Part 28 (2/2)

Now, as grammar and rhetoric are not possible with the spoken language but demand recourse to the written language which keeps ever before the eye the discourse to be a.n.a.lysed, so it is with speech.

The a.n.a.lysis of the transient is impossible.

The language must be materialised and made stable. Hence the necessity of the written word or the word represented by graphic signs.

In the third stage of my method for writing, that is, composition of speech, is included the _a.n.a.lysis of the word_ not only into signs, but into the component sounds; the signs representing its translation. The child, that is, _divides_ the heard word which he perceives integrally as a _word_, knowing also its meanings, into sounds and syllables.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Let me call attention to the following diagram which represents the interrelation of the two mechanisms for writing and for articulate speech.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The peripheric channels are indicated by heavy lines; the central channels of a.s.sociation by dotted lines; and those referring to a.s.sociation in relation to the development of the heard speech by light lines.

_E_ ear; _So_ auditory centre of sounds; _Sy_ auditory centre of syllables; _W_ auditory centre of word; _M_ motor centre of the articulate speech; _T_ external organs of articulate speech (tongue); _H_ external organs of writing (hand); _MC_ motor centre of writing; _VC_ visual centre of graphic signs; _V_ organ of vision.]

Whereas in the development of spoken language the sound composing the word might be imperfectly perceived, here in the teaching of the graphic sign corresponding to the sound (which teaching consists in presenting to the child a sandpaper letter, naming it _distinctly_ and making the child _see_ it and _touch_ it), not only is the perception of the heard sound _clearly_ fixed--separately and clearly--but this perception is a.s.sociated with two others: the centro-motor perception and the centro-visual perception of the written sign.

The triangle _VC_, _MC_, _So_ represents the a.s.sociation of three sensations in relation with the a.n.a.lysis of speech.

When the letter is presented to the child and he is made to touch and see it, while it is being named, the centripetal channels _ESo_; _H_, _MC_, _So_; _V_, _VC_, _So_ are acting and when the child is made to name the letter, alone or accompanied by a vowel, the external stimulus acts in _V_ and pa.s.ses through the channels _V_, _VC_, _So_, _M_, _T_; and _V_, _CV_, _So_, _Sy_, _M_, _T_.

When these channels of a.s.sociation have been established by presenting visual stimuli in the graphic sign, the corresponding movements of articulate language can be provoked and studied one by one in their defects; while, by maintaining the visual stimulus of the graphic sign which provokes articulation and accompanying it by the auditory stimulus of the corresponding _sound_ uttered by the teacher, their articulation can be perfected; this articulation is by innate conditions connected with the __heard speech; that is, in the course of the p.r.o.nunciation provoked by the visual stimulus, and during the repet.i.tion of the relative movements of the organs of language, the auditory stimulus which is introduced into the exercise contributes to the perfecting of the p.r.o.nunciation of the isolated or syllabic sounds composing the spoken word.

When later the child writes under dictation, translating into signs the sounds of speech, he a.n.a.lyses the heard speech into its sounds, translating them into graphic movements through channels already rendered permeable by the corresponding muscular sensations.

DEFECTS OF LANGUAGE DUE TO LACK OF EDUCATION

Defects and imperfections of language are in part due to organic causes, consisting in malformations or in pathological alterations of the nervous system; but in part they are connected with functional defects acquired in the period of the formation of language and consist in an erratic p.r.o.nunciation of the component sounds of the spoken word. Such errors are acquired by the child who hears words imperfectly p.r.o.nounced, or _hears bad speech_, The dialectic accent enters into this category; but there also enter vicious habits which make the natural defects of the articulate language of childhood persist in the child, or which provoke in him by imitation the defects of language peculiar to the persons who surrounded him in his childhood.

The normal defects of child language are due to the fact that the complicated muscular agencies of the organs of articulate language do not yet function well and are consequently incapable of reproducing the _sound_ which was the sensory stimulus of a certain innate movement. The a.s.sociation of the movements necessary to the articulation of the spoken words is established little by little. The result is a language made of words with sounds which are imperfect and often lacking (whence incomplete words). Such defects are grouped under the name _blaesitas_ and are especially due to the fact that the child is not yet capable of directing the movements of his tongue. They comprise chiefly: _sigmatism_ or imperfect p.r.o.nunciation of _s_; _rhotacism_ or imperfect p.r.o.nunciation of _r_; _lambdacism_ or imperfect p.r.o.nunciation of _l_; _gammacism_ or imperfect p.r.o.nunciation, of _g_; _iotacism_, defective p.r.o.nunciation of the gutturals; _mogilalia_, imperfect p.r.o.nunciation of the l.a.b.i.als, and according to some authors, as Preyer, mogilalia is made to include also the suppression of the first sound of a word.

Some defects of p.r.o.nunciation which concern the utterance of the vowel sound as well as that of the consonant are due to the fact that the child _reproduces perfectly_ sounds imperfectly heard.

In the first case, then, it is a matter of functional insufficiencies of the peripheral motor organ and hence of the nervous channels, and the cause lies in the individual; whereas in the second case the error is caused by the auditory stimulus and the cause lies outside.

These defects often persist, however attenuated, in the boy and the adult: and produce finally an erroneous language to which will later be added in writing orthographical errors, such for example as dialectic orthographical errors.

If one considers the charm of human speech one is bound to acknowledge the inferiority of one who does not possess a correct spoken language; and an aesthetic conception in education cannot be imagined unless special care be devoted to perfecting articulate language. Although the Greeks had transmitted to Rome the art of educating in language, this practice was not resumed by Humanism which cared more for the aesthetics of the environment and the revival of artistic works than for the perfecting of the man.

To-day we are just beginning to introduce the practice of correcting by pedagogical methods the serious defects of language, such as stammering; but the idea of _linguistic gymnastics_ tending to its perfection has not yet penetrated into our schools as a _universal method_, and as a detail of the great work of the aesthetic perfecting of man.

Some teachers of deaf mutes and intelligent devotees of orthophony are trying nowadays with small practical success to introduce into the elementary schools the correction of the various forms of _blaesitas_, as a result of statistical studies which have demonstrated the wide diffusion of such defects among the pupils. The exercises consist essentially in _silence_ cures which procure calm and repose for the organs of language, and in patient _repet.i.tion_ of the _separate_ vowel and consonant _sounds_; to these exercises is added also respiratory gymnastics. This is not the place to describe in detail the methods of these exercises which are long and patient and quite out of harmony with the teachings of the school. But in my methods are to be found all exercises for the corrections of language:

(_a_) _Exercises of Silence_, which prepare the nervous channels of language to receive new stimuli perfectly;

(_b_) _Lessons_ which consist first of the distinct p.r.o.nunciation by the teacher of _few words_ (especially of _nouns_ which must be a.s.sociated with a concrete idea); by this means clear and perfect _auditory stimuli_ of language are started, stimuli which are _repeated_ by the teacher when the child has conceived the idea of the object represented by the word (recognition of the object); finally of the provocation of articulate language on the part of the child who must repeat _that word alone_ aloud, p.r.o.nouncing its separate sounds;

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