The Realm of Language

It is not every day that we think about how vast language has become. I will bet that not everyone thinks about how sounds play a very significant role in language formation. Only linguists know about certain sound patterns that govern language. Aside from linguists, students who specialize in such field are also given the privilege to know them and their structure. Being one of those students is, I can say, gratifying.

It is amazing how a single sound changes the meaning of a whole word or utterance, or how one sound can make a word entirely nonsensical, or linguistically speaking - insignificant. Studying Phonology is very essential most especially for aspiring teachers like me. As a future English teacher, I am well aware that most of my time will be directed to speaking and discussing lessons in class. Here comes the vitality of being able to sound out words or letters very clearly. Whatever the students hear from their teacher are the things they would definitely learn. It becomes the burden of the teacher in the long run when the student learned what was not supposed to be learned. Moreover, it would be a very difficult to correct the students' pronunciation mistakes when it already turned into a habit. And the worse part happens when they go out of the confines of the classroom. How they pronounce words directly affects the interaction between them and others, which would in turn cause a misunderstanding.

We are in the era of globalization. Every now and then we see foreign people visit the country. Every now and then many of our countrymen go abroad. In these times, opportunities of talking to people apart from our kind are always visible. Our ability to sound out their language similarly gives us a plus point. In the business sector, for instance, it is always important to establish good relationships, and a stepping stone towards it is through effective communication. Foreigners are more comfortable to talk to other people who share the same features of speech or ability to speak their language; thus, this promoting effective communication.

I used to think that Phonology only makes my school life a lot more difficult. With all those International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to be familiar with, transcribing words to IPA, and distinguishing whether the sound is voiced or voiceless, I thought everything is just a waste of time. Boy, I was wrong. Now I can see the big picture. I realized that if Phonology is indeed unimportant, then we could have not been studying it, or perhaps O'Grady's book of Contemporary will not be present at the school library's reserve section.

I remember clearly how funny it sounds when /f/ is pronounced as /p/ by my former teachers, or how /e/ and /I/ are spoken interchangeably by the Bisaya people (no offense meant there). I know because there are a number of times that I have been a victim of it. The mocking laughter or boring eyes implored by people upon you very time you commit such mistakes affects one's esteem. It has its psychological effect as well. It is remarkable how a very minimal mistake would balloon into such a gigantic problem -- not only on one's ability to speak but also up to one's emotional state.

While writing this paper, it is only until today that I realized how Phonology means and affects every person's life. I have said earlier that studying Phonology is a privilege given only to few people. With these, it is my responsibility as one of those privileged ones to master Phonology so that in effect, I can deliver my lessons well and clear - without any mispronunciations. This could be a very ideal task to do, it may seem pretty impossible because humans are susceptible to mistakes; however, mistakes lessen in time through constant practice.

Being the smallest component of language, Phonology does not mean that it has the littlest importance among the other components. Actually, it is the opposite. Phonology provides the most basic things to be able to form a word, a sentence, or a meaning. This just means that Phonology is a pre-requisite to be able to proceed to the next component, proving my claim that Phonology is extremely significant to language.

Without it, I guess language will not be present at all. We will be like people in a vacuum, experiencing no sound at all. But is there is the presence of sound, most likely that sound will be just nonsense buzzing and hissing. Imagine how dull and tedious life becomes when that happens. Unexciting, isn't it?