From: rto051@hippo.sps.mot.com (Chang Suk-Kyung)
Subject: Re: `fluency in Japanese'
Originator: root@mogate.sps.mot.com
Organization: TDO
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 02:17:49 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.163405.3232@island.COM> fester@etorofu.island.COM writes:
>In article <MS-C.713728374.1103527590.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> Mark Crispin <mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> writes:
>>The problem with Mark Rowe's definition [`anyone who can converse in Japanese
>>with an average native Japanese person at a normal rate of speech and in a
>>smoothly flowing manner...where each understands what is being said would be
>>fluent in Japanese'] is that it is too easy to stretch that definition to
>>cover a multitude of individuals who are merely capable of making themselves
>>understood.

The first problem with the definition is that fluency is far more complex
than this.  First of all, the world is not digital (despite what thousands
of EEs would like to think), and I think this applies to fluency as well.
It seems to me that it's impossible to make a cutoff level for fluency.
Where's the point at which knowing just one more vocabulary word pushes
you over the line from nonfluent to fluent?

Second, language consists of many things.  The above defn. handles speaking
and listening -- what about reading and writing?  Are they irrelevant?
What about culture?  If the person can conjugate any verb perfectly but
doesn't know about Urashima Taro, or Minamoto no Yoshitsune, or 'karaoke',
are they fluent?  To what degree is "cultural literacy" important?
                      
What about subject matter?  To what extent is it necessary to know
specialized words?  If a person can talk all day long about baseball and
economics, but gets lost when the subject turns to politics, are they
fluent?

>>Here are some of the things I consider important:
>> . Can you hold an *extended* conversation on the telephone (long enough to
>>   run out of pattern sentences and having to compose your own) without the
>>   other person having a clue that you aren't a native speaker?

I wish.  Maybe someday... This brings up another question, that of
pronunciation and accent.  Is a person non-fluent because their accent gives
them away as non-native, even if they make no other mistakes?  What about
those with near-flawless pronunciation and 200-word vocabularies?

>> . Can you hold a conversation without being consciously aware of what
>>   language you are speaking, and in particular have your partner switch the
>>   language several times in the course of the conversation without you being
>>   consciously aware of the switch?

I can't see how this relates.  How many Japanese can switch languages to,
say, English in the middle of a conversation?  Does this mean they're not
fluent in Japanese?  Of course not.  The difficulty of making the switch
also seems irrelevant.  In some situations, I can switch without thinking
about it.  In others, particularly formal-type situations (business
presentations, etc.), the context switch is difficult because it requires
switching not only the language but also the attitude, level of formality,
gestures, bearing, etc.

>> . Can you read a newspaper or technical report?

Again, to what degree?  How much comprehension is necessary for fluency?
What percentage of the kanji can be skipped, looked up, or guessed from
context?  In what fields are the articles/reports?  I can handle most 
things in the engineering field, but I probably couldn't get a sentence 
into a tax document.  (Of course, I couldn't in English either...)

The point is that "fluency" is a word that's tossed around all the time,
but seems to be considerably more nebulous and elusive than most people
think.  I'm always having people ask me if I'm fluent, but I can't give
a good answer because I don't know what the word means.
-- 
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THIS IS A BORROWED ACCOUNT!          David Luke
   SEND ALL E-MAIL REPLIES TO:        luke@wombat.ee.byu.edu
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