissimilar phonemes. This process is much the same as that of learning a foreign language.

Once upon walking through a wooded area with a child of three, he informed me that there was a really big wock (rock) off to the right. Jokingly I responded, “Yes, that is a really big wock.” At which point young William informed me that obviously I had difficulty with the pronunciation of that word, for I had said it incorrectly.

I have also heard the story of a child who requested that an individual “keep quiet because the baby is sweeping (sleeping).” He replied, “Oh, the baby is sweeping?” She looked at him puzzled and stated emphatically, “Not sweeping: sweeping!”

This language development pattern serves in some form as reinforcement of the fact that the phoneme system is complex. It is learned gradually and mastered through every day usage. The typical inability to have multiple primary languages results in a situation where phoneme variations in languages are difficult to interpret due to their abundance.

“People who have a common language have learned to adopt a particular system and moving to another language means acquiring a new and additional system of phonemic organization.” (“Homo Loquens”, page 16)

This can be difficult. It is also unclear whether or not mastering phonemic pronunciation in a language guarantees phonemic comprehension. Perhaps differentiating spoken phonemes is more difficult than actually speaking them. This hypothesis is somewhat supported by Professor Campbell’s experience with fluent non-native English speakers.

There are additional criteria that lend themselves to word comprehension. Intonation and rhythm can dramatically affect the meaning that is being conveyed by the speaker.

“The various intonations that can be given to a sentence are themselves part of the grammar of the spoken language and the information about the intonation system is another component in the linguistic knowledge stored by the brain.” (Homo Loquens, page 16)

But these variations are typically less language dependent and are fewer in number than the differing phonemes.

“So much emphasis has been placed on the phoneme level of operation because this is where the main ear-work of speech takes place. [intonation and rhythm, while important to comprehension, involve a significantly smaller number of categories]…the English system, for example, functions with six tones and only two rhythmic categories, formed by the strong syllables and the weaker ones.” (Homo Loquens, page 72)

All of this is to say nothing of the tremendous differences in sentence construction between various languages that can add to or detract from one’s ability to achieve comprehension from context. Simple things like adjectives preceding or following nouns can severely obstruct ones ability to gather meaning.

In essence, there are several logical explanations that describe the perceived inability of non-native speakers to comprehend a familiar language, particularly when spoken in a noisy environment.

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