forgotten Russian - how to restore it?

[JJorgensen]

I too recently had a student who was adopted from Russia.  She arrived in America when she was ten.  She was in my Russian class as a sophomore when she was fifteen.  She had no recollection of any Russian, not even a "da" or "nyet", nor did any Russian reappear to her at anytime.  As I learned later, she had come from an orphanage.  This girl did not know much about her mother but did know her father was an abusive drug addict and alcoholic.

Jon Jorgensen
Erskine Academy
309 Windsor Road
South China, Maine 04358
USA



-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list on behalf of anne marie devlin
Sent: Mon 3/14/2011 1:09 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] forgotten Russian - how to restore it?
 
Very interesting point made re: possible psychological damage to the child.  Alina mentioned that the child was at the upper end of the critical period hypothesis and may have questioned its validity.  It has also been suggested that psychological or affective elements can  play a role in language attrition/acquisition.  It seems that in this case they may be instrumental.  Questions to be asked would include the quantity and quality of linguistic input before adoption on the one hand and on the other, the possible psychological  damage done to the child.  And this is a very different question from 'is language attrition complete? '
As for language being somewhere almost inaccessible, it would be nice to think that it remains; however, as far as I know, the evidence is just not there.
AM 
> Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:34:54 -0400
> From: meersono at GEORGETOWN.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] forgotten Russian - how to restore it?
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> 
> Reminds me of that character in Milorad Pavic, who lived in Paris and made it a near-religious routine to forget one Serbian word per day... Would have been funny were it not heart-breaking. 
> 
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