Infant phoneme familiarisation
My first observation in my journey into language acquisition.When one notices an infant learning it's language, one can see how it mimics formation of sound. This could arguably be the first step for a child's cultural identity as the infant begins to become accustomed to the cultural phonetics (not specific to language as different dialects i.e. Brazilian Portuguese is quite a contrast to the sounds of Continental Portuguese). University of British Columbia psychologist Janet Werker has found through her research that bilingual infants are able to distinguish two other languages apart from their own.
This suggests that familiarisation of phonemes (and their grouping) is one of the first steps in language acquisition. Great for bilingual infants but adults, with years of television and transcultural exposure, have the upper hand as they could probably distinguish between far more languages than a child (without being raised bilingual). What does this mean? Its raises two points:
1 – once again, the hypothesis is that adults can acquire languages faster, more efficiently and with greater ease than children and,
2 – the brain (and speech muscles) need to create neural and muscular memory of phonemes and the normal cultural chunking of these sounds. i.e. it is foreign for an English speaker to produce a 'D' sound with a bi-dental plosive instead of an alveolar plosive, that is making the 'D' sound by putting the tongue between the front teeth instead of behind the upper front teeth. The brain and physical muscles creating the sounds need repeated exposure to the sounds and repeated attempts at mimicry to produce the sounds more accurately. This holds true for sequences of sounds such as 'dar', which most English speakers would pronounce similar to the 'dar' in 'Darth Vader'. Whereas the more accurate pronunciation of it would be with the 'a' pronounced as the 'ahhh' when you sit in a dentists chair. Not a common chunking of phonemes for an English speaker but quite common for Spanish speakers.
The results
This past week has seen me using mneumonics to memorise (with 100% recollection each time) 5 lists (one per day) of 20 items each. This is not entirely true as a Columbian friend taught me 2 extra expressions which I added to list number 3 (the Wednesday list) with ease.
The findings are interesting indeed. As per my last post (the initial problem) on the 3rd list of items I started using multi-layered chunks of vocabulary, that is expressions with many words, rather than a single word. To my surprise, it was easier than anticipated to memorise them. I think this is due to the ability to contextualise the phrase and 'act' it out instead of just spew out a list of words (suggesting that the process is made easier by actively taking part in as many ways as possible).
So list 2 included the word 'quedar' – to stay/remain. And list 3 included the expression for 'at what time shall we meet?' which is 'a que hora quedarmos?'. This repetition of items creates multiple neural pathways to the same word, it just so happens that the cultural norm in the language is not similar to English (therefore cannot be translated word for word, but needs a more pragmatic translation, that is a translation based on meaning not word form). This type of occurrence promotes the idea that one has to study collocations (typical sequences of words with an attatched meaning) but more on this later.
The prediction hypothesis
The other notable observation is that, by memorising various different parts of speech (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.) one can start predicting the forms of words as different parts of speech.
For example 'cambiar' = the verb 'to change' and the noun being 'cambio' (loose change/ money)
and 'cerrar' = the verb 'to close/ to shut' and the adjective being 'cerrado' (closed)
finally 'comer' = the verb 'to eat' and the continuous form 'comiendo' (eating)
knowing these and learning the expression 'estoy bromeando' (I'm kidding/joking) means that by comparison I can predict the noun and verb (can't think of an adjective). My guesses are bromo, bromer.
Not bad :) the correct forms are broma (I messed up and assumed a masculine form) and bromer.
If it is agreed upon that these guesses are solely the comparison of similar and the prediction according to the form of the norm, then it stands to reason that authentic language is just fixed patterns put onto flexible form.
Yeah? And? So? What?
Well, basically it means that I don't have to learn basic grammar rules (and advanced grammar rules I assume,but we'll come to that later) as my brain will function in the natural way and compare know data to predict unknown data.
This theory is (at the moment) in direct opposition with Chompsky's theory of universal grammar which says that some rules of grammar are hard-wired into the brain. Its only a simple matter of connecting memories together and predicting unknown data by means of following the pattern in known data.
Its an ability of the brain, a natural process which exists independent of language (the same process works with predicting people's behaviour). This is one of the abilities of the brain necessary to develop as mentioned in the 1st post.
This hypothesis works with a similar dynamic to the 'Integrated Information Theory' (IIT) as put forward by psychiatrist and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin.
The theory states that a creature that can create and form associations from the memory to the present has a greater value consciousness.
Bringing the blog full circle to the 3 'M's (see first post): Memory, Material and Motivation.
Regarding memory, it seems a better idea to memorise multi-layered items versus single items. Also the memory techniques I utilise has the potential to take on more expressions. Therefore, next weeks list will be set at 25 items per list. A challenge? We'll see...
Regarding material, I memorised the 2 expressions my Columbian friend gave me as well as a few from a Continental Spanish phrase book. I have used them once or twice and have decided that it is better to adopt a completely Argentinian material input policy. No more influence from other Spanish speaking cultures.
Regarding motivation? I have almost exhausted my lists of most common verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs. I seem to have a lack of input, therefore it is essential that I find a T.V./by lots of comics from here/ start brainstorming list of expressions to translate/ start reading newspapers + magazines. Woe is me :)
Ok so...does this mean that one should begin learning a language by replicating the sounds produced? Concentrating on the alphebet and phonetics initially (but not necessarily in isolation - could be simultaneously) and then moving on to words, expressions and then grammar?
ReplyDeleteIf one didn't concentrate on the sounds first, wouldn't putting the words/expressions into one's memory be futile if your pronunciation is incorrect?
~xXx~
this is a simple matter of discerning the difference between an adult's process (2nd language) and a child's process (1st language). As the child is learning about the sounds, they have zero to no comprehension regardless of their ability to speak (uncultivated cognitive function) therefore the infant might be able to say 'superman' but probably wont comprehend what they have just said (at a stretch, lets say they can, their neural associations with the word are incredibly dwarfed next to an adults neural associations). Adult education needs to begin with 2 inter-linked principles
ReplyDelete(1)anything (that is any neural associations) is better than nothing (no neural associations)
(2)everything that is learnt/ memorised must be flexible.
Therefore, if a learner only studies part of an expression, that's better than none. And the learner must be able to modify that expression to assimilate new facets, i.e. if you learn the word 'amargo' that's already one portion of the process, next would be to learn the pronunciation of the word (perhaps an easy example) then to see the word used in a context “un recuerdo amargo” a bitter memory. For adults it doesn't matter what is learnt first, as long as it remains flexible.
Learning like this is fractional and less then desirable, but still better than nothing.
Ideally, one would get input from an authentic source which streamlines the process, even with translations, most of the time language cannot be accurately translated and needs to be understood contextually and pragmatically.
An old wise man once said “hard work doesn't guarantee success but no work guarantees failure.”
this is a really interesting case study you're doing here... me shall follow the progress closely. thanks for some cool links as well.
ReplyDelete