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There's more to this. Toddlers are not inclined to perform tasks that are hard. So, they don't really make a choice about learning a language or not, neither i
by whacked_new 18y ago
There's more to this.
Toddlers are not inclined to perform tasks that are hard. So, they don't really make a choice about learning a language or not, neither is it based on necessity: before and after language acquisition, a baby would receive attention and protection. Before anyone says anything about reinforcement, kids with delayed language development (up to around 7) can be mute for years regardless of any coaxing. This is a special case though -- the brain seems to delay its pruning, almost as if to "wait" for the speech centers to kick into gear when speech begins.
Toddlers are innately imitative. Speech acquisition can be viewed as an imitative behavior, akin to, say, reaching out and grabbing something, kicking a ball, what not. The remarkable thing is that by observing something happening, they know how to control the analogous functions in their own bodies. I mention this as an alternative to this "necessity to communicate" idea: it could be largely the result of imitation, with the ability to communicate as a byproduct.
Finally, early languages take precedence over later languages. It could be because the early development of concrete operations, and later, abstract thought, rely on the available (i.e. first/native) language to "bootstrap" more complex thought processes. So the first language gets used non-stop. Then the second language comes in. Let's say you study it as an adult, and work real hard on it. When we fire a neural signal though, the wirings for the first language are so much stronger that they enjoy a lopsided privilege in access speed. In this sense, the later languages will never quite equal the earlier ones, by far.
So while I'm not saying anything against the adult ability of new language acquisition (and by this I mean a different set of phonemes and grammar -- in-family languages like Italian to Spanish won't count), I would say there is something quite magical about the child learning their first language(s).
- nostrademons 18y agoHow do bilingual native speakers (i.e. learn multiple first languages) fit into this? Or people who're immersed in a second language early on, eg. my dad's a native Cantonese speaker, but he went to dual Chinese (Mandarin) and English schools where all instruction was in those languages, and so he speaks all three with minimal accent.
- whacked_new 18y agoIf memory serves, there are different levels native multilingualism. If you learned multiple languages in parallel, they end up sharing space on the neural structure. I would believe this is "true" multilingualism. If you learned one separately from another, after the first was stable already, the new language will occupy an adjacent region (somehow I think this is because the region is still growing). All languages will be functionally native (assuming early enough acquisition and abundant practice for all), but in the latter case, you would still expect a slightly weaker signal for the later languages. But in both cases, I would just count all native-level languages as first languages, taking "minimal accent" as the litmus test (some people slip through, and in my experience those people had amazing ears and were gifted with languages in general). This is just anecdote, but from all my friends who have began learning English at a different age, their accents seem to follow a general pattern of later acquisition -> stronger accent. While this seems obvious, for those who learned English around 12-14, you get an interesting effect of native-level fluency, but just at certain places, you can tell it isn't their first language. And usually, at least for my friends, you can tell about what age they started learning.
- tokipin 18y agoregarding immitation: mirror system hypothesis http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib06mirrorSystemHypothesis.html http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib06mirrorSys...