Friday, September 26, 2008

Most Important Feature In Language

I think that the most important feature in language comprehension is vocabulary. The way that the brain works allows people to adjust very quickly do the different sounds that distinguish different accents. In addition, while sytax is important to achieve optimal clarity, I feel like it's relatively simple to understand what a person means even if the sentence seems slightly scrambled. Vocabulary, however, is a make or break type feature for language comprehension. If a person doesn't know local lingo or the vocabulary of the language or region, there is no way that they're going to be able to understand what is being said.

1 comment:

Adelaide said...

Have you had a lot of vocabulary issues at Stanford so far? Most miscommunications I've had have been related more to pronunciation. I have learned a lot of new vocabulary, though, because usually I can figure out what it means in context.