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From: alen@cogen.UUCP (Alen Shapiro)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Language Learning
Message-ID: <386@cogen.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Nov-87 16:56:32 EST
Article-I.D.: cogen.386
Posted: Tue Nov 17 16:56:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 04:36:23 EST
References: <1966@uwmacc.UUCP> <12400009@iuvax> <6554@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: alen@cogen.UUCP (Alen Shapiro)
Organization: Cogensys, LaJolla, Calf.
Lines: 65
Summary: probably - anyone out there speak Russian?

In article <6554@sunybcs.UUCP> feit@gort.UUCP (Elissa Feit) writes:
>In article <12400009@iuvax> merrill@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu writes:
>>
>>The best data along these lines come from Japanese adults trying to
>>learn English as a second language.  Japanese, like related Asian
>>languages, does not contain the [r]/[l] pair; thus, speakers of
>>Japanese do not learn to discriminate between these two phonemes very
>>well.  Even if adults are taught artificially to make the distinction in
>>speech, no matter how patiently---thus getting around the "see doggie
>>run" kind of argument---they *do not* acquire any statistically
>>significant skill in recognizing these two phones.  It seems to me
>>that this fact indicates that there is a real crystalization effect.
>
>  I have read that the "crystalization" here occurs at about
>  1 or 1 1/2  years of age and has to do primarily with audio 
>  perception. Supposedly, we form our audio pathways
>  early and they DON'T develop further.
>
>	[An interesting sideline : supposedly, there is a phoneme in
>	 (eastern) Indian languages not found in English. Then people who
>	 were not exposed to Hindu at an early age cannot recognize
>	 this sound. (I can't verify this - I've never heard it  8-)
>	 Perhaps an Indian on the net would be so kind?) ]
>
>  The argument to support this claim comes from the fact that
>  adults who were exposed to the *sound* of a language as babies,
>  but who were removed from that environment and did not learn
>  the language, learnt it as adults with "native" pronunciations.
>  In fact, these adults had little or no difficulty with those
>  phonemes in question!
>	

I remember a few years ago having an interesting conversation
with a visiting Russian postgraduate. He was trying to teach me how
to annunciate the Russian (or was it Checkoslovakian (sp?)) SHJ
character. I recall hearing a difference in the sound he was making
but I was unable to quantify this difference sufficiently well to
notice if my attempts were getting better or worse (much to my
frustration and his ammusement). I DO believe the problem is
largely auditory and some facet has to do with crystalization of audio
pathways however I have developed a healthy respect for the complexity
of human perception and would not presume to think that this is
the WHOLE story.

--alen the Lisa slayer (it's a long story)

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