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The article makes some claims about childhood language learning: But some researchers argue that synesthesia, which appears in 4% of the general population, is

by ekidd 11y ago

The article makes some claims about childhood language learning: But some researchers argue that synesthesia, which appears in 4% of the general population, is actually an exaggerated manifestation of associations we all make from an early age—an ability most of us lose over time, and one that may help explain why children are so good at picking up other languages. I clicked through to the linked paper, and I could find no evidence that synesthesia provided any specific, significant advantages during childhood language acquisition. Now, other research supports that children do have real advantages when it comes to learning accents, and that they may have lesser advantages when learning grammar. But beyond that, the evidence becomes controversial. And adults who are socially and professionally immersed for, say, 5 years will often acquire a very solid command of a new language, especially if they're also voracious readers. In general, English-language media often overrates the ease with which children learn languages[1], and it's insufficiently critical about scientific theories which claim to explain this advantage. [1] Trying to raise bilingual children, for example, can be surprisingly challenging unless you live in a bilingual society.

conceit 11y ago
> no evidence that synesthesia provided any specific, significant advantages during childhood language acquisition because that was not claimed. The underlying capability forming connections, ie. exaggerated manifestation of associations and an ability most of us lose over time, is not itself synesthesia.
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> Now, other research supports that children do have real advantages when it comes to learning accents Childhood seems to be the only time when people can acquire certain new phonemes, in fact. Japanese speakers cannot properly learn to distinguish English /l/ and /r/ in later life. Other phonological distinctions are also difficult to learn in later life: tones, for instance.
- alphonsegaston 11y ago
  Anecdotally, I find this to be untrue. My wife, a native Japanese speaker who did not learn English until age 16, is able to distinguish between the two. I learned Japanese in my twenties and am able to pronounce the r/l phoneme. The only oddity I've noticed is that on rare occasions I've unintentionally made the r/l slip in English. Do you have a source for this?
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_/l/_by_Japanese_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_...
    - alphonsegaston 11y ago
      Right, so more difficult and variable depending on time of acquisition and method of instruction. Not impossible. Thanks for the interesting article!
- brobinson 11y ago
  >Japanese speakers cannot properly learn to distinguish English /l/ and /r/ in later life Not sure I agree with the absoluteness of "cannot" here as I've successfully taught a few Japanese (and a Korean!) to properly enunciate the /l/-based sounds from English. It's simply training your brain to have two new pieces of muscle memory with regard to tongue movement. Learning the Japanese /r/ sound is the same process, although we have it a bit easier than they have it. :) The fact that they try to approximate the English /l/ sounds using their roof-of-mouth-tongue-flicking /r/ sound is a failure of how English is taught in their schools. Every Japanese I've spoken to said their English courses in school had no focus on pronunciation, only on reading/writing, and none of their teachers were native English speakers. As far as tones go, I've been living in Taiwan for about six months and I'm no closer to being able to hear them in everyday speech. I can pronounce them decently though, according to a friend here.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > taught a few Japanese (and a Korean!) to properly enunciate the /l/-based sounds from English You can teach people the physical motions of producing the sound, but that's not the same as acquiring the phoneme. They will have to consciously produce the /l/ and /r/ sounds and will still not be able to distinguish them when listening.
    - riffraff 11y ago
      Is there a reason for being unable to tell the difference between "r" and "l" that makes them special? Otherwise, as an italian, I have gone through the motions of learning to * distinguishing long and short vowels in english. Ship vs sheep took me a looong time. * going from ~7 vowels in italian to 14 in hungarian * learning a few more consonant sounds in both hungarian, spanish, and english (I still suck at "h") while I would agree they all still require conscious effort for me to produce them, distinguishing them is not a major issue with enough practice.
      - alphonsegaston 11y ago
        Again, the "cannot" here is probably imprecise. In Japanese, r and l exist as a single sound, making differentiation difficult for the average Japanese speaker in other languages. The original research by a Japanese linguist into this phenomenon in the 70s suggested it was impossible because of the way phoneme and allophone acquisition happens in childhood. But this claim had been mitigated by subsequent research that suggests it is context dependent, as well as less certainty about phoneme vs. allophone distinctions.
Balgair 11y ago
Synesthesia research is just so not there. My brother was going through a grad neuroscience class last year. They got to select 2 subjects for the teachers to teach in addition and one was synesthesia. He said they could find about 20 studies that were worth presenting in terms of the neuro taught in the class. The paper they selected was an fMRI one where n=5 subjects, and the controls were dubious at best. It's just such a small field and the synesthesia is only self reported. No one has any idea what it means or how to measure it to determine what it really is. Until the field can measure something, it's going to languish on the border with pseudoneuroscience.

by ekidd 11y ago

conceit 11y ago

> no evidence that synesthesia provided any specific, significant advantages during childhood language acquisition because that was not claimed. The underlying capability forming connections, ie. exaggerated manifestation of associations and an ability most of us lose over time, is not itself synesthesia.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

> Now, other research supports that children do have real advantages when it comes to learning accents Childhood seems to be the only time when people can acquire certain new phonemes, in fact. Japanese speakers cannot properly learn to distinguish English /l/ and /r/ in later life. Other phonological distinctions are also difficult to learn in later life: tones, for instance.

alphonsegaston 11y ago
Anecdotally, I find this to be untrue. My wife, a native Japanese speaker who did not learn English until age 16, is able to distinguish between the two. I learned Japanese in my twenties and am able to pronounce the r/l phoneme. The only oddity I've noticed is that on rare occasions I've unintentionally made the r/l slip in English. Do you have a source for this?
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_/l/_by_Japanese_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_...
  - alphonsegaston 11y ago
    Right, so more difficult and variable depending on time of acquisition and method of instruction. Not impossible. Thanks for the interesting article!
brobinson 11y ago
>Japanese speakers cannot properly learn to distinguish English /l/ and /r/ in later life Not sure I agree with the absoluteness of "cannot" here as I've successfully taught a few Japanese (and a Korean!) to properly enunciate the /l/-based sounds from English. It's simply training your brain to have two new pieces of muscle memory with regard to tongue movement. Learning the Japanese /r/ sound is the same process, although we have it a bit easier than they have it. :) The fact that they try to approximate the English /l/ sounds using their roof-of-mouth-tongue-flicking /r/ sound is a failure of how English is taught in their schools. Every Japanese I've spoken to said their English courses in school had no focus on pronunciation, only on reading/writing, and none of their teachers were native English speakers. As far as tones go, I've been living in Taiwan for about six months and I'm no closer to being able to hear them in everyday speech. I can pronounce them decently though, according to a friend here.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > taught a few Japanese (and a Korean!) to properly enunciate the /l/-based sounds from English You can teach people the physical motions of producing the sound, but that's not the same as acquiring the phoneme. They will have to consciously produce the /l/ and /r/ sounds and will still not be able to distinguish them when listening.
  - riffraff 11y ago
    Is there a reason for being unable to tell the difference between "r" and "l" that makes them special? Otherwise, as an italian, I have gone through the motions of learning to * distinguishing long and short vowels in english. Ship vs sheep took me a looong time. * going from ~7 vowels in italian to 14 in hungarian * learning a few more consonant sounds in both hungarian, spanish, and english (I still suck at "h") while I would agree they all still require conscious effort for me to produce them, distinguishing them is not a major issue with enough practice.
    - alphonsegaston 11y ago
      Again, the "cannot" here is probably imprecise. In Japanese, r and l exist as a single sound, making differentiation difficult for the average Japanese speaker in other languages. The original research by a Japanese linguist into this phenomenon in the 70s suggested it was impossible because of the way phoneme and allophone acquisition happens in childhood. But this claim had been mitigated by subsequent research that suggests it is context dependent, as well as less certainty about phoneme vs. allophone distinctions.

Balgair 11y ago

Synesthesia research is just so not there. My brother was going through a grad neuroscience class last year. They got to select 2 subjects for the teachers to teach in addition and one was synesthesia. He said they could find about 20 studies that were worth presenting in terms of the neuro taught in the class. The paper they selected was an fMRI one where n=5 subjects, and the controls were dubious at best. It's just such a small field and the synesthesia is only self reported. No one has any idea what it means or how to measure it to determine what it really is. Until the field can measure something, it's going to languish on the border with pseudoneuroscience.