Re: language acquisition [WAS: that]

Donna Richoux wrote:
Skitt wrote:
Matthew Huntbach wrote:

If you haven't read it Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" is
very good on this. He preents fairly convincing evidence that for
most
people there is an age at which the ability to pick up and use
without thought the exact phonetics of a langauge is switched off,
and an age at
which the ability to pick up and use without thought the exact
grammar of a language is switched off.

I have no argument with that. You did say "for most people", and
you did not state a specific age. I am not necessarily one of the
"most people", and for me the switch-off age apparently was later
than fourteen. Later than seventeen, actually.

I thought I had a copy of the book around the house but I don't find
it. I may be going beyond what Pinker said to what others said also,
but I think this "switch-on switch-off" is way too simplistic of a
summary. Flipping a switch suggests altering states in one instant of
time, while actually the ability to acquire extra languages seems to
diminish over decades, and at different rates for different people.

If by "flip a switch" you mean "begin a long and gradual decline,"
well, I think you need a different metaphor.

Yes, Matthew probably meant the "begin a decline" thing. I have no idea how Pinker put it.

In a review of the book here, someone mentions "it seems virtually
impossible to acquire language after early adolescence if none was
learned before." Notice, that refers to learning a *first* language,
so it's talking about the Wild Child sort of upbringings. Not about
whether you can pick up Italian when you go to Tuscany in your
retirement years.

I don't know if this had any bearing on my learning of English, but I started learned German, my second language, at about the age of nine. I got total immersion in German at age eleven, and spoke it fluently about a year or so later. Later, learning English came easy, although at first I mixed some German with my English, as they both were foreign languages to me, but they had quite a few similarities that confused me somewhat.

As for acquiring another language now, at my age I don't think I could do it, unless I had a desperate need for it. I have not attempted to learn any appreciable amount of Tagalog -- my wife's native language.
--
Skitt

.

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