Re: Native English

"John O'Flaherty" wrote:

You've claimed 'someting vital is lacking', and 'there's definitely
something essential that's missing'. It seems to me that if a person
has lived totally immersed in a language for many years, with no other
language occupying their attention, being a literate person and reading
many books, or many tens of millions of words, in their adopted
language, that they would have internalized it pretty well. There is a
tremendous range of language ability and acquired skill among native
speakers of a language; are you claiming that a second language learner
that started at, say, 18 years old, would never acquire the vocabulary
or fluency of a native speaker of even below average skill level? If
not, what is the essential thing that's missing? How does this lack
show up, in concrete terms? Is there any evidence for this?

I probably didn't make myself clear again. At the age of 18, a person is an adult with established language patterns. A gifted learner at that age surely can still become proficient in English, or another language for that matter, on a level that is native or nearly native. It would take an evaluation of the individual to say which is the case, if indeed such an evaluation was desired. What happens in such cases, in my experience, is that even on a high proficiency level there are gaps in English as a foreign language, language gaps of a kind that a native wouldn't be expected to have. It's also been my experience that such gaps can manifest themselves when the non-native is, say, unusually tired or in a language situation where words, phrases and constructions removed from his usual language environment come up. But what's the big deal? Just academic. A non-native who's reached such a level can be satisfied. Nevertheless, I believe, the 18-year-old beginner still lacks the native language experience that began for the native the minute he was born and will influence his language along native lines throughout his lifetime.

Sometimes anecdotal material can give insight when it's cited as an example of what a person has experienced many times. Take Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who was born in Germany, in Fürth, a town in an area of Bavaria called Franconia, which he left when he was 14 years old. He speaks the American English of a highly educated intellectual, with a German accent that was fun for American comedians who imitated him when he was in office. Kissinger has been interviewed many times on German TV, often starting out in German but later switching to English with an interpreter for his answer to a complicated question about politics. He once gave a speech in German when he received an award in Germany. He stumbled over a simple word in practically every sentence as he read his speech, like a German third grader with dyslexia. If Kissinger's English is discussed, should he be called a native?

Regards, ----- WB.
.

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