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There's an old story about a girl, who inquired her grand pa whether he keeps his lengthy beard over or under the blanket whlist sleeping. Until then the grand pa never considered of that , yet from that motherent he tossed and turned each night attempting to choose what to do with the beard – the poor fellow had become “beard conscious”.

And that story points to one aspect of coming to understand a second language (especially in spoken form with its odd accent and intocountry etc.) that might be foreign to students whlist coming to understand to master it. And during that struggle they become “spoken conscious” and discover themselves in the frame of grand pa, tossing and turning each time they endeavor to talk in that alien language.

It's natural that we in that age of expanding psychological advances and superficial speaks of the analysis of human psychological conditions look for a linguistic standard to be available to use in our communications. Hence, we discover ourselves increasingly join hands in the so rung movement of trueness in English, both in speech and writing.

We are careful about the correct accent of English, whlist talking. Even many of us attend the accentuation class. The expanding industry of BPO and outsourcing in Asian region also has influenced many to speak like Americans, or the British. Since, it's the need of the hour .

Yet fact is somewhat unique than that. The child comes to understand from extremely early age to respond to the sounds and tunes which his elders habitually use in speaking to him; and in due course, from a need to communicate, he begins to imitate the re-current sound patterns with which he has become familiar. In other words, he begins to make use of speech; and his constant exposure to the spoken form of his own language, together with his need to convey increasingly subtle types of data, leads to a rapid acquisition of the frame work of his spoken language.

With all the conditions in his favor, a number of years shall proceed before he has mastered not only the sound enterprise used in his community yet also has at his disposal a vocabulary of any extent.

It's no ponder that the understanding of another language later in life there fore acquired artificiality in belief and sporadic spells of activity and with out the stimulus arising from an immediate need for communication, shall tend to be tedious and seldom over particularly profitable.

Yet the more in a later life, a second language is endeavored to master, the more the understander shall discover resistances and prejudices deriving from the frame work of his original language. It might be says that as we expand older, the acquisition of new language shall usually entail a fantastic deal of conscious, analytical effort instead of the child’s ready and facile imitation.

Therefore, coming to know to talk in a second language is, as Horace Coon sees it, both a “discipline” and a “liberation”. We have to at the first instance understand that talking is though a creative art, it's also a part of natural expression. Actually speech is a sort of emotional release through self expression.

Yet we tend to search for a ‘standard’ of in any language and therefore, the inquiries ‘what's right?’ in speech becomes more frequent among all kinds of individuals. We search for a ‘standard’ which we may use as a model, in order that we could hide our secondariness to the language.

Yet the one fact which individuals tend to forget , according to C.L.Wren is that when a talker becomes exactly conscious of his speech, that speech shall become less natural – less truly the expression of his own internality. And then follows a communication gap.

Another thing that we may discuss in that context is that what's criteria of fine speech . Is the main criterion to be aesthetic or pragmatic? If we choose beauty as the main criterion and choose the sort of speech that pleases our ear, then we might discover that there's no absolute definition of beauty itself. Then what we could expect here's to be pragmatic in using speech. And that indicates the emphasis of speech in any language ought to be given to the wide range of propose to which the speech gives itself. And as the change is taking place in our society at a higher value acceleration, the variety of propose also enlarge, and hence the use of speech as well as the language itself. So it's incorrect to state that a particular sort of speech in English is the standard for all. Rather what one ought to do is to understand the role of his use of language in a given context and accordingly he may use it to attain his objective.

About The Author

Samir K. Dash is a MA in English (UGC-NET qulaified) from Ravenshaw College, Cuttack (INDIA). At present he is working as senior content developer at AniGraphs.com

He could be contacted at his homepage: www.samirshomepage.zzn.com

E-Mail: samirkdash@yahoo.