[Corpora-List] Language Learning (was: 'Quantitative Corpus Linguistics withR'--re Louw's endorsement)

[Alexandre Rafalovitch]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 8:58 PM, Mike Maxwell <maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu> wrote:
> Language does not have a low barrier.  Just ask any second language
> learner, or for that matter any linguist who's tried to write a grammar.

I don't need to ask. For me, English is a second language learned well
after childhood. I also don't need to ask because I can see my mother
speaking what she thinks is English to another just met person with
similar level of skill (and on some occasion actually speaking
Italian). The conversation is painfully incomprehensible to me, yet
they manage to negotiate some sort of shared meaning. That's a low
barrier to me. One could claim that it is not language they use, but
pidgin. In my eyes it is not a real argument in the context of
low/high barrier of entry discussion.

Regards,
  Alex.
P.s. We are now back online with the conversation.

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