Language is always a BUT

bob4926

It's paradoxical, isn't it?  Most time we are seeking for a unique answer to our questions, all kinds of.  Some say 'cause
2 l7 p/ \6 b7 N4 o) Cwe are very lazy, we want to find the exact (and the only right) way to solve our problems.  But really can we?

Psychology can not.  None of them can solve all the metal problems, So there are many psychologies.  Maybe you will shake your head to my example.  Why not physics.  The speed of acceleration of gravity is always 9.81 metres per second.  Well, it is.  But what will happen a thousand years later?  I don't know.  Everything is relativistic and temporary.  
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( h0 S. d/ z0 e# ]3 @& h3 gLanguage is no exception.
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Last week I went to attend a lecture on Pragmatics.  The whole was boring, repeated theoretical cliches, you can imagine.  Almost at the end of the lecture, the lady began to give some conclusions.  Then she gave an example, which aroused my curiosity.
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She said she had an American colleague.  One day there was a class exchange on his schedule:  his Tuesday's lecture would be postponed to NEXT Thursday.  Then the lady told the guy not to come Tuesday but NEXT Thursday.  Nothing seemed wrong.  
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Everything was perfect.  However, on Thursday afternoon, the guy suddenly appeared in the lady's office and told her that he had been waiting in the classroom for the whole afternoon, but on students came!  Oh, my God, the lady was absolutely confused, did I tell him the wrong date?  No, of course not.  I asked him to come NEXTThursday.  Then what was wrong?
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All wanted to know the answer.  Then the lady smiled and expained to us: We Chinese take time as a period, while English-speaking people take time as a point.  So NEXT Thursday to us, definitely should be the Thursday of NEXT WEEK, while they take Tuesday as the time point, so NEXT means "following immediately".  No doubt NEXT Thursday is the coming Thursday of THIS week.
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" P$ W" P% E% W: L7 A5 GFun, isn't it?  Maybe you guys here have never thought about that.  Me too.  We take it for granted that NEXT THURSDAY is the Thursday of NEXT week.  Well, then, I guess many students will remember this, and take the lady's words into their hearts.  (That's what Chinese education is!  We are trained to act like that!)
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3 J/ q- _. V2 }% }But is it universally true?  I doubted on the way home.  The best way, and easiest way is simply to ask a native speaker (or a group of native speakers, to be more precise).  So I wrote an email to my supervisor (a native speaker) to ask about this question.

What happened?

Fun!

This is the orginal words from his email:

I have argued with years with my wife about this as NEXT Saturday = THIS COMING Saturday to me, but the one after for her (and probably most people). A charitable view is that people vary and you generally need to check what they intended.

There is no unique answer.  Even natives disagree!

So next questions to me are: are the American guy and my supervisor represent the majority or my supervisor's wife?  What do we teach our students if we never know, or even we know this rule?...
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No grammar books will tell us that rule.  Not even our English teacher.  This is the language what people actually use.  Maybe there is a unique answer according to authoritative grammar books.  Well, there is no unique answer to what people actually speak every day.  ETS can check if you understand the difference between an attributive clasue and an appositive clause.  Well, they will never know if you can use "NEXT Saturday" correctly when you are inviting your foreign friends to have dinner with you!
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! n9 z9 m; f1 H( n2 N) a4 wWhat do natives really care about our English?  I am not sure the exact ranking, but definitely, pronunciation, the correct choice of words and your manner overweigh the grammar rules.  Remember, most of you are training to communicate with native speakers, but not to be linguists!  Make sure you are learning to deal with people, but not grammar books!
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Langugage is always DESPITE OF.

bob4926

好冷啊！

风@恋

<>you write is very wonderful,but is too long....</P>

bob4926

yeah…i do not like reading prolix  articles。anyway it contain 1000w at most！
i really consider u should read the whole essay be4 u make any criticisms。
but then i appreciate ur response。heee…………

风吹沙地

your own work ? It's wonderful. Chinese also has the same problem. It's said that French is the most precise language in the world, maybe it don't have this problem, I guess.
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[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-29 12:42:36编辑过]

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风吹沙地

and a puzzling question: how do we express "the thursday of next week"?

bob4926

sorry,i can not catch ur word's mean!

风吹沙地

以下是引用[I]bob4926[/I]在2005-9-5 17:05:01的发言：[BR]sorry,i can not catch ur word's mean!

这是你自己写的？非常精彩。中文也有同样的问题。据说法文是非常精确的语言，可能没有这样的问题吧，我猜。
7 Y# O4 Y  G1 k; f% o8 G难道我写的真的那么糟糕吗？还是你的理解能力不够？

bob4926

i read it when i prepared for toefl exam and considered it as the best  issue in many
model essaies. ultimately it do give me elicitation of how to learn foreign languages well.
you can chuckle to yourself!heeee
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风吹沙地

还好，我还以为能写出这样的文章的人看不懂我说的话，那我真的要郁闷死了

bob4926

i still do not know what  you want me to do.i can not speak french.ok,then you answer the question you gave me,please!

风吹沙地

I didn't ask you to do anything. It reminds me of French while concerning 'precise language',just so.

携手游人间

以下是引用[I]风吹沙地[/I]在2005-9-18 21:48:30的发言：[BR]还好，我还以为能写出这样的文章的人看不懂我说的话，那我真的要郁闷死了

B.S.S.B.

bob4926

[quote]以下是引用[I]风吹沙地[/I]在2005-9-18 21:48:30的发言：[BR]还好，我还以为能写出这样的文章的人看不懂我说的话，那我真的要郁闷死了[/QUOTE
why??????
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风吹沙地

因为能写出这样的文章的人英语肯定很强，可以说是"native speaker"，若这样的人看不懂我写的英语那说明我的英语非常的中国化，那不郁闷死了啊？

hopenot

there's no "but" when u r confident enough.