| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | How to determine your mother tongue? Thread poster: Cristina Golab
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Jeff Allen 
France
Local time: 12:53
Multiplelanguages
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| the Critical Period of 1st Language Acquisition | Mar 26, 2006 |
sarahl wrote to Bernie:
You say the window closes at age 14, Michele seems to think it closes at age 11, I remember reading age 5 in another thread.
Michele Fauble wrote:
I should have said that the end of the "critical period" (the linguistic term) for learning a native language begins around the age of 11+. There are individual differences and the critical period may last until maybe 14-15.
Yes, I affirm the statements by Bernie and Michele in this thread about the "Critical period". This tends to coincide with physiological aspects of the gelling of articulatory (pronunciation) patterns (which can be overcome later, but with significant effort), + psycho-social factors of identity awareness, and an array of other factors.
The age 5 barrier is often referred to as the Formative years.
This reminds me that I've not yet put my article (1995) "The Psycho-Social aspects of Language Learning" up on my site yet. I'll do that and provide the link.
As for resources on these topics, there are many. I certainly have a long list of them in the courses on Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics which I took and also gave. But it's quite easy to find lists of reading material on this topic. Just look up the following sequence of terms on the internet and that should give you a list of what you need: psycholinguistics course reading material references
Jeff
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Jeff Allen, PhD
http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/
| | | | | | Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 12:53
Multiplelanguages
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| bicultural and bilingual | Mar 26, 2006 |
E.LA wrote:
Normally kids which grow up in a bicultural environment are considered bilingual, they speak both languages well, but still if you look clearly, you see that they have a strong and a weak language.
...
The same happens with "fluent", a lot of people say they speak fluent this or that, but you can see a great difference in the quality.
Yes, I prefer to describe language ability on different axes of "lingual" and "cultural".
See previous posting at:
http://www.proz.com/post/174932#174932
Jeff
| | | | Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 12:53
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
| defining native language, mother tongue, and bilingual | Mar 26, 2006 |
mstkwasa wrote:
I have posted the following definitions before but I thought it might an idea ot reproduce them.
The term native language ....
Source: "NATIVE LANGUAGE" Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language.
"The first language is the language in which learners are competent when starting a new language; the second language is another language that is being learned or has been learned to an adequate level....
Source: "FIRST LANGUAGE" Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language.
Bilingual: "Having an effectively equal control of two native languages. .... Bilinguals in the ordinary sense are then variously called 'eambilingual' or 'equilinguaf', or are qualified as 'full', 'true', 'ideal', or 'balanced' bilinguals."
"bilingual" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. P. H. Matthews....
The problem with the concept of "mother tongue" is that some determine it biologically - i.e. your "mother tongue" is the language you are born into. Full stop. If we were to follow this argument, it is impossible for change our "mother tongue". This does not seem to accord with direct and indirect experiences of contributors to this forum, especially if "mother tongue" is defined subjectively as the language that one feels most confident and comfortable in.
Yes, thanks for these citing these definitions. The use of "mother tongue" is simply a term that is used interchangeably with "native language".
In Pyscholinguistics research, "native language" is what is referred to. The use of mother/father (and other environmentally conditioned factors) only comes into play when describing 2 or more languages which are involved in the First Language Acquisition process. A child growing up in France with a German mother and a British father who both speak their native languages to the child in OPOL mode could claim to have 3 native languages.
Yet, as several people have already pointed out here, and which has been discussed in many other threads in this Multilingual Families forum, there are stronger and weaker languages depending on the context. And as Bernie has said several times in other threads, it is important to make as much effort as possible to support (via songs, films, etc) the weaker native language(s).
As for near-native, it is very important to be careful with this term, because it tends to be used to describe a high level of speaking/reading/writing skills in a second language. Often used for job ads for professor and researcher type positions.
I do not think that the term Bilingual should be used to refer to someone with 2 or more native (strong and weak) languages because Bilingual is a very general term which refers to someone with one first (native) and one second language with "supposedly" high proficiency.
Dual Native Language speaker would be more appropriate.
Jeff
[Edited at 2006-03-26 14:38]
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Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 12:53
Multiplelanguages
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| native speakers do make mistakes too | Mar 26, 2006 |
Oh, yes certainly native speakers make lexical, morphological, grammatical, and semantic errors. The term is "slip of the tongue" in English and "lapsus" in French. And then there are cases where the form is sometimes sometimes used interchangeably (like the forms drank vs drunk in English) no matter what the dictionary and the second language grammar books say.
But here it is important to make a distinction between "Competency" and "Surface Level" productions (or realizations) of language forms. Native speakers have the language competency which automatically produces the surface level form. This is internalized through listening and production patterns over many years. The examples of slips of the tongue are due to various other contextual factors (fatigue, knowledge/use of a given uncommon word, intensity of the conversation, and other pragmatics and discourse-influenced conditions).
As for second language learners, competency in the language takes many years to internalize to a point where it can be as automatic as a native speaker. Yet, the rule-learning pattern is different for second language speakers, so if you change an element within a given sentence, phrase, verb group, noun group, etc, a second language learner runs a higher risk of not producing the appropriately adapted form in rapid speech, compared with a native speaker.
It's not that native speakers do not make mistakes. They do, but this is usually justified by various conditions of the given context. And the hit rate is usually much lower than for second language learners.
But with a second language learner, it is harder to know if the "surface production" mistake is a transient error of the moment, or a deeper level of knowing the form or not.
A more thorough discussion on this can be found in references discussing the innate language faculty (see Noam Chomsky, also Derek Bickerton). As for surface level production errors, this is usually described in materials relating to Behaviorist psycholinguistics (see B.F. Skinner). Jean Piaget is also a key figures in the history of psycholinguistics and language learning.
Jeff
[Edited at 2006-03-26 21:15]
| | | | Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 12:53
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
| idiomatic expressions and songs | Mar 26, 2006 |
As already mentioned higher in this thread, idiomatic expressions are also an important arena which demonstrates native speaker competency.
And lots of such expressions are founds in songs. I try to spend a lot of time singing childrens' songs to my kids so that they acquire the expressions in a natural way.
However, you have to be careful with this. When we moved to the US, my wife spent 4-5 years unlearning things that she had been told in English classes in France. Despit... See more As already mentioned higher in this thread, idiomatic expressions are also an important arena which demonstrates native speaker competency.
And lots of such expressions are founds in songs. I try to spend a lot of time singing childrens' songs to my kids so that they acquire the expressions in a natural way.
However, you have to be careful with this. When we moved to the US, my wife spent 4-5 years unlearning things that she had been told in English classes in France. Despite what the books say, you can still hear "you ain't got nothing.....", and even Elvis sang "I ain't nothing but a hound-dog". And he would roll over in his grave if some Prescriptive Grammar teacher tried to re-write his song "I am nothing but....".
The use of language forms depends on context. Sometimes I can say "ain't" and sometimes I can't. Native speakers have usually heard and used the forms in so many different ways that they can normally "feel" when the form is appropriate or not. Second language non-native speakers usually have a harder time at that.
Jeff ▲ Collapse
| | | | | turning the question around a bit | Mar 26, 2006 |
Hello,
I have been following the threads on this topic here and "elsewhere" and have a question.
Suppose for moment that someone is indeed a 'dual native', equally strong in both languages, and able to speak and write 'accent-free.'
How could such a person convince someone who does not know them that this is true, particularly when dealing in the virtual world of email and fora?
Regards,
Patricia
| | | | Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 12:53
Multiplelanguages
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sarahl (X)
Local time: 04:53
English to French
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| Physiology vs personality | Mar 27, 2006 |
Michele Fauble wrote:
Henry Kissinger was 15 years old when his family immigrated to the US. His brother Walter was 14. Henry Kissinger speaks English with a foreign accent. His brother Walter does not.
I think personality should be factored in too. Some people will never learn, others keep learning way into their 20s, 30s or later in life.
| | | | Rosa Maria Duenas Rios (X)
Local time: 07:53
| How do you explain the same obsession in America? | Mar 27, 2006 |
Balasubramaniam wrote:
I have an interesting theory (my own, not substantiated by any research, but quite plausible) regarding why Europe-based translators (as evidenced by the postings in this thread) are so obsessed and inflexible regarding their views about mother tongue.
Hi Balasubramaniam,
And by America, I refer to the continent, not the United States. I know people from Canada and Brazil, for instance, who say that only natives can translate into French Canadian and Brazilian portuguese? Would you say this "obsession" was imported from Europe, or would it have a different root?
| | | | BAmary (X)
Canada
Local time: 07:53
English to Spanish
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| Before being a native speaker, you must be a translator | Mar 27, 2006 |
Hi Rosa,
It's true that the general rule is that translators should only translate into their mother tongues. But to be able to translate, first of all, you must be a translator (regardless of your native language). Many native speakers translate because they think that speaking a language is enough to do the job. I see that every day in legal translation with awful results.
Some translators have an excellent command of their source language too and they translate bett... See more Hi Rosa,
It's true that the general rule is that translators should only translate into their mother tongues. But to be able to translate, first of all, you must be a translator (regardless of your native language). Many native speakers translate because they think that speaking a language is enough to do the job. I see that every day in legal translation with awful results.
Some translators have an excellent command of their source language too and they translate better than many native speakers. So, in my opinion, this is a general rule, but it is not always one hundred percent true. ▲ Collapse
| | | | juvera
Local time: 11:53
English to Hungarian
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| I agree with Sarah, | Mar 30, 2006 |
sarahl wrote:
Michele Fauble wrote:
Henry Kissinger was 15 years old when his family immigrated to the US. His brother Walter was 14. Henry Kissinger speaks English with a foreign accent. His brother Walter does not.
I think personality should be factored in too. Some people will never learn, others keep learning way into their 20s, 30s or later in life.
...and I have a sneaky feeling, that if Henry was 14 and his brother 15 when the family emigrated, the result would have been the same or worse; both of them could have ended up with an accent.
(Why did I automatically write 'emigrate' in spite of Michele using 'immigrate'? Any comment on that?)
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Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 04:53
Norwegian to English
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| Individual differences | Mar 31, 2006 |
sarahl wrote:
I think personality should be factored in too. Some people will never learn, others keep learning way into their 20s, 30s or later in life.
juvera wrote:
...and I have a sneaky feeling, that if Henry was 14 and his brother 15 when the family emigrated, the result would have been the same or worse; both of them could have ended up with an accent.
I think we have to remember not to confuse individual differences in the age at which the critical period ends and individual differences in approximating native speaker competence in a language acquired after the critical period has ended.
| | | | | Being good at languages... | Apr 1, 2006 |
Michele Fauble wrote:
Henry Kissinger was 15 years old when his family immigrated to the US. His brother Walter was 14. Henry Kissinger speaks English with a foreign accent. His brother Walter does not.
In my opinion it's not that one year that made the difference, it is that one person is better at languages than the other.
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 04:53
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Occam's razor | Apr 3, 2006 |
Arabella Sabah Kadour wrote:
In my opinion it's not that one year that made the difference, it is that one person is better at languages than the other.
Given what is known about the critical period for acquiring a native language, and the fact that it is rare for someone to acquire a native accent after the critical period, the most straightforward explanation is that age was the determining factor.
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