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Critical Period Hypothesis | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7176 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes  Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 1 of 60 16 May 2005 at 2:28pm | IP Logged |
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I just wanted to point out that the ''critical PERIOD hypothesis'' is what Eric was referring to. It is the hypothesis put forth in the late sixties/early seventies that a child can only acquire language in a period extending from infancy to early puberty. After that, the ability is lost forever. The two most famous case studies providing support include a French ''wildboy'' who was then taken under the wing of a psychologist, and ''Jeannie,'' a girl who was abused by her parents, kept tied to a potty, and never taught English. Both subjects, despite intensive language instruction by sympathetic professionals, never acquired anything approaching proficiency in any tongue.
According to certain pyschologists, the relevant point for us, as second-, third-, and fifteenth-language learners, is that this period is the ONLY time in which native fluency in a language can be achieved. Not just a high degree of proficiency, mind you, but native fluency in the strictest sense. A most depressing notion... Edited by Sprachjunge on 16 May 2005 at 2:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7108 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 2 of 60 26 June 2005 at 6:34pm | IP Logged |
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I understand the crictical period theory to mean that if you don't acquire ANY language by the time you reach puberty then you never will. I don't think it applies to people who have already learned 1 or more languages by the time they hit this "critical" time and want to become fluent in more languages.
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| M-Squared Senior Member United States Joined 7150 days ago 117 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 3 of 60 26 June 2005 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
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I'd like to see some references to the assertion that "After age XX you
cannot learn another language fluently." I think the real case is somewhat narrower. There was an interesting demonstration of the issue on a US television program. What they showed was the the brain forms sound pattern recognition features in babyhood that are based on sounds in the language they hear. So, if the language you hear does not discriminate between two sounds (call them A and B), and those sounds are similar enough, past a certain age you will not be able to learn to discriminate between the sounds A and B. The demonstration worked like this. They made a recording of somebody saying two words, I'll call them A and B. To the English speaking audience the words were the same, but to the native speaker of the language (in the demonstration a Native American language) they were entirely different words. Then they played back a recorded sequence of the words A, A, A, A, etc., and eventually a B in the sequence. A child sits in the room listening to the sequence (usually on Mom's lap, since these were very young children). To the side of the baby is a case full of toys hidden in darkness. Just after the word B is spoken on the tape the toy case lights up and all toys become active. When the child is below a critical age, something like 1 or 2 years as I recall, they quickly learn to look at the toy case as soon as they hear "B," having learned to anticipate the action. Beyond the critical age they never learn to do that, they cannot discriminate the two sets of sounds. I think this has a very narrow meaning. If two languages share a common sound set then there should be no age limit on learning one having learned the other. But, if the target language has sound discrimination that does not occur in the mother language then it may be impossible to learn to discriminate the sounds later. Having only seen this as a television program, I'd really like a real, scientific reference to the phenomena. It would also be interesting to know how wide spread the issue is among major languages, although it certainly is an issue for some exotic languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| guillaume Pentaglot Groupie France Joined 7192 days ago 59 posts - 57 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 60 27 June 2005 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
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Well, to counter that television program, you saw M-Squared, I think that
it takes more time to learn to distinguish a sound when you grow older but, eventually, it is possible to make the distinction. Let's take the example of mandarin, mandarin is a tonal language and tones are not a familiar concept to french speakers. Yet I know some people, myself, included who did learn to make the differences between the tones even when the words are spoken quickly. There are other sounds that are alien to the French language and that I learned to recognize. For example, the sound 'ch' in the German 'ich', is different from the sound 'ch' in French and more closely ressembles the 'x' in pinyin in Mandarin (for example 'xin' new). So I believe that if you would let the experiment last enough, eventually the children would be able to differentiate the two sets of sounds. But it's true that it would probably take a lot longer than if they were 1 or 2. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7267 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 5 of 60 27 June 2005 at 5:56pm | IP Logged |
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It is a simple fact that a language aquired before puberty will be spoken with native accent and intonation, while a language learned after puberty will always bear some traces of the speaker's first language speech rhythms. However, adults can actually learn languages more effectively and more swiftly than children when they apply themselves in a disciplined and intelligent fashion.
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| M-Squared Senior Member United States Joined 7150 days ago 117 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 6 of 60 28 June 2005 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
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I thought of the example of Chinese and its tones, Guillaume, but I didn't
think it was a good counterexample. While western languages don't use tones as Chinese does, we do use tones. A basic sentence can be a question, a statement, an order, sarcastic, a threat, or other things with rhythm and tone pronunciation differences. This isn't like Chinese, but it does mean that a Western child hears lots of tones and learns that tone and/or rhythm change meaning. As I understand, however, there are other sound differences that, while they might occur in Western languages, don't mean anything. So, if you say A or B it won't change the meaning. The interpretation of the experiment was that in those cases you lose the ability to discriminate A and B at a relatively young age. Since I don't trust a television program, I'd really like a real reference and precise example, and was hoping somebody on this list might have one. As I remember, Ardaschir noted some sound differences in Korean in a post that don't occur in Western languages and that he found very difficult to distinguish even after years in the country. If I could find the post, I'd note it, but I can't find it now. Maybe Ardaschir would comment? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7218 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 7 of 60 29 June 2005 at 9:37am | IP Logged |
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In Mexico there's a widespread belief that if you don't learn English as a young child, you never will. False.
Based on this misconception many parents send their children to bilingual schools. Surprisingly, most of these children never reach real proficiency because they simply lack motivation and discipline. I am convinced that any adult can learn a language if he really has the motivation, the time and the right technique to do so. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7267 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 8 of 60 29 June 2005 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
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Korean has many "doubled" or "stressed" consonants in addition to regular ones. For those who can read the script, I refer to ㅂ/ㅃ, ㄷ/ㄸ, ㄱ/ㄲ, ㅈ/ㅉ, and ㅅ/ㅆ. To this day, I have trouble distinguishing them, which is more an active than a passive problem. That is, I don't hear the difference, but this doesn't seem to affect my comprehension. However, almost inevitably if a Korean fails to understand my speech because of a weakness in pronunciation, it is because I am failing to "double" or "stress" a consonant. When I then try to pronounce it strongly, they laugh at the degree of effort it takes me measured by the way I have to contort my face. This after nearly ten years in the country, marrying a native, publishing numerous scholarly works on the language, and generally being about as fluent as an adult foreign learner can hope to become in it. Sigh.
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