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Language Acquisition After Puberty

1. The document discusses language acquisition and makes three main claims: no nonhuman animal can master human language like children; any normal child can become a native speaker of a language if acquired before puberty; and only children can attain language natively before puberty. 2. It also discusses how the human vocal tract and brain are uniquely suited for language, and how language involves more than just vocabulary but a complex generative system. 3. The second chapter discusses the interplay between innate language abilities and environmental input in language acquisition, and identifies brain areas like Broca's and Wernicke's areas that are associated with language.

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Pablo Martín
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163 views2 pages

Language Acquisition After Puberty

1. The document discusses language acquisition and makes three main claims: no nonhuman animal can master human language like children; any normal child can become a native speaker of a language if acquired before puberty; and only children can attain language natively before puberty. 2. It also discusses how the human vocal tract and brain are uniquely suited for language, and how language involves more than just vocabulary but a complex generative system. 3. The second chapter discusses the interplay between innate language abilities and environmental input in language acquisition, and identifies brain areas like Broca's and Wernicke's areas that are associated with language.

Uploaded by

Pablo Martín
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Language Acquisition After Puberty (Strozer) Chapter 1 Claim # 1: No nonhuman animal is capable of mastering a human lg.

Claim # 2: Any normal child can become a native sp. Of a lg. Human vocal track develops in a very specific way. The attempt to teach a chimp, Vickie, to talk failed. The vocal track of chimps are not suitable for a human lg. Other experiments with chimps can be analyzed as stimulus-response cases. Human languages are not limited to the spoken modality. Chimps lack the mental makeup required by human lg. What chimps posses is their own semiotic system of communication, which has nothing in common with human lg. A human lg. is more than vocabulary. It is a highly intricate system, a generative procedure. The same string of words may mean different things for humans (Mary taught John Spanish vs. John taught Mary Spanish). Attaining a lg. is not something that the child does, but rather something that happens to the child who is in the right place at the right time.

Claim # 3: All and only (normal) can attain language natively. (the never after puberty thesis) Only before puberty (give or take a few years) is it possible for a human to attain language natively, become bona fide native speakers. Minimal definition of human lg: a system that relates a meaning to a signal over and unbounded range of meanings and signals. The lg experience is very different when the would-be speakers have not reached puberty and when they are past puberty. Any child who is part of a linguistic community comes to be in possession of at least one language at a tender age, by the time the child reaches puberty his or her linguistic maturation has reached a steady state. The adolescents or adults striving to develop competence in a language usually avail themselves of instruction. A foreign lg program needs to be carefully designed. The randomness of first language acquisition is not a good model for language teaching.

Chapter 2 Our knowledge cannot all be due to nature. Phenotype: The appearance of an organism resulting from the interaction of the genotype and the environment. Genotype: the genetic makeup of an organism or group of organisms with reference to a single trait, set of traits or and entire complex of traits. Familiarity tends to breed the sort of attitude that makes it difficult for us to perceive the obvious. Little exposure to language had only a minor effect on their eventual language achievement (deaf-blind adults). Deaf children with zero linguistic input have been able to spontaneously develop a sign system remarkably like human language. There is evidently an innate capacity for language. The environment provides sounds or signals. The lg faculty is part of an individuals genetic construction, that is, of his or her genotype and that the phenotype of the mature individual is the outcome of the interaction the genotype with experience. The environment is too poor and too unorganized to provide what is needed. There are lg principles of human nature that are part of the human brain. Language faculty (traditional term) or cognitive structure for language. Lg. appears to be a by-product of the relative increase in the size and complexity of the brain. If lg is genetically programmed at birth why do we all not speak the same language? The language faculty is a sort of mental organ Brocas area: the area of the frontal lobe associated with lg. Wernickes area is somewhat larger than Brocas. It was then discovered that Wernickes area is larger than thought, extending to parts of the left parietal lobe. The two major areas are part of the left hemisphere.

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