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2. Literature Review 2.1. Definition of Sense of Language paper51.com The term for sense of language first appeared in German, spelledas Sprachefühl. It was translated into English in the year around 1904. Theninth copy of Webster Dictionary gives its definition as below: “sense of language is (1)a sensibility to conform with or divergence from the established usage oflanguage; (2) a feeling for what is linguistically effective or appropriate”(Net.1). Some foreignlinguists have mentioned the sense of language, for instance, Clark’s “languageconsciousness”, Sinclair’s “language awareness” and Chomsky’s “languageintuition” (Net.1). But no clear and accurate definition was made, let alone toapply it to the language teaching area. However, in the latesttwenty years, many linguists, especially those in China began to take great interestsin it. There are some of the pioneers like Ye Shengtao and Lv Shuxiang. WangShangwen’s “on Sense of Language” became the only book devoted to exploringthis field. 内容来自www.paper51.com Accordingto the theory of Ye Shengtao (叶圣陶,1980), If you can not understandthe real meaning of a word clearly, it is not enough to use the dictionary. Youmust pay more attention to your daily life, to get some useful experience fromthe daily life. Then you may acquire a good understanding facility. In otherwords, this is the sense of language, a sensitive feeling of language. We canget the definition of sense of language clearly. 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com “Peopleoften say ‘a sense of language’, this is a general term. Sense of languageincludes semantic sense, grammar sense and phonetics sense.”(吕淑湘,1984) 内容来自www.paper51.com “Senseof language is a language self-cultivation, it is a long-term normativelanguage feel and it is an ability to understand spoken and written languagerapidly and directly, it also has strong experience during the process of usinglanguage.”(洪镇涛) 内容来自www.paper51.com
Accordingto some experts’ comprehension, there are many definitions of sense oflanguage, but there are some similarities between them. Sense of language isthe logic transfer of parole to meaning or it is the human ability ofapperception and induction for language, it is the symbol that someone is veryfamiliar with the language, and it is formed naturally in the long-term oflanguage practice. To explain it with words that are easy to be understood, itis the human feelings for language, the degree that one knows the language. 内容来自www.paper51.com 2.2. The Importance of Cultivating Sense of Language http://www.paper51.com
“I think that sense of language is the core oflanguage learning. The deeper the students’ sense of language he has, the better he commandsthe language. If a person has a good sense of language, he willstudy and use the language in a good way. He/she could get the sense oflanguage by the stimulation of language information.” (Chomsky,1992) http://www.paper51.com
As the saying of Ye Shengtao, “I think thattraining sense of language is the most important thing when you intent to takea language training. Even though you do not intent to appreciate the arts, youmust train your sense of language, because it is good for your living.”(叶圣陶,1980) “The primary mission of languageteaching is cultivating the sense of language for the students”(吕淑湘,1985). No doubt, English is a language,it also has these features of the language. In my point of view, cultivatingthe sense of language is the most significant part in language teaching. Once a good sense of languagehas been kept in your mind, the words, phrases, sentence patterns, and grammarwill be in a subconscious condition inside you. When you are going to speakEnglish, without hesitation, you are able to say what is right for the veryoccasion. copyright paper51.com |