intelligence and language learning

[Jane A. Edwards]

>Don't you think that a person who is intelligent also knows how
>to learn a foreign language [...]
>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 [...]
>more intelligent?

I can see why this seems appealing, but not necessarily.

According to Spearman (inventor of factor analysis) and his successors
since the '20s, there are two types of intelligence: general and
specific, and they are statistically uncorrelated.

We probably all know people who are very intelligent but aren't good
with foreign languages.  I know someone who owns his own computer ISP
company but has never gotten past beginner level proficiency in a
foreign language, despite starting young and despite trying different
languages.  He says he always starts off being at the top of the class
at the beginner level where general laws predominate, and then falls
further and further behind as vocabulary and irregularities play a
bigger and bigger role.  (He says the arbitrariness in computers is of
a different kind.)  We probably also all know people who learn
languages easily, but have trouble programming a VCR.

Kyllonen says that Spearman's general intelligence ("g") is the same as
what is now called working memory capacity ( Kyllonen, IN:  Dennis &
Tapsfield, 1996, Eds.  Human abilities: Their nature and measurement.
Erlbaum).  And Lenneberg points out that all children learn a first
language, i.e., despite differences in general ability.

It seems useful to keep the specific and the general aspects separate,
and to keep specific aspects separate from each other.

-Jane Edwards