Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!homxb!houdi!marty1
From: marty1@houdi.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Language Learning
Message-ID: <1410@houdi.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Nov-87 07:46:49 EST
Article-I.D.: houdi.1410
Posted: Wed Nov 11 07:46:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 11:58:13 EST
References: <8986@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <1125@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <1966@uwmacc.UUCP> <1409@houdi.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 37
Keywords: Hindsight
Summary: No longer evident that adults don't learn language easily

In article <1409@houdi.UUCP>, I wrote:
> In article <1966@uwmacc.UUCP>, edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) writes:
....
> >  Is second language learning in adults inhibited because of the 
> >  "c" period? 
> 
> Apparently, yes.

I have to rebut my own statement, because what was known a few
years ago is now known not to be true.

> I'm told there is a lot of field experience with ESL (English as a
> Second Language) that says that children dumped into a foreign language
> environment learn the new language faster and better than adults.

I'm told recent studies show that children learn pronunciation
faster, but their vocabulary in the second language tends to
remain inferior to their vocabulary in the native language. 
Adults, on the other hand, retain a foreign accent in the second
language, so they sound like incompetent speakers (maybe they do
that defensively), but learn the vocabulary and grammar.

Professionals in language learning speak now of a "sensitive"
period, rather than a "critical" period, and specifically with
reference to phonology.

By the way, single examples (such as the training of Helen
Keller) do not prove general principles in the biological
sciences.  Living things are not machines, and what is true of
one is not necessarily true of others of the same species.
Statistical studies often disprove what was previously "known"
either from anecdote, or from earlier studies that in hindsight
prove to have been inadequately controlled.

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201)-949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	ihnp4!houdi!marty1