THE CONCEPT OF “FEELING FOR THE LANGUAGE” AS THE ELEMENTAL MECHANISM OF TEXT UNDERSTANDING

Abstract

The concept of “feeling for the language” (语感) is a popular term in the field of language teaching in China. The term is used by teachers of different languages, considering it as a kind of shortest path to a high level of language proficiency, but this path is hidden, almost untransmittable. Although decades of language teaching have accumulated some typical advice about developing this “feeling” for learners, the results show that the advice is not effective. In this paper, the researcher reviews the traditional viewpoints about this category, discusses why traditional advice does not help, and analyzes the process of understanding the text, as a result of which it is revealed how the “feeling for the language” works even in the understanding of the most simple statements. As a conclusion, the paper reveals that the essence of “feeling for the language” is a certain hidden mechanism, but the main one for understanding the text, which is so natural for native speakers that they often cannot notice it, and foreign students often cannot learn such a mechanism due to using comparison of source and translation of the learning materials as the main learning method. It is noted that for effective language learning, learners need to understand precisely the process of understanding in order to master the “feeling for language”.