Language Awareness Is A Must!
People might well turn deaf after hearing lots of reminders about why learning languages is essential. But why? It’s very true – language learning is essential. It’s very important, highly important, if you are in a field of work where accurate communication is a must. This is deftly highlighted in the conversation below:
An emergency call: “ May day. May day. Hello! Can you hear us? We are sinking. We are sinking!”
Coast Guard : “ Hello. This is John Coast Guard”
Call: “ We are sinking!”
Coast Guard: “ What are you thinking about?”
What do you think of the conversation they have? It’s really pitiful (yet funny in a way), isn’t it? The coast guard had misunderstood the message he received and taken ‘SINKING’ to be “THINKING”. The sound of ‘TH’ and ‘S’ is different, and this is what we all know from English-Phonetics. Under it is the Phonology. It is the study of how sounds are combined in particular language and of how they are used in conveying meaning.
Most often, once you mispronounce the words, its meaning will change, depending on how the listener hears and interprets its meaning. Thus, sometimes, if the listener is not so aware of phonetics and you (the speaker), would stress the words differently, they will be confused. They understand another meaning of what is being communicated. The same thing if the listener is the one who doesn’t know how words are pronounced, and how to use them in correctly.
Just like what happened to those two gentlemen in the video. The coastguard didn’t understand at all well what was the caller was saying. Instead of ’sinking’, it turned to ‘thinking’. Yes! Those words are rhyme; with the ‘ing’ sound at the end; probably, that’s why the coast guard was mistaken. However, considering one can learn pronunciation, it’s such an unnecessarily stupid slip up!
I remember an incident which relates to the situation above. There was one time that we, AB-English students in BSU, were asked to join a debate session in our gymnasium. One of our opponents had laid down his argument regarding the exploitation of women. The remarkable words he said were, ”women is inferior than men”. His argumentation is very erroneous in terms of subject verb agreement, if we are talking about the English Language. Thus, many on our side opposed his idea – he just wasn’t clear! Furthermore, he unfairly generalized women! What a disastrous speech!
Can you now see the importance of learning a language? Going back to the video. the coast guard really needs to be better educated in the field of languages considering the type of work he does. However, it’s not only this man, but all of us. And to those people who are still in need for proper articulation, correct term use, exact formulation of phrases, sentences, paragraphs and so on, don’t waste your chances!