The Principles of Language-Study

by Harold E. Palmer

Now, if we asked a hundred different language-teachers to design what each considered an ideal course or text-book, the result at the present day would certainly be a hundred different courses. They would differ in every conceivable way; most of them would differ from the others fundamentally. This would prove that the art in question is in a very early stage; it would prove that few or no fundamental principles are generally recognized. If, however, at some date in the distant future we were to make the same request, restricting our invitation to those who will have made a special study of the subject, to those who will have been striving towards perfection, we should probably find no great degree of diversity in the treatment; we should see the converging tendency at work, and should gather that the fundamental principles were beginning to stand out and to be respected. In the yet more distant future the answer to our request might take the form of a hundred manuscripts, all essentially the same, and differing only in non-essential details; we should then know that the fundamental principles had been established and had been accepted, but by that time none but experts in the subject will ever venture to carry out such highly technical work.

Much time will probably elapse before we arrive at this desirable state of things; much error will have to be eliminated and much experimental work will have to be accomplished. We shall have to ascertain exactly what does take place when we learn, and exactly what are the mental processes involved. We shall then have to grope about and feel our way, adopting and rejecting, modifying and adapting, improving and perfecting. We shall have to co-ordinate our efforts so that each may profit by the success or failure of fellow-workers; we shall have to experiment under all sorts of conditions, with all sorts of learners, and with all sorts of languages. There are distinct signs to-day that this kind of co-operation is coming about. We see, for instance, that the branch of language-study concerned with pronunciation is already far advanced in the experimental stage. For years past phoneticians have been busily engaged in research work; at first working apart, they are now coming together and pooling their efforts, each profiting by the discoveries of the others. A universal terminology is coming into existence; a universal phonetic alphabet is well on its way; the principles of phonetics and of phonetic transcription are developing rapidly, and the inevitable experts’ quarrels are becoming more and more confined to matters of detail and to non-essentials. The remarkable advance in this comparatively new science is one of the most hopeful signs of progress, and a pledge of eventual perfection.

A similar advance in the sister sciences such as grammar and semantics is not yet apparent, but there are signs that ere long the many isolated workers in these domains will be able to do what the phoneticians did twenty or thirty years ago; they will enlist new workers, they will open up the field of research, they will draw up, first tentatively and then decisively, the broad principles on which the experimental and constructive work will repose, there will be co-ordinated and co-operative effort in many countries, and we shall witness the coming into existence of the general science of linguistics.

In the meantime, the subject is engaging the attention of psychologists. Strangely enough, the psychologists, whose function it is to ascertain how we learn, have not been consulted by writers of language-courses, and few of them have ever intervened in the matter. Each language-teacher has had to feel his way as best he could, proceeding empirically, dabbling in psychology, which meant that he did not always apply and often misinterpreted whatever principles of the subject he may have picked up. There are signs that speech-psychologists are about to co-ordinate their efforts with those of the phoneticians and with the experience of those who are actively engaged in making their language-teaching more efficient. We can point to more than one centre both in England and abroad where this co-operation is in its initial stage, and once this co-operation becomes an accomplished fact progress will be very rapid, and the progress will be sound. The work of Sweet, of Jespersen, and of de Saussure (to cite only three of our modern leaders) has already paved the way for the new and growing contingent of workers who are prepared to take up the threads and to weave them together in the fabric of the future.

What are the principles of language-study so far evolved? What are the fundamental axioms so far postulated? Do they give us the impression of soundness? Do they appear to us to be reasonable? Do they bear the aspect of finality? We shall judge. We shall endeavour to formulate the leading principles which have resulted from long periods of experimental work so far carried on by individual workers. The list will probably not be exhaustive, nor will the items be presented in that perfectly logical sequence which the future reserves for it. It will, however, seek to embody the largest number of important precepts under the smallest number of headings, in order that we may see in a concise form something which is still evolving and progressing towards further efficiency and simplicity. We purposely omit from the list certain minor principles and modes of application, nor can particular details connected with the study of particular languages be well included in the present work.

At the present day nine essential principles seem to stand out fairly clearly, and may provisionally be named as follows:

(1) Initial preparation.
(2) Habit-forming.
(3) Accuracy.
(4) Gradation.
(5) Proportion.
(6) Concreteness.
(7) Interest.
(8) Order of progression.
(9) Multiple line of approach.

We append a brief definition or broad description of these principles, and reserve for the following chapters a detailed explanation of each of them.

(1) Initial Preparation.—During the initial stages of the course the teacher will, if necessary, endeavour by means of appropriate forms of exercise to awaken and to develop the student’s natural or spontaneous capacities for language-study, in order that he may be adequately prepared for his subsequent work.