For the advanced Jingles client: No longer difficult sounds -- but difficult, personal choices!

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

Life is full of constraints -- but it is also full of choices. For example, most of my Jingles clients seek out my assistance because they do not sound they way the wish to sound when they speak the target language or languages of their choices.

Typically, in the early and middle stages of a client's training, kee must confront the fact that kee is unable to produce the sounds and sound combinations required to make kerm overall target language (TL) production similar to that of native speakers of that language.

Through various speech motor skills application techniques, my staff of Jingles instructors and/or I work with the client to build a primary synergy (S1) base on which kerm future set of newly acquired motor skills will rest when kee seeks to send out and receive TL gestures.

In a nutshell, first we develop the client's S1 base, followed by kerm secondary (S2), tertiary (S3), and quaternary (S4) levels of synergy. The resultant latticework of these four TL speech motor skills application synergies eventually forms, becoming a viable allophonome comparable to the allophonomes of native speakers of the TL. Once this happens, the client has reached the 90-level (the native speaker level) of TL expertise.

...The "difficult sounds and sound combinations" that formerly characterized the advanced level client's TL production of them are no longer a problem. The client's secondary allophonome (kerm primary allophonome constituting kerm native language phonological system) is now ready for everyday employment...

Herein lies a different challenge:

Since S4 represents the expression of the elements of a particular dialect of a TL, the client must now polish and shape kerm pitch, intonation, rhythm, resonance, and segmental features so that they fall into line with the prosodic features employed by native speakers of the TL.

It is now time for the client to pick and choose among various options kee must learn to recognize and employ as being active parts of kerm particular style of TL pronunciation. This could be compared to having a home built entirely to one's specifications (based on S1, S2, S3) -- and then "moving in" by choosing the decor and specific ways kee wishes to employ the facilities of kerm "home" as kee gains familiarity with its potential for serving kerm various desires and needs.

What is nice is that since the client has now reached a level of 90, kee has the opportunity to polish, modify, refashion, and adapt kerm needs to the situation kee finds kermself in.

Steve Walker

Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

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