Improved Motor Skills Benefit Second Language Learners as well as Athletes

Dear Fellow Earthlings, Time flies! At this time back in 1976 I was a graduate student in linguistics at Michigan State University. I was focusing on sociolinguistics and a linguistics theory called tagmemics. Looking back on those studies, I realize that my professors Dr. Carol Scotton (who taught me sociolinguistics) and Dr. Ruth Brend (who introduced me to tagmemics) were themselves greatly influenced by Joshua Fishman (See Installments 192 and 193.) and Kenneth Pike (the inventor of tagmemics theory). At Michigan State University in 1975, 1976, and 1977 Masters degree candidates were required to be very familiar not only with transformational grammar, invented by Noam Chomsky, but also Pike's tagmemics, and stratificational grammar, invented by Sydney Lamb. As I studied these various theories and listened to my professors' lectures, I could not help but notice that despite the great knowledge possessed by all of these linguists, they did not put much emphasis on the mechanisms through which the actual sounds of the languages they worked with were produced. It so happened that in mid-October of 1976 the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Yankees were playing each other for the United States "World Series" baseball championship. As the superb athletic skills of the Reds' players, in particular, caught my attention, I began thinking of how sociolinguists, transformationalists, tagmemicists, and stratificationalists might do well to take a look at notes from the playbooks of the opposing managers of the World Series' teams to search for further insights into what part motor skills application techniques play in making native speakers sound -- for lack of any pre-existing term -- "nativelike". After all, the Reds swept the Series 4 games to none. They were able to utilize their motor skills more effectively than the Yankees could. I thought: "This can be compared to how native speakers of any language can easily outperform non-native speakers. It's all about motor skills!" Such were my observations and experiences on those cold October days in East Lansing, Michigan back in 1976. They would eventually coalesce into ideas that would lead to my conceptualization of "The Jingles"! Steve Walker Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.