Greenhouse, Garden, Jungle

The Botanic Metaphor

The Botanic metaphor of the Greenhouse the Garden and the Jungle has proved popular with teachers and students. Here is a brief description, with an explanation about how the metaphor can be used in the classroom.

The Greenhouse style of speech

In the Greenhouse, words have soundshapes which are treated as if they are isolated plants – each one separate, in its own flower pot, at a safe distance from any other plant or flower – no touching, no overlap. Individual words are spoken in a slow way which preserves every segment, and giving citation form stress patterns. This is the domain of the citation forms that we find in pronunciation keys. ELT is comfortable in the Greenhouse.

The Garden style of speech

In the Garden, words come into gentle contact with each other in an orderly way. They are like flowers and plants which have been carefully positioned in a flower-bed so that they are pleasing on the eye, and sway beautifully in the breeze. The edges of different groups of flowers come into contact with other groups each other as they move. This is the domain of the rules of connected speech. ELT is comfortable in the Garden.

The Jungle style of speech

In the Jungle, words overlap with each in such a messy way that it is difficult to know whether one word ends and another begins, or whether a word has occurred at all. Anything can happen words may be so crushed that they sound like other words, and they may go so fast that even if they are reasonably clear, they may be too difficult to catch. This is the domain of normal everyday speech, messy and unruly, where the rules of connected speech are wholly inadequate. ELT is extremely uncomfortable in the Jungle – and actually prefers to avoid it altogether. But actually, most people ELT do not know of the Jungle.

Classroom activity

Below is a description of the use of the metaphor in a classroom. It uses a sentence from an intermediate textbook. It is a vocal gymnastics exercise, which gets students to savour (another metaphor) the soundsubstance of speech.

Preparation

Place a picture of Greenhouse plants on the left hand side of the front of the classroom, a picture of a Garden (with flowerbeds) in the centre, and a picture of Jungle vegetation on the right hand side.

Vocal gymnastics

We’ll use a textbook sentence from New Cutting Edge Intermediate (Cunningham & Moor, 2005: 108) ‘I realised that I’d left my purse at home’.

Let’s give a Greenhouse version, with every word (counting ‘I’d’ as one word) in a separate speech unit:

Example 1 Greenhouse version (T stands in front of, or points to, the picture of the Greenhouse)

| I | REALised | THAT | I’D | LEFT | MY | PURSE | AT | HOME |

Then you do a listen-and-repeat exercise with the class, either performing the speech units themselves, or using a recording. Using a variety of tone choices, and pitch heights, and emotions. But every syllable is clear, all segments pronounced clearly.

Then you move to a joined up – Garden – version, a tidy version of the sentence is likely to be given as a speech unit with four prominences (shown in upper case letters) and a falling tone beginning on ‘home’:

Example 2 Garden version (T stands in front of, or points to, the picture of the Garden)

| i REALised that i’d LEFT my PURSE at HOME |

Notice that we have partically reduced forms in the non-prominent syllables ‘that’ ‘my’ and ‘at’ – notice the linking of ‘that i’d’ – ‘tha.tied’

Now we will make our first steps in the jungle. So we are going to apply, strictly, the rule that this sentence is going to be performed with only two prominences, on the first syllable of ‘realised’ and on ‘purse’

Example 3 – first step in the Jungle (T stands  in front of, or points to, the picture of the Jungle)

| i REAlised that i’d left my PURSE at home |

The skill is to make sure that the prominent syllables – in upper case letters – are said louder and longer than the other syllables, and are clear; and that there is a falling tone which starts on ‘purse’, and continues over the syllables ‘at home’.

Placing the speech unit in the five columns of a double prominence speech unit (the five part pattern) will enable us to make some useful observations. Notice that the columns are numbered in reverse order, with the prominent syllables in columns 4 and 2, and the falling tone starting in column 2.

Example 4 – the five part pattern

5	4	3	2	1
i	REA	lised that i’d left my	PURSE	at home

The prominent syllables are allocated one column each: columns 4 and 2. It is helpful to think of columns 4 and 2 as protected zones, where the syllables are spoken as if they are part of a full citation form, with all segments preserved (this is not absolutely true, because the final segments are often altered or dropped, but it is a useful pedagogic fiction).

Most importantly however, for our first step in the jungle, is the fact that columns 5 and 3 are ‘squeeze zones’ where syllables will be subjected to all kinds of stream-of-speech changes. Column 1 is a semi-protected zone, where the syllables – though non-prominent – are slowing down before a pause, and though quiet, are not subjected to the same level of destruction as they would be in columns 5 and 3.

In squeeze zone 3, there are the following things to notice and practise:

• past tense ending of ‘realised’ is inaudible we get something close to ‘realise’
• the ‘th’ of ‘that’ is inaudible – we get something close to ‘realizatt’ for ‘realised that’
• the ‘t’ of ‘left’ is dropped
• ‘that i’d’ has become something close to ‘attad’
• the diphthong of ‘my’ has lost its glide, it becomes ‘ma’

The vocal gymnastics for the students to do – guided by the teacher – is for them to ‘travel’ from the greenhouse, through the garden, to the jungle, saying this sentence in the appropriate way for each location.