One to Ponder

[gwendolyngrace]

Okay, so here's something to think about.

The other night, Joel and I were talking about living alone and the high (IMO) density of people who talk to themselves when they live alone or spend a lot of time alone. In the Gweniverse, I'm never completely alone, though, because character-muses constantly provide the opposing voice in my internal dialogue. Like Tom Hanks' character in Cast Away anthropomorphizes "Wilson," I think we as humans need someone to bounce off of, even when that someone is a figment of imagination.

So we're talking about this, and I was saying that it's often characters from books, or TV or movies, and I mentioned how driving is a huge opportunity for this process, and how often these days Will Laurence or Temeraire are my co-pilots (Temeraire because he's a very fun conversationalist and Laurence because he occupies that lovely "straight man" capacity), and that when Granby's in the back seat it's even worse.

And Joel, who's just read His Majesty's Dragon, said he didn't know who Granby was - because, as he put it, he'd "never heard the word pronounced." I said that he'd read the book - he should recognize the name.

And then he said that he never internalizes the pronunciation of proper nouns and names while he's reading things.

I find that fascinating and impossible. I asked about maps: Does he "hear" the pronunciation of streets and such when reading the map? No. He "sees" them as glyphs and then looks for the glyph that matches the picture in his memory.

Bzuh?

So... what we want to know is how anomalous that is, or whether I'm the one who's odd in always figuring out how to say people and place-names when I'm reading. I've known for a long, long time that I prefer to "hear" the words spoken in my head as I read - it's one of the reasons I'm a slow reader - but is that "normal" or is it more normal to take in the word without an attempt to "speak" it and then simply recognize it on repetition? Is it a difference in thought? Teaching? Or actual brain process?

Discuss.

Comments

[nearlyvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - big VAK example.
I had a similar event in my first Mythology class in High School. I'd been a HUGE fan of it since getting d'Aulaire's Greek Mythology at about 7 or 8, and Bullfinch's at 9. So at 10th grade I was thrilled to have a chance at a Mythology section in English class. The first few days left my head reeling, because I already knew all these stories, but the names didn't match. Well, some like Zeus and Apollo and Diana are easy enough, but Hepheastus threw me for a total loop. Then I realized I'd never had anybody to talk to about these characters. I could recognize it instantly in print, but not out loud. Serious head games for me.

In more recent years, designing adult learning, I found out about Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic. All my surveys put me at very high Visual, some kinesthetic, and barely register auditory. That always struck me as odd, given how much music is a part of my life, until I realized even music gets processed into kinesthetic blocks in my head. If I'm talking to someone about thirds vs fourths, I feel it more in my fingers than I hear it in my head. Playing with chords, I feel it in the spacing - does this note need to be closer or further away from the other? If I'm trying to learn lyrics or a script, I have a hard time picking it up just listening to it (or I'll listen to it a million times in a row - effective, but slow). I need to write or type it by hand (kinesthetic) and look at the words, verses, structure etc (visual).

Brain processing is fun ;-)



Hmmmm. I wonder if there's a higher incidence of absolute pitch in auditory learners, and relative pitch in kinesthetic learners....

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

Yes, I had a Middle English professor who told us how he was like 14 years old before he realized that the word "facetious" was pronounced "fa-SEE-shus" - he's always said, "FA-set-us" in his head. And some of those names can be tricky - but honestly, I had a Greek Mythology guide (still do) with a pronunciation guide at the back. Once I figured out the principles of pronunciation for *those* names, I applied them to similar names. And in the same way, if I know how to pronounce vowels and consonants for a particular language, I apply that guideline to the names of that language's origin when I'm reading. So yeah, it's not particularly hard to figure out in most cases. There are exceptions when I'll just simplify or even substitute if absolutely necessary - things like Mayan names or names that include things I find unpronounceable.

It doesn't surprise me at all that I'm high auditory, though I also have very good visual memory and also I use kinesthetic training all the time. I will write my lines out longhand too when I'm memorizing - many, many, many times while I'm memorizing. But I combine it with reading them and hearing them, and especially with saying them at rehearsal. Getting blocking really cements them for me, too. And I usually only need to be given blocking once to remember it. (It kinda drives me crazy when people are given their blocking and then can't repeat it as given.)

As far as pitch, I have pretty excellent relative pitch, though not by any means perfect, and I don't have perfect absolute pitch, just really good memory for absolute pitch. I certainly can't tell you the frequency of any particular pitch, I'm not mathematical in that way. But I've never been a good musician in terms of playing instruments, I'm a singer, so again, it's all in the ear.