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

[Dr DJ Hatch]

Dear all,

I too appreciated " the school's spitting champion" example. And I believe
that it's more profound than one might think at first sight.

It reminds us, eg, that there are important (but often widely ignored)
differences between processes and descriptions/models of the same. A good
example of this is language use and grammatical descriptions/models of
language. Only, with this example (as with 'the spitter') we should learn to
think/speak/write of the relationship in terms of processes and the
descriptions/models thereof.

The previous remarks on Russian seem to uphold research done by a few
Serbo-Croat linguists who find the grammar imperfectly learnt by many native
speakers. But then as I have argued before on the list ­ much to the
annoyance of some members ­ most European languages are
over-grammaticalised, in the sense that most of the grammar we are taught is
unnecessary in terms of (our understanding of) language in use.

My research suggests that it is not bad grammar that prevents recipients'
understanding, rather it is bad phrase/utterance/etc construction.

On the previous language and philosophy of language thread, I have viewed
even primitive uses of corpora (ie as altenatives to dictionaries) as
putting the Wittgensteinian proposal that "most of the time" meaning equals
use. I regularly use the BNC as a dictionary by simply doing a 'Sarahsearch'
of a word/phrase. 

David Hatch

On 29/8/08 16:38, "Cécile Yousfi" <cecile.yousfi at free.fr> wrote:

> 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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