THE SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES OF ENGLISH

In order to see the special difficulties of Hong Kong Chinese learning English in isolation, it is necessary not only to bear in mind any general learning difficulties the group of people known as ‘Hong Kong People’ may have but also to investigate the absolute difficulty of English, in as far as this can be investigated.  Three questions come to mind: ‘In what ways is English sometimes difficult for English native speakers?’   ‘Is English more difficult than other languages?’ and lastly  ‘Is English more difficult to learn as a foreign language and if so, is it more difficult for some learners than others?’

‘Language’

As I have already pointed out, difficulty is a comparative and a relative concept and the term is rarely used in an absolute sense. When we refer to the ‘Difficulties of English’, we bear in mind that the data of our inquiry will always be subject to relativisation. What I have not explained so far is what I mean by ‘language’.

Harris (1990) points out that ‘languages presuppose communica­tion’ in contrast to the usual view that ‘communication pre­supposes languages’.   One of the principles of the present thesis is that the communicative situation, and thus the lan­guage learning situation in Hong Kong is complex.  It would be more convenient for me to analyse a few points of  ‘error’ or ‘difficulty’ rather than the whole context of language learning in Hong Kong.  I do not assume that ‘languages’ exist as deep structures, rules, grammars or anything else.  However, what is put across to be learned is termed a  ‘language’.   In fact, because English is regarded as a ‘language’ and therefore an abstract system, a school subject and, in some  cases,  an unreal  language, the difficulty in learning it increases.   In Hong Kong, we have English as a Second (or Foreign) Language, teachers skilled in TEFL, Language Centres, language laborato­ries and the Institute of Language in Education.  There is a strong perception of English as an abstract system to be learned (for a purpose), not used as a means of communication.  Again, it is regarded as a language to be understood (in text books, exercises and lectures) rather than as a system to be actively manipulated.  This partly accounts for the perceived lack of ‘intellectual fluency’ (Harris 1989) in English amongst Hong Kong students. The Hong Kong Polytechnic, offers English AND Communication courses in an auxiliary role for its Higher Diploma engineers and even a full-time degree in Language AND Communication  (as if one subject did not imply the other.)  Studies of attitudes towards English in Hong Kong revealed  (Stead 1980, Cheung Ng, G.H. 1980) that English is not regard­ed primarily as a means of communication.

Languages are not ‘fixed monolithic structures’ (Harris 1990) but may be treated as such. 

 Authority and usage

Potter (1982) points out that England does not have authoritative linguistic academies like the Italian Accademia della Crusca or the Academie Francaise which are able to give authoritative judgments on such things as the split infinitive, the final preposition, ‘go slow’, ‘it’s me’ and other real, or simply academic, queries in usage.  Control of the English language is neither desirable nor practicable, Potter suggests. Such control has been replaced by the ‘concep­tion of custom and common usage’ where academics produce  ‘ev­idence’ of grammatical or lexical acceptability by surveys not only of British English but of the whole family of English languages.   It may then be possible, given sufficient modern empirical data, to decide what is ‘correct’ or what is ‘errone­ous’ in English.

Educational reports

It is clear from examiners’ reports and the reports of educationalists that standards of English are perceived to be falling in Britain, and probably in other L1 countries.  L1 English users in Britain have difficulty with spelling, using the correct registers of English and using English ‘correctly’ in a number of ways.  It is probable that such reports do not indicate real difficulty, however, but rather an impression of language change.

First language errors

As I have pointed out in an earlier section, errors give us evidence of difficulty, although they do not provide us with all the possible evidence, nor are they to be taken as the only proof. First language users of English are apt to make mistakes, errors, lapses and slips not only whilst acquiring the language as children (‘eated’ instead of ‘ate’ etc.) but in adult life as well when a ‘command’ of the language is assumed. An ‘error’ is defined by Norrish (1983) as ‘a systematic deviation from the accepted code’.  What kind of errors do L1 users make? It may be argued that L1 speakers do not make errors at all in that there is no prescriptive ‘norm’ in English usage and that any ‘deviation’ must be regarded as a personal, if not regional, variety.  Comparisons of an L1 user’s output with the ‘Queen’s English’ are pointless and arbitrary except for the person taking up the position of the arbiter of the ‘Queen’s English’.  It is however useful to note the L1 user’s own perception of his output and his attempts to relate this to a norm, perhaps of his own making.  In Switzerland, adult L1 users of Swiss German may correct themselves by replacing a High German ‘interference’ form with an original Swiss German dialect word (‘Anker’ instead of ‘Butter’).  Some measure of self-correction naturally takes place in L1 users’ adjustment to context (however one regards such adjustment). Thus, dialect forms are suppressed, the accent alters and different vocabulary levels are employed.

Malapropism may be regarded as a salient form of error in L1 user’s output.  The point about malapropism is that the L1 user is not simply using a deviant or more ‘humble’ form but is attempting to use a word which he does not comprehend.  There is thus a gap between communicative intent and performance, (which I have already indicated is not the ‘gap’ of error but where difficulty may be measured).  He thinks he is saying one thing when he is saying another (often incomprehensible) thing.  He may see the mistake readily when it is pointed out to him and then the malapropism may be said to be a lapse or slip. As Norrish (1983: 10) points out: ‘ One of the differences between the learner and the native speaker of a language is that the native speaker, if he does deviate from the norm, can correct himself.’  This point is made by others including, notably, Corder (1981) who speaks of ‘erroneous sentences’ as those which can be corrected by the speaker and which are regarded as lapses.

A perception of error often arises in the native speaker’s mind when he compares what he has said to what he would write.  Although the ‘ers’ and ‘erms’, wrong subjects and incomplete sentences of spoken language may be acceptable in context, they are felt to be unacceptable when written down.  Sensibility of error arises then in the native speaker when he decontextualises his speech output. 

Difficulty arises for L1 users of any language to a greater or lesser degree in formulation of ideas.  The search for ‘le mot juste’ is a major cause of hesitation.  It is moreover difficult to explain to L2 users that fluency does not mean lack of hesitation, pauses and the like.  It comes as some relief to language learners to discover that ‘perfect fluency’ is not attained by native speakers.  Norrish (1983: 48) suggests that teachers can provide a model of natural speech, complete with hesitations, for the student to adapt.  This relaxation of the need to perform perfectly has been used by me as a part of a ‘Permissions’ strategy (allowing the students to make a number of errors to encourage them to speak).

Contrasting first and second language errors

It is interesting to ask whether the errors made by L1 users are similar to those typically made by L2 users.  Hill (1965) lists some examples in his catalogue of L2 errors which I notice are also made by some L1 users, for example: ‘Both of us had a different opinion about it’ (confusion of ‘both’ and ‘each’) ‘It was a far distance to my home’ (erroneous analogous extension of the idiom ‘a short distance’), ‘He is an European’ (confusion over ‘a’ or ‘an’), ‘The dog has hurt it’s foot’ (confusion over the use of the apostrophe)  ‘Our place of desti­nation is London’ (tautologous use of ‘place’).  Moreover, in this connection, some of Hill’s examples are fanciful and are probably made deliberately’ just as rarely by L1 as by L2 users
 ‘We have intercourse with our teacher outside school.’  This English ‘error’ has the status of ‘literal translational joke’ for L2 users (which has acquired the name of Luebcke-Englisch’

for German learners of English) or of the bad pun for L1 users.

A typical work of L1 error correction is Shaw’s Dictionary of   “Problem Words and Expressions” (1975) which sets out, in direct terms, to correct some of the faults of modern American usage.  ‘In every speaking situation’, Shaw writes, ‘ one’s aim should be to use only words and phrases that are appropriate, fit, suitable and proper.’ We should pay attention to cultural level of the situation and be aware of categories such as standard/substandard, familiar/formal.  The ‘difficulty’ of the native speaker is his lack of awareness of such categories of speech and writing.  This leads to the ‘errors’ of wordiness, triteness, over-use of idioms and euphemisms and an increasing use of slang.  Once again, some of the ‘errors’ made by native speakers will be made by L2 users both in L2 and in their L1.  There is also some overlapping of L2 and L1 errors, although the reasons for the error may be different.  Difficulty with style and precision is universal and complicates the delineation of specific L2 learning difficulty (see also Golding (1964)).

As a further illustration of the point that L1 and L2 users may make the same errors, or more precisely produce similarly questionable output, the list of controversial L1 usage in Mittins (1970) includes some of the typical ‘errors’ made by L2 users: data is, his family are, less road accidents, neither author or publisher are, it was us who, these sort of plays, intoxication is when.  Conversely, Bunton (1989) illustrates the front cover of his book of Hong Kong L2 errors with a questionable sentence: ‘She got in“ a taxi and went to the airport’ (many teachers would correct ‘in’ to ‘into’) as a correction of ‘She got on  “a taxi...”.  This correction may well have been included in Mittins’ study of attitudes to English usage.  Mittins’ examples illustrate the difficulty of defining good English usage.  What is considered incontrovertibly ‘illiterate’ by one L1 speaker is acceptable to the next.  Prescriptive/proscriptive norms and language creativity have clashed throughout the history of the language.  This is the point to be borne in mind when correcting: ‘ Teachers of English are sometimes and with some justice accused of lack of curiosity about the language they teach; an exploration of the historical byways of usage controversy can be recommended as fascinating in itself and as a healthy corrective of premature certainty.’ (Mittins 1970: 113)

Linguistic acceptability

Quirk and Svartvik (1966) investigate linguistic acceptability in full knowledge of the subject’s complexity and make some interesting observations which are relevant to any discussion of error or usage.  A number of concepts are discussed including grammaticalness, acceptability, deviance (e.g. in quoting Chomsky (1964): ‘Acceptability is a concept that belongs to the study of performance, whereas grammaticalness belongs to the study of competence’).  Any ‘clear cut

Categorisation’ is however hardly possible, they conclude, as it is ‘futile and may actually inhibit our understanding of the nature of linguistic acceptability’.  Although there is no hard and fast divide to be made between lexical and grammatical acceptability, lexical categories such as ‘congruous’ or ‘obscure’ are suggested and grammatical categories such as ‘established’ or ‘dubious’ are proposed.  Although useful, such categories still need to be qualified contextually and personally, if they are to be accurate at all.

Appropriateness

Appropriateness is a more useful concept than acceptability in that it emphasises the context of the communicative act.  Norrish (1983: 39) points out that ‘in language, as in many other fields of human experience, there may be no such thing as correct or incorrect answers to every question, but rather, more or less appropriate ones.’  A literary source, speaking in particular about Japanese tekito“ (‘suitability’) makes no great divide between language and the rest of a society’s concepts of appropriate behaviour: “for people to think in terms of “appropriate” behaviour there must somewhere be a remarkable consensus not merely about the abstract or model on which such behaviour was based but about the need for there to be any model at all; and to the extent that one’s behaviour was based on a model it must naturally contain an element of imitation, which in turn entailed a comparison between oneself and what one measured oneself by” (Morley 1985: 54).  It is doubtful in our English-speaking societies whether such a ‘remarkable consensus’ exists and whether there is a perceived need for a model or imitation.

Perhaps the acceptability of idiosyncratic usage (as opposed to Japanese’s stultifying collections of formulaic usage in Mor­ley’s analysis) is linked to the liberalness, or otherwise, of a society.

Is English more difficult than other languages?

The naive but fascinating question whether English is more difficult than other languages cannot be answered easily as several seemingly unanswerable questions arise such as  ‘diffi­cult for whom’ and ‘what is the point of comparison’.   L1 speakers who have no knowledge of another language can only be measured for difficulty if presented with a uniform test of formulation  - whatever that may be - with speakers of other languages.  Tests cited in Bond (1986: 96) suggest that ‘cogni­tive functioning at the level of sentence processing does not differ in English and Chinese despite grammatical variations.’ 

Measured times were the same in simple sentence-picture verifi­cation tasks.  Native speakers of English and Chinese can, in all probability, perform equally well in their own languages.  
Hong Kong Chinese bilinguals, on the other hand, performed better in Chinese than English (Hoosain 1984). The difference in performance, Ho suggests (1987: 403), may be explained by the difficulty of expressing numbers in a second language.   It may also be that, in bilingual subjects, certain language functions are easier in one language than in the other.

Features of one language experienced as being ‘difficult’ by learners of the language are almost invariably not experienced as difficult by native speakers.

A universal hierarchy of difficulty

Certain features of English are inherently difficult to learn ‘no matter what the background of the learner’ (Richards 1971:13).  Delattre, Liebermann and Cooper (1962) pointed out that the English pairs v / d and f / O are difficult to distinguish for both L1 and L2 users.  It is further suggested in Richards (1974: 13-14) that there may be an ‘inherent difficulty for man of certain phonological, syntactic or semantic items and struc­tures’.   The article goes on: ‘Therefore if a hierarchy of difficulty is postulated for learners of a given language background, it must include not only interlanguage difficulties but also take into account a possible universal  hierarchy  of difficulty’.   Unfortunately, the article does not offer any details of this universal hierarchy.  Ho (1987) is interested in the idea of a universal hierarchy of difficulty but finds little empirical evidence to support or refute the notion.  Not only is the precise nature of the hierarchy unknown but its quantification has not been researched.

Is English more difficult to learn than other languages?

Cheong (1970) makes perhaps the most radical judgement on the subject.  English is said to overtax human energy in contrast to Chinesewhich has fewer inconsistencies and a simpler syntax.

Tse (1982) proposes that English phonology is difficult to acquire. Ho (1987) points to the problem of measurement (which we have investigated in a previous section) which is complicated by the fact that ‘languages have a way of trading off difficulties’.  Complex parts of a given language are ‘compensated’ by relative simplicity in other parts. Thus, multidimensional measures of difficulty are required for comparisons of languages when learned by L2 users.

There is little evidence to suggest that English is inherently difficult to learn or that it is inherently more difficult to learn than other foreign languages.  A profitable answer to the question is almost certainly bound to be comparative (for whom?) and will depend on the interlingual distance between L1 and L2. 

The British Foreign Office formerly gave larger allowances to its staff who learnt an Oriental language than those who were made to learn a European one.  The Foreign Office at least thought they knew what language learning difficulty meant and could quantify it in terms of money.

Conclusion

In learning English as a first language, the child probably expands or adjusts areas of its cognitive capacity with the complexity of the language learning task.  As each language is likely to have a ‘trading off of difficulties’ within it, the difficulty of acquiring it is likely to be the same overall although the phases and intensity of difficulty may differ from one language to the other.  This view is echoed by Lenneberg (1967). Certainly, no empirical data suggest otherwise. In the absence of such data, the main question and related questions may be answered philosophically on the basis of logical reasoning.

With some important parameters of our discussion established, it is now appropriate, by way of introduction, to look at how English is used in Hong Kong at present. It is also important to tackle the question of whether what is frequently taken as difficulty’ (the odd and erroneous English commonly found in Hong Kong) may be understood simply as a distinct variety of English and called ‘Hong Kong English’. If Hong Kong English is a separate variety, much of any discussion of categories of error etc. is obviated. On the other hand, if there is no clear cause to suppose that Hong Kong English is a separate variety then we may pursue the causes of error and the underlying question of English language learning difficulty in greater detail.