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Female Foreign Language Learners | ||
Tags: Female Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Recht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5803 days ago 241 posts - 270 votes  Speaks: English*, GermanB1 | Message 49 of 202 12 April 2009 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
why couldn't it be both? The fact that men are much better represented at both extreme ends of the intellectual distribution curve, more likely to be geniuses and more likely to be mentally retarded or disposed to a life of lawlessness could well play a part in a male participation in specialized language activities. There is certainly a reason why the vast, vast majority of inventions have been invented by men, and also why most crime is committed by men. Coupled with the excellent example that women are more likely to have family obligations that would prevent them from studying for large chunks of time, and we have a fairly sound explanation. The only thing negative would be to categorically disregard any attempt at an explanation from a biological standpoint as "negative" and simply assume the difference must either a. not exist or b. be socially constructed. That leaves of c. that it could be a biological difference or d. that it could be a combination. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 50 of 202 12 April 2009 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
There's some relatively serious doubt about whether men are better represented at the extreme positive side of intellectual distribution. I've read that testing centers for extremely high IQ find it's more common in women than men, in absolute numbers - despite testing more men. (I'll leave other rants about the shortcomings of IQ testing for elsewhere). There's also some relatively serious doubt about what level of intelligence is necessary to be a polyglot; from first-hand observation of a number of polyglots, I'd say it's not all that high (some are very bright, and some are quite average). I would say that distributions of intelligence based on gender are not a relevant factor for the relative numbers of male and female polyglots. Absolutely no one is credibly postulating large enough differences to come anywhere near approximating the male:female polyglot ratio that appears to currently exist. I'm not claiming it has 0 influence, but evidence appears to be against it being significant. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mashagu Bilingual Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5797 days ago 18 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, Russian*, German Studies: Japanese | Message 51 of 202 12 April 2009 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am also female.
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| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 52 of 202 12 April 2009 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't even know where to begin with this... but I suspect there's no point anyway. Zocurtis, not to worry, you are forgiven. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Durben Diglot Groupie Portugal Joined 6621 days ago 42 posts - 45 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German | Message 53 of 202 12 April 2009 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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| Recht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5803 days ago 241 posts - 270 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB1 | Message 54 of 202 12 April 2009 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Well this goes against about everything IQ testing has shown when testing men and women, where men at extremely high IQ levels outnumber women by ratios of more than 5:1. I would assume the same ratio would hold true at the other end of the spectrum as well, as both studies and personal experience have backed up. It is also worth mentioning that I wasn't solely referring to IQ. Sheer volume of males inventing or achieving high office, standing or position or committing crimes and being of low intelligence is also telling. Edited by Recht on 12 April 2009 at 3:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo baby! Senior Member United States Joined 5979 days ago 202 posts - 208 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* | Message 55 of 202 12 April 2009 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||
That's a big problem with this forum. People here like to play make-believe and lie about their age, their sex, their nationality, the number of languages they know, etc. They'll even create multiple accounts and post on the same thread just to get attention. It would be amusing but some of them are giving false testimonials and misleading other members that genuinely want advice on learning languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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