Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!osu-cis!tut!paul
From: paul@tut.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Language Learning (anecdotes)
Message-ID: <2360@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Sat, 28-Nov-87 14:54:55 EST
Article-I.D.: tut.2360
Posted: Sat Nov 28 14:54:55 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Dec-87 03:24:23 EST
References: <1966@uwmacc.UUCP> <12400009@iuvax> <1117@uhccux.UUCP>
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer and Information Science
Lines: 46
Xref: utgpu comp.ai:1112 sci.lang:1639

In article <2911@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes:
< 	Phoneme discrimination can be learned by adults, but it is
< far from clear that it ever achieves the state of perfection we find in
< children.  The fact that adults can acquire language skills is
< irrelevant to the issue of crystallization.  The question is over how
< well they can acquire them.  *All* healthy children are language virtuosos.
< Some adults are pretty good at learning new languages, but it has yet to
< be established that *any* adult can acquire a new language without
< accent.  Your implication is that adults can acquire perfect phonemic
< discrimination, but the study you cite falls short of showing this.

The main point I wanted to make is that crystallization is far from as
hard and absolute an effect as some people would believe.

While it is true that the majority of adults do not learn to speak a
new language without accent (that is, coloration from their native
language(s)), The statement that _no_ adult can learn to speak without
accent bothers me: I am not convinced that this is the case for _all_
adults; most, probably, but not all.

A seven year old child has just spent 7 years, of 365 days/year, 12-18
hours/day of language practice; most adults do not spend anywhere near
this amount of effort learning a new language unless they have spent
years of time in the new culture.  Thus most adult language learners
do not 'count' in such a comparison.  Of those adults who have been
in the new culture, certainly some do not ever learn all of the
subtleties that comprise the local accent, and some do learn to
perceive the differences, but do not learn how to produce them well.
I suspect, however, that there are as many who do learn to produce as
who do not.  In other words, I suspect that if measured, this effect
should so a bell curve, with the high end well into the native fluency
bell curve range.

If seen as a motor skill, speech is very complex.  There are well
attested cases of _some_ adults learning motor skills of similar
complexity just as well as children.  Most pianists, for example,
start as kids, but there are a few who didn't start until they were
adults.  Such cases are rare, but _not_ nonexistant.

As far as phonemic discrimination, the study I cited does not show
perfect results, but then again, 95% as good as natives in 3-4 weeks
of training isn't all that bad, either.  I do not know if a similar
study has been done for people who have had years of experience.
Years of practice probably cover the remaining 5%, however...

		-- Paul