query: reviving language in native speaker who has forgotten it

[Charlotte Rosenthal]

Dear Professor Lyon:

Can you send me a copy of your paper?  I adopted a my daughter from an
orphanage at age 7.5 and my experience conforms to what you said: 
native-like pronunciation when she speaks Russian, but practically no
retention of the language.  She can understand some speech, especially
phrases that are familiar to her from early childhood.  Fortunately I
have a taped interview she did with one of my students while she was
still fluent.  It is so charming in the way it captures her children's
speech and sense of humor.

Sincerely,
Charlotte Rosenthal

Charlotte Rosenthal, Ph. D.
Professor of Russian
Dept. of Modern & Classical Langs. and Lits. University of Southern
Maine
Portland, ME 04104-9300 U.S.A.

crosenth at usm.maine.edu
http://blogs.usm.maine.edu/crosenth/
>>> Avram Lyon  04/27/12 7:56 PM >>>
I did some basic work on this several years ago, based on our
experience with adoptees of various ages in our summer programs at
Lesnoe ozero (http://lesnoeozero.org), the Concordia Russian Language
Village, where we have kids aged 8-18, including a large contingent of
adoptees. In short, we've found that there is little beyond an uncanny
native-like pronunciation and occasional lexical items that emerge,
except in the case of older adoptees (8 yrs or older) who had some
reinforcement of their Russian. My paper was published in Russian
Language Journal vol. 59, and unfortunately appears to not be
available online. I can send a copy to anyone who is interested. I
believe Elena Schmitt has been working on this in recent years,
although I can't seem to locate anything of hers explicitly on adopted
children.

Avram Lyon
UCLA
Interim Dean, Lesnoe ozero


On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 9:39 AM, KALB, JUDITH  wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I wonder if any of you can help me with a student who was born in
Russia,
> adopted at age 8 after a very difficult stint in an orphanage, grew up
in
> NY, and is now enrolled in first-year Russian language.  He does not
> remember his Russian but is interested in reviving it.  He has had a
lot of
> trouble with grammar, reading, etc., but when I have him listen to
> conversations, etc., he can repeat them beautifully—so the language is
still
> somewhere in there, apparently.  He’s interested in working over the
summer
> to try to get further with it.  Do you have suggestions on methods,
> programs, etc. that might be helpful?
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Judith
>
>
>
> Dr. Judith E. Kalb
>
> Associate Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature
>
> Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
>
> University of South Carolina
>
> Columbia, SC 29208
>
> jkalb at sc.edu
>
>
>
>
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