Speech pathology article of some possible interest linguistically

[Jeffrey Kopp]

Hi.  I am glad to see things are picking up here a bit.

While browsing neuropsych and auditory resources I ran across a
fascinating article on speech pathology which I thought might be of
interest to this group, as it provides an overview of speech
development and offers some details on the effects of age of
migration on the acquisition of second languages, persistence of
foreign accent, etc.

Due to the Jargon's limited vocabulary, heavy reliance was made upon
context and intonation and other nonverbal cues for conveyance of
meaning.  In neuropsychiatric terms, this corresponds to a proposed
third element of speech (after grammar and semantics) denominated
"prosody," whose decoding is presumed to be a right-hemisphere
function.

The article only briefly mentions pidgins, but it examines at some
length the various diverse sign languages, including the amazing
observation that a deaf-mute who knew Japanese sign but later learned
ASL became proficient in it while retaining an "accent" in signing.

http://www.priory.com/psych/speech.htm

Regards,

Jeff