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From: zarnuk@caen.engin.umich.edu (Paul Steven Mccarthy)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Early Language Learning & Ancient Language
Keywords: speaking vs. hearing
Message-ID: <1990May30.000350.20070@caen.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 30 May 90 00:03:50 GMT
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>(Shelley CP) writes:
> [...people deaf from birth who learn to speak...]

You bring up a good point here.  However, I think the heart of the problem
lies in learning to _hear_ subtle differences in foreign languages.  As far
as speaking goes, we can train the muscles in the vocal tract to reproduce
the desired formations and a talented-teacher/dilligent-student pair can
succeed with the help of imitating examples.  It is very difficult, and 
especially so for deaf people who do not receive the immediate, direct
feedback that a hearing person does; but it can be done, and I do not
doubt that physical imitation plays an important role.  

It seems that learning to _hear_ subtle differences in another language
suffers because there is no way to "watch-and-mimic" the process.  I don't
think we can excercise the same intentional control over which "sub-nets"
"recognize" a given sound pattern as we might conciously direct the
muscles of the vocal tract.  In fact, I imagine the main difficulty arises
from suspending the disbelief that there is a difference at all, much less
reliably identifying it.  I think bio-feedback with printed traces of the
voice-prints would probably speed the process.  (Any takers? :)  In a 
similar vein, I have heard that Asiatics learn to distinguish quarter-tones,
which westerners fail to identify.  

On the converse, I have also heard that some spanish-speaking peoples in Latin
America swear that there is a distinction between their pronunciation of 
"b" and "v" -- despite the fact that voice-prints show no such difference!

 
---Paul...   (you know, 'the impossible just takes a little longer'...)