Response to Deb Roy's study

[Neskie Manuel]

Weytk Everyone,

I disagree with parts of the comment that was highlighted.  I think
his line of inquiry was very useful and presented in a good way.
What Deb Roy appeared to be saying is there are feedback loops
involved in child-caregiver in language acquisition.

What I heard Deb Roy say is something like, my statement.

The parent is teaching the language to the child, and the child is
teaching the parent how to be a teacher of the language.

What are all the details behind this I don't know and I don't really
care.  I just want to know the important parts.  I think us as
Secwepemc people knew this and expressed it in the statement 'children
are the closest to the creator'.  As secwepemc people we had something
to learn from children.  This was our feedback loop we created.

Different pedagogies produce different feedback loops, some are better
at others, all require energy and work to keep them going.

When I hear the word feedback loop, I think of differential equations
and large scale dynamical and chaotic systems.  Here I want to perform
a thought experiment.   Let's say you could mathematically model
language acquisition with some set of differential equations and you
want language acquistiion to increase.  This set of differential
equations will behave something like weather, in that it will be
sensitive to initial conditions, and boundary values.

What this says to me is that we have to pay close attention to the
initial conditions we find ourselves in an what is going on in the
environment around language acquisition.

I like your two questions Susan.  I think a "mathematical" look might
be helpful.  I would like to respond to them now, but I have to run
off.

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Susan Penfield
<susan.penfield at gmail.com> wrote:
> A comment from Rex Sprouse ( in italics and posted elsewhere) is worth
> considering in this context.
>
>      Less than 5 minutes ago: Deb Roy appears to equate the acquisition of a
> word with the first (or with the consistent?) production of an adult-like
> pronunciation of the   word. However, words are much more complex mental
> objects, relating an abstract representation of sound, grammatical category
> (noun, verb, etc.), morpho-syntactic features, semantic features, pragmatic
> features, etc. No matter how sophisticated the technology used for recording
> the child's speech, data about production alone can tell us about only one
> (and I must say, for me, the least interesting) aspect of this cognitively
> complex process.
>
>        On a broader level, what I found disappointing about the talk is that
> it was difficult to identify anything like a clear research question behind
> the collection of massive     amounts of data. This is a very central and
> very divisive matter within current linguistics: Recent technology has made
> it easier to amass huge amounts of linguistic data. However, in the absent
> of theoretically motivated research questions, it is difficult for me to buy
> into the notion that this represents genuine progress.
>
> -My thoughts: What I find interesting, considering the ILAT audience, is how
> very little we still know about language acquisition (first and second)  in
> the context of revitalization.
>  I would like to know about any targeted research studies that would be
> aimed at better understanding the process.  We have teaching methods
> (immersion, Master-Apprentice) which we all know are working in some
> contexts -- but how, specifically?  And, what might we learn from more
> focused studies, that raise clear questions, which actually might improve or
> help us better understand what it takes to help people learn in
> non-traditional, less formal, contexts?
>
> Just trying to wrap my thoughts around all of this...
>
> S.-
> **********************************************************************************************
> Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.
>
> Research Coordinator, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language
> and Literacy (CERCLL),
> Faculty affiliate in English,  Linguistics, Language, Reading and Culture
> Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT),
> American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI)
> The Southwest Center
> University of Arizona,
> Tucson, Arizona 85721
>
>
>



-- 
Neskie Manuel
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