HABIT-FORMING AND HABIT-ADAPTING
Language-learning, like all other arts as contrasted with sciences,
is a habit-forming process. Proficiency in the understanding of the
structure of a language is attained by treating the subject as a
_science_, by studying the _theory_; but proficiency in the _use_ of
a language can only come as a result of perfectly formed habits. No
foreign word, form, or combination of these is ‘known’ or ‘mastered’
until we can use it automatically, until we can attach it to its
meaning without conscious analysis, until we can produce it without
hesitation and conscious synthesis. We hear a foreign sentence as
pronounced at a normal speed by a native speaker. If we understand this
sentence as soon as it falls from his lips, if we understand it without
being conscious of its form or without even realizing that we are
listening to a foreign language, we ‘possess’ that sentence, it forms
part of the material which we have gained as the result of a habit; our
understanding of it is ‘_automatic_.’ If, on the other hand, we ask the
speaker to repeat it or to say it more slowly, if we claim a moment of
reflection in order to realize the parts of which it is composed, if
we subject it to a rapid analysis or to a rapid translation, we do not
possess the sentence; it has not become automatic.
We wish to speak; if the foreign sentence springs to our lips as
soon as we have formulated the thought, if we are unconscious of the
words or the form of the words contained in it, if we are unaware of
the manner in which we have pieced it together, it is certain that we
have produced it automatically, we have produced it as the result of a
perfectly formed habit. If, on the other hand, we prepare the sentence
in advance; if, as we utter it, we consciously choose the words or
the form of the words contained in it; if we build it up by conscious
synthesis or by a rapid translation from an equivalent sentence of our
native tongue, we do not produce it automatically; we have not formed
the habit of using the sentence or the type of sentence to which it
belongs; we are producing it by means of conscious calculation.
Adult students in general dislike forming new habits and avoid such
work as far as possible; they seek to replace it by forms of study
requiring discrimination and other processes of the intellect. One
reason for this is that habit-forming often entails monotonous work,
whereas the other types of work are more or less interesting; another
reason is that the forming of a habit seems a slow process; so many
repetitions are required and progress is not at once apparent, whereas
the other form of work has all the appearance of rapidity. We know,
however, that in reality what we have learnt as the result of a habit
is not only immediately available at all times, but is also a permanent
acquisition, and that what we have learnt by the aid of theory alone is
neither immediately available nor permanent. Let us take an example to
illustrate our point.
We wish to learn when and how to use each of the German cases. The
theory of the declension provides us with all the necessary rules
and exceptions. One set of prepositions requires the accusative,
another the dative, another the genitive, another accusative or
dative according to certain semantic considerations. This rule can be
mastered without any great difficulty; within the space of a few hours
the necessary formulæ may be committed to memory, and the student
imagines that the problem is solved for all time. “Whenever I want to
know what case to use,” he thinks, “I shall only have to remember to
which category the preposition belongs and I shall know what case is
required.” In reality his knowledge of the theory, _i.e._ his memory of
the categories, will soon become blurred and will tend to fade away;
and even if he does succeed in retaining this fresh in his memory, he
will always require a second or two of conscious reflection before
he is able to hit on the right case. He will be using consciousness
where unconsciousness would serve him better; if (as is probable) he
has learnt to determine gender by a similar process, his conscious
attention will have to be devoted to this as well, he will be focusing
his attention on the language-material, which will prevent him from
focusing it on the things he wishes to say. Deciding to use these
‘short cuts’ he will therefore assume for his whole lifetime the burden
of continual conscious effort.
Now, instead of learning and applying theory he might memorize a
hundred or so real living sentences, each exemplifying one of the
results of the theory. By doing so he would acquire a hundred or so new
habits or automatic actions. He recoils before the task; the perfect
memorizing of a simple sentence is so distasteful to him; it seems to
take so long; he fails to realize the permanent advantages which he
might obtain by doing it; he chooses what seems the easier path, the
short cut.
It is here that we see the value of spontaneous assimilation. If the
student has trained his capacities of retaining unconsciously what he
may happen to hear (or read), he will memorize without effort, and
without the expenditure of any appreciable amount of nervous energy.
The same considerations apply to the learning of the French
conjugation, English pronunciation, Hungarian vocalic harmony, Welsh
mutation, or to the overcoming of the other obstacles in the path of
progress towards perfect attainment.
The fear of monotonous and tedious memorizing work, and the realization
of the length of time necessary for each act of memorizing, induce the
student to invent pretexts for avoiding such work. He declares that
‘parrot-work’ is not education, that modern educationalists condemn
‘learning by rote,’ that the age of blind repetition is over and that
the age of intelligent understanding has taken its place. He will talk
of the method of discovery, the factor of interest, and will even quote
to us ‘the laws of nature’ in defence of his thesis. But we know that
in reality these are but so many excuses for his disinclination to
form those habits which can secure him the automatism which alone will
result in sound and permanent progress.
This fear of tediousness is not really justified at all, for mechanical
work is not necessarily monotonous. Automatism, it is true, is acquired
by repetition, but this repetition need not be of the parrot-like
type. Repetition, in the sense ascribed to it by the psychologist,
simply means having many separate occasions to hear, to see, to utter,
or to write a given word or sentence. The object of most of the
language-teaching exercises, drills, and devices invented or developed
in recent years is precisely to ensure proper repetition in attractive
and interesting ways.
Nearly all the time spent by the teacher in explaining why such and
such a form is used and why a certain sentence is constructed in
a certain way is time lost, for such explanations merely appease
curiosity; they do not help us to form new habits, they do not develop
automatism. Those who have learnt to use the foreign language and
who do use it successfully have long since forgotten the why and
the wherefore; they can no longer quote to you the theory which was
supposed to have procured them their command of the language.
When teaching the French word _chauve-souris_ it is not necessary
to point out that this is literally equivalent to ‘bald-mouse’; and
if we tell our student that _ça se comprend_ really means ‘that
understands itself,’ we are telling him something which is not true,
and something that will cause him needless perplexity. _Hauptstadt_ is
the German equivalent of ‘capital’ (in the geographical sense), and we
need not pander to morbid etymological habits by making an allusion
to ‘head-town.’ Nothing is gained, but much is lost, if we tell the
student that the French say ‘I am become’ instead of ‘I have become.’
It may be objected that habit-forming is aided by these explanations,
that the knowledge of the why and the wherefore is a useful aid to
the process of memorizing. There is something to be said for this
statement; we are ready to admit that in some instances it is good to
point out the nature of the laws that stand behind the sentences which
exemplify them; we shall even show later in what cases and for what
reasons we counsel the giving of explanations. But we are entirely at
issue with those who maintain that explanations are an indispensable
concomitant of memorizing, and we give a flat contradiction to those
who maintain that “they cannot memorize what they don’t understand.”
The most successful linguists have attained their proficiency by
memorizing sentences they could not analyse. The temptation to replace
habit-forming by analysis and synthesis is so strong that the teacher
must continually react against it.
As we have already seen, instead of acquiring the habit of using the
French sound _é_ the English student persists in replacing it by some
form of the English _ay_; conversely, the French student of English
tends to replace the English _ay_ by the French _é_. Most of these
acts of substitution are illegitimate; French _eu_ is a very poor
substitute for English _u_ in _but_, the English word _air_ is a mere
caricature of the French word _air_; of the six sounds contained in
the word _thoroughly_ [θʌrəli], only two, [ə] and [l], are in any way
equivalent to French sounds. About half of the forty-six sounds (or
rather ‘phones’) contained in the English phonetic system have no
equivalent in French, and about the same proportion of the thirty-seven
French sounds are absent from English. Yet most French users of English
and most English users of French endeavour respectively to speak the
foreign language with no other sounds than their native sounds. The
French system of stress and intonation is entirely different from the
English system, but most English students will use their native system
when speaking French. The average English student replaces French
habits of sentence-building by his previously acquired English habits,
and also attributes to French words or word-compounds the meanings
(or connotations) possessed by what he imagines to be their English
equivalents.
In many cases he is undoubtedly justified; his efforts are not all
misplaced; some foreign sounds _are_ actually identical with some
native sounds, some foreign constructions _are_ actually parallel with
some native constructions, and some foreign words and expressions _do_
possess an exact counterpart in the native language. But the trouble
is that the student fails to realize in what cases these identities
exist; untrained in observation and discrimination, he considers as
equivalents things which are not, and fails to identify as equivalents
things which are. French _a_ in _patte_ is frequently not far removed
from a perfectly English variety of _u_ in _cut_, but the average
Frenchman pronounces _cut_ with the French vowel _eu_ in _veuve_, and
the average Englishman pronounces _patte_ either with the vowel of
_pat_ or of _part_. The last syllable of _pleasure_ is practically
identical with the French word _je_, but the average Frenchman does
not know this, and substitutes some sort of French _ure_ or _eure_.
The French words _souhaite_, _semelle_, _laine_, _dialecte_ are very
similar to the (real or imaginary) English words _sweat_, _smell_,
_len_, _d’yullect_, but the average English student does not know
this, and uses pronunciations such as _soohate_, _semell_, _lane_,
_dee-ah-lect_ instead.
In these and all parallel cases the student is utilizing certain of his
previously acquired habits, but unfortunately he has selected the wrong
ones instead of the right ones; it is for the skilful language-teacher
to ascertain which of the student’s known habits can be most nearly
adapted to what is required.
The same thing holds good in the case of construction, choice of words,
etc. The English student constructs the sentence _Je marcherai à la
gare_ on the wrong model; if he must use an English habit at all, he
should in this case proceed from _I shall go on foot to the station_
and not from _I shall walk to the station_. Some may inquire at this
point, “Why drag in English at all? Why not think in the foreign
language without reference to the mother-tongue?” We would reply that
this is hardly relevant to the matter under immediate consideration; we
are simply showing that the average student, if left to himself, will
tend not only to utilize his native linguistic habits, but to select
very unsuitable ones. We would, however, add that cases do undoubtedly
exist in which the student would be well advised to enlist some of his
previously acquired habits; a judiciously selected native form will
produce better results than a badly constructed foreign form.[3]
[3] A typical example has just been noticed by the writer: a Dutch
student’s pronunciation of ‘know it’ was almost unintelligible, but
when advised to replace this rendering by the Dutch word _nooit_ he
produced a very close approximation to the English pronunciation.