sound, syntax, vocabulary, take 2

I've just gone back to look at my original post on this topic, and I was surprised to note that I agree with most of the thoughts I had at the beginning of this class. I still feel that sound is most important for language comprehension and that context alleviates the problems caused by vocabulary differences. For instance, in the "Ebb Tide for Hoi Toide" article this week, there were a number of words I could not guess the meaning of, but I think if I had a conversation with someone from Orcacoke, we would be able to understand each other. (On a side note, the word "catawampus" is actually used in my family even though we have no ties to North Carolina or the brogue) The Orcacoke brogue also uses a different syntax than the dialect I speak, but when examples of this were given, I had no trouble finding the meaning.

One example that comes to mind when I think about the importance of sound in comprehension involves confusion of the word "Peter." Before coming to Stanford, I participated in the SPOT program. At the beginning of the program, of course, we had to do a lot of introductions. One of the participants I met was named "Peter." He had lived in Michigan for several years, but grew up in England. For this reason, he pronounced his own name as "Pete-ah" (dropped the 'r'). Since Peter is a common name, I expected that other people would be able to understand his introduction, but in fact, he had a lot of problems. Often, I would have to step in to pronounce his name in the more typical American way in order for the other person to understand.