The Principles of Language-Study

by Harold E. Palmer

There are, however, times when a seemingly undue proportion of attention should be directed to certain things, notably when we have to react against a vicious tendency. If our student is too keenly interested in orthography and oblivious to the importance of phonetics, we may be justified in excluding orthography from his programme. If he is morbidly interested in grammar and analysis, we may find it necessary to give him overdoses of semantics and unconscious assimilation in order to re-establish some sort of equilibrium. With the student who refuses to learn a word until he sees it written we must for some time make an exclusive and seemingly disproportionate use of oral work and phonetic writing.

The principle of proportion, then, does not necessarily imply equality of treatment nor even a fixed standard of ratios; it simply means that all the items in the whole range of subjects and aspects must receive an appropriate degree of attention, so that the student’s knowledge of them may ultimately form a harmonious whole.

It is impossible to observe the principle of proportion without having in view the ultimate aim of the student. If his sole object is to become a master of colloquial expression, our sense of proportion will tell us to exclude in a very large measure the study of the conventional orthography.

The ultimate aim of most students is fourfold:

(a) To understand the language when spoken rapidly by natives.

(b) To speak the language in the manner of natives.

(c) To understand the language as written by natives (i.e. to read the language).

(d) To write the language in the manner of natives.

Each of these four aspects requires special methods of teaching. A method or device which will rapidly enable the student to understand the language when spoken will be inefficacious as a method for teaching him to produce a written composition. No amount of composition work, on the other hand, will teach him how to understand what is rapidly uttered by natives. If (as is freely admitted) a command of the spoken language is a great help towards acquiring command of the written, the converse is not the case; proficiency in written work does not imply progress in oral work. To pay too much or too little attention to any of these four aspects is a violation of the principle of proportion.