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Critical learning period debate settled | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 17 of 49 27 May 2011 at 7:47am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
One of my (long lost) friends is a neuroscientist, and his post-doctoral research was in this very area. His thesis was that babies are super-efficient mimics - they hear sounds from adults and learn to mimic them effortlessly. However, adults lack this ability to hear and mimic effortlessly - for us, it requires conscious effort. This, he argued, is necessary and beneficial. Since, it forces the adult into the teacher role. If, adults were also effortless language sponges, we would end up speaking baby talk during out interaction with babies. Edited by Splog on 27 May 2011 at 7:50am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 18 of 49 27 May 2011 at 8:25am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I've said it a million times and I'll say it a million times more.
Originally the critical learning period hypothesis was proposed for L1s when it was noticed that children who do not get any stimulus at all when they are young can never learn to speak a language properly. This happens when a child is literally locked in a room until they are are 8 or something like the famous Genie case. The structures in the brain do not develop and they are lost forever. It was not meant to be applied L2s though. We cannot learn a second L1, we know it gets processed differently in the brain. You can't get around it. It's like your L1 is plugged into a highly linguistic supercomputer designed and engineered to be process languages efficiently. Your L2s use a different part of the brain and so use the brain less efficiently. Foreign languages are usually processed and stored in the opposite hemisphere to your native language(s). This is partly why you will probably never have the same perfect ease. You can still learn to speak a language to a functionally native level quickly and with a lot of ease comparable to your native language. Functionally native is when you have a very refined pronunciation and your production of sentences is so good that you would appear native in writing. At the very least you should know when sounds are different even if you can't hear them and should be articulating them differently even if it's just an approximation. It'll still sound better to those listening to you. You need to delve into the phonetics of the language and read a physical descripition of where your tongue most be and how your lips should be and every detail of the speech sound that you don't get naturally. This is something some polyglots think is a waste of time and don't do but I don't understand why. We aren't children anymore, sometimes we need just to become aware of something to acquire it properly. Once you are aware of a grammatical pattern or a speech sound, everytime you get input it gets reinforced facilitating the natural acquisition. Your brain can miss things easily when you are an adult. Your L2 can get close to the ability of an L1 and eventually what comes out of your mouth in grammar, structure, syntax, idiom, expression, word usage, and phonetics is so close to native for all practical purposes you are functionally just as native as a native speaker. Getting to this level takes a lot of study and we all learn at different rates and we all have different maximum potentials. It does become more difficult to learn the unique sounds in a foreign language later on in life but we can train ourselves to become more and more aware of them. I trained myself to hear the difference between on and an in French as well as é and è. French people comment on how good my pronunciation is. Am I gifted? I pick up sounds a lot easier than some, so I think there is some natural ability but was I perfect from the start? No. Did I acquire it all naturally? No. Did I spend hours drilling the parts I didn't get naturally into my head? Yes. Did I listen actively and carefully to hours of French? Yes. Did I listen passively a lot to accustom my brain to the sounds? Yes. Did I strive to sound the best I could? Yes. I still don't sound completely native and it doesn't matter because it's so natural and pleasant whatever hint of an accent I have can only be described as charming even to the French. I'm not French and I never will be French. I didn't grow up in France or have French parents. While I strive to sound 100% French and try my best, I'm OK with having a hint of exotic because I am and in the end it's communication and functionality that matters. I can never be concise. Edited by zerothinking on 27 May 2011 at 8:32am 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5308 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 19 of 49 27 May 2011 at 11:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Thanks! You explained it very well! 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 20 of 49 27 May 2011 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You're right, it was proposed for L1s. Given stories like Genie's and Victor's it's fortunate there aren't a lot of case studies, so it might as well remain a hypothesis forever. Anyway, the fact that other cognitive processes, such as abstract thinking or logical reasoning, take longer to develop the later they're picked up in life suggests there's some truth to it. However, it is pretty much impossible not to connect any of such hypotheses with nth languages and discuss the differences, possible consequences, etc. It's not only that there are plenty more data to work with, it's also way more fun. In my experience, the CPH is often held as an excuse not to try and develop a better accent in an nth language. I find this most interesting/entertaining, because as a mere hypothesis, it's unproven and thus a very flaky proof to anything. Also, I don't really care if L2s are processed by 'a different part of the brain' -how do we know that? evidence is controversial at the very least- as long as they can be processed efficiently enough. However, I wonder how L1 replacement will be explained in that case. You know, when children move to another country, they lose whatever their first language was, and then they have to study it again as a foreign language when they become adults. My take is that there's no real difference between L2 and L1 acquisition and processing other than it being a conscious thing or not (which of course might be enough to involve different 'parts of the brain'). I don't think many of us are gifted. I'm sure that those of us who work harder will get further, even if it takes a bit longer. Edit: BTW, I don't regard any of the individuals with native-like accents I know as exceptional in any way, only remarkable WRT pronunciation. Isn't life ironic? Edited by mrwarper on 27 May 2011 at 12:43pm 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 21 of 49 27 May 2011 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, but I feel that it is this idea of "perception and subsequent production of sounds" is the stumbling block. Yes, the critical period observations show that we are not able to learn from perception as adults. I argue instead that we should learn from production in order to gain subsequent perception. This is how I have experienced learning, and despite what you think, it's not hard work. My introduction to articulation was in a university course on linguistics and English language. Yes, I did a fair bit of reading, but I'm doing a distance degree, so we didn't have a lot of contact time. We had one tutorial on articulatory phonetics, 2 or 3 hours only, and in that time we learnt to control both aspiration and voicing. These skills were essential to me as I was learning Gaelic at the same time. In Gaelic voicing is non-phonemic except for in one pair of phonemes -- the P/B, T/D & C/G distinctions are all about aspiration; in each pair, there are voiced and unvoiced allophones due to contact with sonorant consonants such as N and M. It really wasn't hard work at all, and the end result is a much better ability in the language. Reliance on context to distinguish word pairs (such as law/raw, legal/regal) increases the thinking time required to understand a language, slowing progress and ultimately limiting the learner's final competency in the language. I'm absolutely convinced the few hours I spent on physically practising these distinctions at the start saved me many, many hours every year since, and in every language I've approached. P.S. YouTube polyglot's aren't really a brilliant example. It's a very small sample, and they're all of a very similar demographic. They all see language as a way to make themselves stand out from the crowd. I suspect real success in languages comes from preferring to blend in with the crowd. They also seem to value quantity over quality, which is a valid aim, but not one which leads to individual excellence in any language. Me, I think I'm going to have to stop learning new languages for a bit, as I've noticed how far my current languages have degraded due to a short period of neglect. But I'm going to start working on Polish anyway, cos a Polish friend's getting married soon.... Edited by Cainntear on 27 May 2011 at 12:43pm 2 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 22 of 49 27 May 2011 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I couldn't say this any better myself. Regardless of our theoretical position on the neurological processes involved in learning L1 and L2, the plain fact of the matter is that learning an L2 at an adult age requires a huge amount of conscious effort, unlike what occurs in the learning of L1 and L2 at early ages. Nobody really denies this. I will admit that some people seem to have a knack for languages and can effortlessly pick up whatever language is being spoken around them. Good for those rare individuals. Most of us have to work hard at it. If we look specifically at pronunciation--and this has always been the central focus--, it seems quite clear that age is a primary factor, if not the most important, in the acquisition of a native-like accent. Again, without even debating the existence of a critical period, we just have to look at the examples and the statistics. How many people here at HTLAL can say that they sound like native speakers in their target languages? Some of us are better than others undoubtedly, but I suspect that most of us cannot pass for native speakers. Let me quickly add three points. Firstly, I do think one can sound very good in the target language. Yes, with lots of hard work, one can improve one's pronunciation. I am not in any way suggesting that one should settle for bad pronunciation on the grounds that one is too old. Secondly, pronunciation is just one facet, albeit a very striking one, of language performance. Grammar and vocabulary are very important, and even more so in writing. We know for example that the great writer Joseph Conrad spoke English with a strong Polish accent and was very self-conscious of the disconnect between his great prose and terrible speaking voice. I personally believe that grammar and vocabulary are not very age-sensitive and this is where as adults there may even be at an advantage over children. I would even go so far as to say that grammar and vocabulary are more important than pronunciation. Note that I am NOT saying that bad pronunciation is good. Thirdly, I think that a little foreign accent can be a good thing. This can add charm, a hint of exotica, that is often rather attractive. I do insist on impeccable grammar and vocabulary, though. In fact, I can think of a few cases where the accent is not a barrier and may even add to a certain attractiveness. One only has to look at Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Austrian accent to see this. Native speakers hear other native speakers all the time. In certain cases, you may want to totally blend in and not be perceived as foreign. In other cases, it may be good to stand out a bit. But for a good reason: a little accent with impeccable grammar and vocabulary. 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 23 of 49 27 May 2011 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I "seem to have a knack for languages". Everyone I speak to in a foreign language tells me so. I don't have a knack for languages. Appearances can be deceiving.
That children pick up accent with less conscious effort is not in dispute. But the statistics show very similar ability with vocabulary and grammar. There isn't really any statistics that show that pronunciation/accent is any different from other aspects of language in this respect.
But despite all that, accent is actually very important to writing. One of my students wrote "Woul be" the other day. Why? Because that's how he pronounces it. He knows it should be would, and in front of other words he wrote it correctly because it was the B of "be" that made him drop the D. (He also spotted his mistake when redrafting and corrected it.) Another pronunciation-led mistake he made recently was to writing "an special [something-or-other]". Similarly, other Spanish people have problems learning that it's "a university" because they don't pronounce the y-glide in "university". Being forced to write the appropriate form of the article without learning to pronounce it properly leads to a confused model of language. You cannot separate pronunciation and grammar, and your grammar will always be limited by your ability to pronounce and percieve grammatical distinctions.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if an accent can be attractive, it can also be repulsive. It doesn't matter what language they speak -- everyone agrees French people sound sexy. But a lot of people find German (language) accents very rough and unpleasant. Arnie's breakthrough roles were as a savage hero (Conan the Barbarian) and as an evil robot (The Terminator). He continued his film career playing particularly rough characters, and the accent fitted. Even when he played a "soft" role, the incongruity of his tough-guy image with the role was always part of the joke. Junior, for example, would have been a very different film if John Cusack had been given the lead. And for that matter, can you imagine John Cusack having such a successful career if he had Arnie's voice? Edited by Cainntear on 27 May 2011 at 6:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Faraday Senior Member United States Joined 6118 days ago 129 posts - 256 votes Speaks: German* | Message 24 of 49 27 May 2011 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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There is no debate. Native or near-native pronunciation can be acquired by almost anyone. Olle Kjellin, who has
posted here, provides compelling evidence of this. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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