[Corpora-List] Bootcamp: 'Quantitative Corpus Linguistics (here language acquisition)

[Cécile Yousfi]

I would tend to agree with Alexandre. I'm not a specialist in language
acquisition, but as a linguist with three children, I've had the opportunity
to test a few ideas. And I am not sure language is that different from maths
or science as far as learning is concerned: it depends on the level you
expect from the child. 

Wolfgang Teubert wrote:" Every child, even those with mild retardation,
learns a language without being taught". But that is true only if you expect
a very basic level of language. And it's the same for maths: a child knows
that three toys is more than one, that if he/she gives a cake to me, he/she
will have less to eat, and that three biscuits for three kids means dividing
what we have. And you could say the same for science (I enjoyed the example
of the " the school's spitting champion"). But of course, the level in all
three domains is here very low. I think a child needs to be taught to
improve his/her skills. And as Alexandre points out, it's because parents
keep correcting the child and responding to the child's behavior that the
learning process can be stimulated.

It seems to me that history might be the odd one out here, since it requires
knowledge of things past, and not practice, observation or imitation.

What is specific about language may be that we - parents - usually master it
better than maths or sciences, because we need it in everyday life, and so
we're more able to correct the child if need be. But if we needed science as
we need language, we would master it better and would be able to teach our
children (and I think it's what's happening anyway, concerning computer
sciences especially).

Sorry for being a bit long,

Cécile Yousfi

-----Message d'origine-----
De : corpora-bounces at uib.no [mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no] De la part de
Alexandre Rafalovitch
Envoyé : vendredi 29 août 2008 15:49
À : corpora at uib.no
Objet : Re: [Corpora-List] Bootcamp: 'Quantitative Corpus Linguistics
withR'--re Louw's endorsement


How can this be a brute fact when every day you can see a  parent
constantly correcting child on how to say things either by directly
pointing the mistakes out or by repeating or rephrasing the same
things in the correct and accepted way. That's teaching in my books,
just not classroom style teaching.

Also, at least for the Russian language, syntax and morphology  is
drilled into the children heads during multiple years of schooling.
And you can tell the person who did not undertake that schooling and
just learned as much as possible through absorption.

I don't have a (strong) opinion on whether language facility is
built-in, but perhaps we should be taking about low barrier of entry
to language (any negotiated noise/signal would have an immediate
pay-off), as opposed to a high barrier of entry to more abstract
sciences where anything useful requires learning a large body of
knowledge first.

> Contrast
> this with the learning of math or science or history, where even with
> years of intensive teaching, not everyone learns it.

Again, isn't it because most of the math/science/history is somewhat
abstract and does not engage the same centers of the brain? On the
other hand, the schools spitting champion who is able to hit a target
at a large distance with correction for the current wind, has
certainly learned some of the scary-looking math and physics, even if
he (or she) never saw an equation for the earth gravity, vector
decomposition of forces, conversion between kinetic and potential
energy, etc. Same way, a child learning to walk will absorb enough
physics to do that task but will need higher education to learn
physics in space (unless they are born in orbit of course).

Regards,
  Alex.



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