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From: marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Language Learning
Message-ID: <1413@houdi.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Nov-87 11:19:44 EST
Article-I.D.: houdi.1413
Posted: Mon Nov 16 11:19:44 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Nov-87 07:01:32 EST
References: <8986@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <1125@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <1966@uwmacc.UUCP> <2755@bcsaic.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 53
Keywords: Goal Based
Summary: Can we have some precise thinking here?

In article <2755@bcsaic.UUCP>, rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes:
> In article <1411@houdi.UUCP> marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) writes:
> >
> >What was once believed to be quick language learning in children is now
> >believed to be only quick pronunciation learning...
> 
> I don't know why you distinguish between language learning and
> pronunciation learning, since one category is surely included in the
> other.  What is the distinction being made here?

Let's think clearly.  There is more to a language than just
pronunciation.  Pronunciation is a part of language learning, not the
whole thing.  Maybe children learn pronuciation fast, and the rest
not so fast.  That's the distinction.  Something like the distinction
between a set and a proper subset.

> >Even pronunciation learning may have nothing to do with crystallization.
> >The onset of identity crisis might make an adolescent less eager than a
> >child to adopt a new language.  And an adolescent might be more likely
> >to recognize that superficial fluency is not enough, and adopt a
> >halting pronunciation to signal that the language has not been mastered.
> >
> >M. B. Brilliant					Marty
> 
> First of all, it is important to note that language learners never
> acquire native pronunciation after puberty....

Obviously, if one can learn language after puberty without learning
native pronunciation, there must be a difference.

> .....  Secondly, if this is caused by an adolescent's "identity
> crisis", then the crisis must get worse.  Adults get progressively worse
> at acquiring foreign pronunciation as they age....

Well, if we oversimplify to the extent that one tentatively proposed
contributing cause is assumed by the reader to have been declared as
the sole cause, we're not going to get very far, are we?

Do we recall why I mentioned identity crisis, and why another
contributor mentioned having less time as you grow older?  Because
somebody suggested that if language learning becomes harder at puberty,
it must be because of a crystallization process.  If other plausible
reasons exist, we can't immediately conclude that there is a
crystallization.

If you want to prove crystallization, either you need positive evidence
of crystallization, or you have to disprove all possible alternatives.
At any rate, it looks as though if there is a crystallization, it
probably affects only pronunciation learning, not grammar or vocabulary.

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