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Critical learning period debate settled | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 9 of 49 26 May 2011 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Patricia Kuhl: When do those citizens of the world become the culture-bound listeners that we are? And the answer? Before their first birthdays. If babies loose the ability to distinguish all sounds before they are one, then why are children still able to learn like babies until much later than that? *** I'm not disagreeing with the critical period, but we must acknowledge that no adult can ever benefit from the kind of teaching a child gets: her parents are there 24/7 to talk to her and correct her with incredible patience and love for years and years; they speak in a different tone of voice, accentuating important words and important parts of prosody such as stress, and gradually building from simple to complex language; she constantly learns in context and through other humans; she is entirely devoted to the task with little to no other distraction, stressors or responsabilities; she has no other language to fall back on, making this an essential skill to master; her learning of the world is done through the language, creating incredibly strong emotional ties to the new language, etc. If we benefited from all this, would we not become better speakers? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 10 of 49 26 May 2011 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Okay, let's call it the Critical Period For Acquisition of Native Pronunciation Hypothesis. As Arekkusu has pointed out, if one could reproduce a similar learning environment for adults as occurs for babies, these adults would certainly have better speaking skills. That's certainly true, but let's come back to the real world here. I know that for some people the issue is not settled. That can be debated. For me it's settled, and I'm not going to fight over it. I believe that the all the evidence, scientific and anecdotal, strongly supports the idea that after puberty it becomes more difficult (but not impossible) for a learner to acquire a native-like pronunciation in a foreign language. I believe that the cause is a combination of neurological and cultural factors. Where is the evidence that points to the contrary? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 11 of 49 26 May 2011 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There's no evidence to the contrary, especially because neurological and cultural factors are all that's relevant to [dis]prove the Critical Period Hypothesis, just as in the Dead Hypothesis, namely: after death, learners of foreign languages are unable to acquire new language sounds, structures, nor vocabulary, due to neurological and cultural factors :)
While I have the hunch that the DH is true, i.e. the explanation is 100% neurological in the case of the dead, it's obvious that adult acquisition of native-like pronunciation is feasible even if admittedly harder, so the relevance of any CPH proof/falsification would be to establish _how much more difficult_ language acquisition becomes for adults letting aside adult-like obligations, etc. Just in case you wonder, I believe that neurological factors regarding the CPH are overweighted by 'cultural' factors, by far. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 12 of 49 27 May 2011 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ah, but this is the wonder of phonemes. Even though someone may pronounce their Ts different from you, you still relate their T sound to your own and recognise it as the same phoneme. What happens in the infant brain is that the spectrum of sounds is divided into meaningful sets -- which is what phonemes are.
Well it appears that you're wrong, as it seems as though they can't, and the explanation goes back to phonemes. If a Japanese person starts learning English with no idea about the phonemes and starts confusing "raw" and "law", it is because to him the R and L are the same phoneme. As he continues to learn words with L or R, he will continue to learn them as one phoneme. His brain is convinced there is no meaningful difference, so it never learns to fully discriminate -- it simply doesn't see the point. Which brings me to pronunciation...
Now the core of the disagreement between me and s_allard on this topic is that he always says it is "more difficult" to learn proper pronunciation as an adult, and I just say it a different task. The infant brain is wired to listen sounds and mimic them, thus building up the phoneme map. The adult brain needs something different to push it to notice the differences. Thankfully, we can talk to each other about all manner of tasks, including pronunciation. Pronunciation is a muscular skill, and any muscular skill can be taught to any able-bodied person. If your theoretical Japanese learner of English is taught to pronounce the difference between L and R, and is forced to use the appropriate phoneme in each word containing one or both of these, then it forces his brain to identify the distinction as meaningful, and a new phoneme is born. I went through this when I started learning Gaelic. I taught myself the articulatory differences between the various consonants and I started pronouncing them more-or-less correct, but with a heavy accent. After a few months, I started to hear the differences that I had taught myself to pronounce. But I never learned to hear the things that I hadn't taught myself about (I didn't teach myself them because they weren't mentioned in the references I'd been using). The whole thing was a great big virtuous circle. The better I pronounced, the more I could hear. The more I could hear, the better I could pronounce. My Gaelic's far from perfect, but my accent tends to provoke a puzzled look and a question of "where are you from?" because I don't sound like a learner, even though I don't sound like I'm from anywhere in particular. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 13 of 49 27 May 2011 at 1:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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First of all, I have to commend Cainntear for some insightful comments that contrast with the spurious drivel that I will not respond to. Let's jump to the core issue here: why is it so difficult for adults to acquire native-like pronunciation? Of course, one could say that it's just a matter of retraining the articulatory muscles to produce the right sounds. But that answer just begs the question i.e. adults have a hard time producing foreign sounds because their muscles aren't properly trained.
But that's not the fundamental reason. The essence of the critical period hypothesis is that there are neurological changes that take place in that early period and determine the perception and subsequent production of sounds. Children speak with perfect accents, although they might not articulate clearly. Unlike adults, children do not have to contend with a L1 phonological system. They grow into their native system. Adults learning a foreign language have two major problems. First, they cannot really grow into their target language. It's too late. They can imitate and practice to death but they can't reproduce those critical years. Secondly, they have a L1 phonological system to deal with. And of course this system has been around since birth. So, learners have to deal with the interaction of the phonological systems of L1 and L2. Hence, this foreign accent in L2 which tends to never go away completely. The combination of the two factors means that the effort required of adults learning a new language is enormous. As I have always said, I think one can get excellent results and one should strive to achieve this. I should also add that in addition to acquiring a new phonological system, adults are confronted with enormous challenges of acquiring grammar and vocabulary simultaneously. No wonder that a) most people give up and b)the foreign accent never goes away. Edited by s_allard on 27 May 2011 at 1:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 14 of 49 27 May 2011 at 4:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Is it me who spewed the spurious drivel you won't respond to? Tsk, tsk; sorry for the sad attempt of humour, then :)
First, adult learners can develop completely native-like accents. That's a fact, I've met too many of them to think it's any kind of miracle. However, native-like accents are quite common among young learners, while they are rare among adult ones. So, there must be some important differences, and the problem is identifying and -gasp- quantifying them. To start with, just as we can't ignore that an adult with a developed intelligence can't act and learn as a child who has little of it, we can't ignore the very different loads of tasks and duties they have. I'd say these two things alone add some weight to neurological factors ('blank' sheet-like brain vs one with developed abilities) and 'cultural' ones. So, it pretty much can't be 100% of any. Then, there's the matter of practice, feedback regarding that practice and individual response, which are again very different in the case of a child and that of an adult. In order to speak a language you must be able to produce sounds that match those the language is made of. That means as an absolute minimum you must learn to identify the n sound components (x phonemes, y tones, stress, pitch, whatever) that form the language. If you don't perceive there's a difference between X and Y you won't be able to produce it consistently, but only by accident. Once you know what the difference is and you want to produce the separate sounds A and B, you try it and correct it until... where exactly? These differences play BIG roles. Practice: let's say a child has just learned to differentiate the sounds of the language and produce them correctly (7 years old?). Then new sounds to be learned enter his/her world. It's just a matter of keeping doing the same thing he's been doing until yesterday, whatever it is. When an adult tries to do the same, how long has it been since? How was it done in the first place? His experience has been buried by years and loads of stuff, and any approach to the problem of consistently reproducing these new sounds has a snowball's chance in hell to resemble the original one. Feedback: a child gets infinitely loving and patient (ideally, that is) feedback from his/her parents, and probably quite less sugar-coated feedback from his peers, in abundance. OTOH, in the world of much more mature adults, the first thing you'll notice is lots less feedback, i.e. most corrections take place only when there's a serious impediment to communication,. And what's the individual reaction? I can't remember a good deal of it, but I _was_ corrected in every aspect, and I can remember that it wasn't funny for people who spoke even a little funny at school. I gather children usually react by correcting themselves until there's no negative feedback. But for adults it's different again, and even radically different from one to another. I have a Russian friend who always tells me that I worry about getting a good accent more than is necessary, because I probably can pass for a citizen of one of the other Russian Federation republics anyway. Accordingly, when it's him in the spotlight, I tried to help him with some stuff, only to find out that he is aware of most of what he does wrong, how to do it properly, and even demonstrated it to me. Why does he do it it wrong, then? Because he has no problems communicating and that way he doesn't have to keep thinking about doing all of it 'properly'. We obviously disagree but I must concede he has a point there, and I'd even say that there are much more learners like him than like me. Last, but not least, the problem can be solved by adults, and this ability obviously has a neurological base. For example, let say 'A' and 'B' are allophones of phoneme X in your native language, while they constitute phonemes X and Y in your target language. As an adult, the first time you hear without knowing them you won't be able to tell the difference, because in your language there isn't one. You'll produce X and Y at random in your nice foreign accent. Then you learn there's a difference between 'A' and 'B', that isn't important in your language (so you had never been fully aware of it) but constitutes the difference between X and Y n your target language. Since we all produce sounds with the same equipment, it's a matter of identifying the underlying motor differences between sounds A and B (tongue /teeth /palate positions, air flow, etc), and practice it. It's just a matter of muscle control and coordination. Needless to say, not everyone is equally good at any kind of physical activity, but I think everyone can get reasonably good with enough practice. So, the Critical Period Hypothesis proposes that after puberty, some neurological changes take place in the brain and as a result, developing native-like accents becomes harder. We know it's possible even if we have identified several non-hypothetical factors that make it harder for sure. So, unless someone finally says what those changes are, demonstrates that they actually take place and what their effects are (there might be others), it might as well be possible that those changes do not exist, and are just a convenient explanation for a commonly observed phenomenon. Even if the hypothesis were true, I doubt its importance goes beyond the academic circles since functionality equivalent to that allegedly lost after the CP can be gained. Interestingly enough, this debate has been ongoing for so long merely because the hypothesis is a weak one and says 'harder', which obviously muds the waters and makes it hard -if not impossible- to tell from non-neurological evidence -- just how hard is 'harder'?. If it stated 'impossible'... well, we probably wouldn't bother to discuss it :) Edited by mrwarper on 27 May 2011 at 4:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 15 of 49 27 May 2011 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
So you're saying children who already speak a language and move to an area where a different language is spoken when they're, say, seven or eight year sold, should have difficulties in acquiring a native-like pronunciation of their new language? Since they have to "contend with a[n] L1 phonological system"? Is this the case? I'm not very knowledgeable in this area, but don't children learn L2 pronunciation very well if they use it a lot when they're still young? If so, the "Contend with the L2" shouldn't be a factor. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 16 of 49 27 May 2011 at 7:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A lot of us have been down this road before, but I know there must be some newcomers to this debate. Let me state my position for the umpteenth time.
We know for a fact that the earlier one is exposed to learning a foreign language, the better are the overall results and particularly in the area of pronunciation. Conversely, the later one starts learning a foreign language, the more mediocre are the results. This is self-evident although some of us may know exceptional individuals who have learned languages late in life and have native-like pronunciation. I make this last statement even though I have never met a person who has learned French after the age of 20 to a level of native-like performance. But it probably exists. I don't look at all the theoretical arguments, I look at the statistics. For example, with Youtube we have many examples of polyglots demonstrating their remarkable linguistic skills. I can only judge their linguistic skills in French and to a lesser extent in Spanish. Here are some basic questions and answers Do any of these polyglots sound like native speakers in their target languages? NO. Do they claim to sound like native speakers? NO. Is their pronunciation correct and credible in their target languages? YES Are they able to communicate effectively in the target languages despite not sounding like natives? YES. Although he is no longer with us, Michel Thomas should also be added to our list. Does MT sound like a native speaker of French, Spanish or Italian? I think my Spanish is better than his, but I can't charge $50,000 for a week of private classes. After saying all of that, I do want to say that I believe one can achieve excellent results phonetically at an adult age. The question is what does it take. The answer lies in the statistics. Besides starting at the earliest possible age, what patterns do you see in people who have excellent accents? Lengthy stays in the country of the language, studying or working in the target language, extensive exposure to media in the target language, personal relationships with native speakers and a particular focus on phonetics. We don't have to go very far to verify these observations. We only have to look at ourselves here at HTLAL. We all speak multiple languages. How many of us sound like natives in our target languages? How many of us claim we do? Is it such a big deal? 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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