Posts by linger
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Would that make my position "lingerie"?
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I'm just groaning at the implied "getting incensed" pun.
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Sounds like there's a dire need for missionaries to help spread cannibal-dancing-round-pot religions. ... though I dunno, wouldn't that end up as 'cannibal-grooving-along-slowly-while-the-munchies-escape'?
And, absolutely true story:
One weekend I answered my door to find a pair of attractive young women, who asked "Can we come in and play with you?".
Japanese Jehovah's Witnesses. -
Heh. I suspect we'll be quoting that one back to you :-)
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acquisition of L2 as an adult is (IMHO) a function of opportunity (environment) and motivation (need/reward).
Yes, though there are also important roles for at least two other factors: *language aptitude* (some people have skill sets -- including sound perception, grammatical category awareness, pattern recognition, and rote learning ability -- that facilitate language learning; these abilities seem in part inbuilt, but can also be developed to some extent by practice), and *linguistic distance* (learners for whom the L2 is more similar to their L1 have an advantage). *Personality* may play a role as well, by affecting how an individual responds to motivation and environment (e.g. there have been strong suggestions that extroverts learn more easily through interactive roleplay, and introverts through analytical exercises).
i suspect certain people just have much better listening skills than others.
(And you're right; that's part of aptitude.)
Phonology is typically not perfectly learned as an adult -- but there are many possible reasons for that.
(i) Phonological categories, once fixed for a L1, are extremely difficult (but not impossible) to "unlearn". (For an English speaker learning Japanese, there are few problems with sound segments, but distinguishing vowel length -- and in some cases, consonant length -- is much harder, and distinguishing pitch accent is notoriously difficult.)
(ii) There is usually no real practical (instrumental) motivation to get the accent perfect , because communication is not greatly affected by slight variations in accent.(iii) There may not be any social (integrative) motivation to perfect an accent, either, because some foreign accents are positively valued.
(iv) Under the heading of environment: Acquiring accent requires a huge amount of spoken input, and active practice -- thus to get pronunciation correct, adults absolutely need to be learning the L2 by immersion, not as a classroom "foreign language". -
from about 2.5 yrs till 8-9 the brain absorbs language much easier. Past that it's just plain hard work.
This idea is discussed in most introductory Applied Linguistics texts under the heading of the Critical Period Hypothesis (see also this helpful book review of Birdsong(1999)) -- that there is some kind of cut-off point for learning languages in the same way as children learn their native language.
In the handout for my own course, I summarise the main conclusions as follows:There is some conditional support for the Critical Period Hypothesis. But note:
- Human brain development is gradual and doesn't suddenly stop, so instead of a set "critical period" after which language learning becomes impossible , we may have a "sensitive period" after which language learning is less efficient (so requires more effort).
- Different aspects of language may have different "sensitive periods": e.g.
nativelike phonology (accent) in L2 is extremely difficult after about age 6;
nativelike L2 syntax becomes progressively harder after about age 8-10;
whereas learning new words is possible at any age.
- Different learners may show "sensitive periods" to different extents: some people may have little or no loss of sensitivity to language input. [Hence there are some reported cases of adult learners reaching nativelike proficiency in a L2.]
- The "sensitive period" for language may last longer if the environment continues to provide new opportunities for learning additional languages starting from childhood. [E.g. the Vaupes region of the Amazon basin, a multilingual society in which new languages continue to be learned throughout life.] -
And a bee having sunk its sting into a wasp could be stuck with a possibly still living and if so very angry passenger.
Least of the bee's problems at that point, I would have thought: there's a reason a bee only stings once.
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go beat 'ambidextrously' - please
But not in a spa room or a railway station :-)
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Re the News Quiz link: the relevant part starts at about the 21 minute mark, with comments about a railway station sign prohibiting farewell kisses. e.g. Fred MacAulay [paraphrased slightly]: "Kissing permitted only in designated areas. Back when I was courting my wife, she had that same rule. Similarly, I was allowed onto the platform, but not to actually board the train."
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Emma, your take on "handicapping" recalls to mind Vonnegut's short story Harrison Bergeron -- the one with the Handicapper General, whose job is to ensure "equality" by, e.g. giving people masks (for beauty), weights (for fitness), or distracting sounds (for intelligence)...