Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik
From: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: How fast can one learn a language? (Re: IQ is not static ...)
Message-ID: <14061@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 15 Aug 89 20:30:14 GMT
References: <3549@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <4431@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <3558@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <504@dcdwest.UUCP> <3612@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <485@edai.ed.ac.uk> <3800@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 26

In article <3800@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>     What, indeed, are our limits?  Well this is a question that has come to
>mind a couple days ago.  With the right material and right kind of training:
>     How fast can a human being master the basic essentials of a human
>language? 

There is a vast difference between learning a human language and mastering a
body of knowledge.  First of all, when can you say that a language has been
'learned?'  When you can use it?  For what purposes?  Asking directions?
Discussing nuclear physics?  Secondly, by bringing the subject up in
connection with IQ, you imply that language learning has something to do with
intelligence.  But, except in cases of obvious brain damage, all human beings
acquire a language.  All humans suffer decreasing ability to acquire a new
language with age (with a phonological threshold at puberty and a syntactic
threshold in the late teens.  By 'threshold' I refer to a dramatic change in
the capacity to assimilate a new language.)  There is no evidence that speed
of acquisition correlates with overall intelligence.  In fact, very poor
language learners can be highly intelligent people.  (Do I hear sighs of
relief out there in netland?  :-)




-- 
Rick Wojcik   csnet:  rwojcik@atc.boeing.com	   
              uucp:   uw-beaver!bcsaic!rwojcik