Intelligence and aptitude

[Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D.]

At 11:39 PM 12/28/97 -1000, Ramin Akbari wrote:
>Dear Funknetters,
>Last week I mailed a question about the relationship among some
>psychological concepts(mind,thought,cognition and intelligence),and I
>received many helpful comments and suggestions.I would like to thank you all.
>However,another problem has come up, and I wish to have your opinion about
>the relationship between Intelligence and Aptitude.
>In foreign language teaching,it is believed that some people "have a knack
>for learning languages".There are also some tests which claim to measure
>this aptitude.But do you think that aptitude is really different from
>intelligence?Don't you think that a person who is intelligent also knows how
>to learn a foreign language (through his use of language learning
>strategies),and in a sense linguistically more talened than the others?
>And is it not the case that a person who is claimed to have a high aptitude
>for learning a foreign language is in a sense capable of solving his
>problems(in this specific case,linguistic problems) ,and as a result more
>intelligent? I look forward to receiving your comments.

Just from a casual point of view, wouldn't intelligence be an overall
measure of a variety of aptitude's while aptitude was generally focused
in one particular area.

Phil


Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Ergo Linguistic Technologies
2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 175
Honolulu, HI 96822

Tel: (808)539-3920
Fax: (808)5393924