| March 20, 2001 Language Acquisition: The Unsolved Mysteries As fascinating as the article was, it raised several questions in my mind that were not addressed. Obviously, as human beings, we have the ability to learn language. The article pointed out the advantages, as well, to children who become fluent in two or more languages while still in their younger years. I am curious, however, about how this affects the child. The article gave us many examples of how children develop their grammar skills, the six stages they go through and their resistance to external help. But what if there are two languages the child is learning? Instead of having to learn just the irregular past tense form of “to go” in English, how would it affect a child to have to learn that as well as the past tense form of “to go” in Portuguese, which also happens to be irregular? How would the syntactic patterns develop then? Although the article doesn’t answer these questions, it points out the obvious advantage of being bilingual – the extra resilience of the vocal cords. This ability of a child to learn two languages at a young age as well as to separate them and to know the grammatical structures for each as well as the setting in which each language is most proper demonstrates the awesome power wielded within the human mind. Yet when it is not taken advantage of, this ability is lost by the time a child passes puberty. Of course a foreign language can be learned, but the internal feel for the grammatical structure of the language takes years and years of struggle before it rivals that of a native speaker. The other question that came to my mind was speech impediments. Is this, also, an “interruption of the normal acquisition process” (177)? Or is it genetic? I wonder this because my brother and I both grew up with speech impediments. Years of theory corrected our inability to pronounce the English phonemes. Yet like the example of the child saying “fis” (176) in the article, I heard how people spoke and recognized when they said something improperly. I simply could not hear how I said it wrong. My internal, or mental, speech was incorrigible; I could write at a syntactic level far above my peers. My problem was with phonetics. In my theory class, my teacher would work with me to say the letter, and through bribery and intense thought, I could eek out the sound. But as soon as I left her office, I abandoned my efforts and went back to speaking improperly. Three years later, the only reminder I have of a speech impediment is a slight lisp that emerges mostly when I am tired. My question, then, is why some children who don’t suffer from mental or physical disabilities still have a hard time developing proper phonetics. The article, of course, covered some twenty pages of other examples and theories on language acquisition. Many topics could not be explored; if I were willing to research it, I’m sure I could find the answers I am looking for. In spite of its length, the Oaks article was very stimulating and interesting. I appreciate the questions it raised – it leaves me wanting to learn more. |