Eduard,
I have read Sampson's book, and there is less there than you think.
Reread the chapter when he goes in search of input that children get to
"learn" that (1) is not possible, but (2) is.
1) * Is the woman who my neighbor is from France?
2) Is the woman who is my neighbor from France?
He can find only one example.
I don't know Polish, but I do know German. When I was learning German,
I was in Germany and talking with my four year old German niece (my wife
is German). At four, my German niece had all the grammatical genders
like a native speaker and had the case and gender inflections correct.
She had verb second in main clauses and SOV order in sub In fact, I
even heard her use the subjunctive for reported speech. I was learning
this explicitly and was never native-like. It is possible for a four
year old to be smarter than someone in his early thirties, I guess, but
in most domains that is clearly not the case. Of course, the innatist
hypothesis explains why this four year old was better than a
thirty-something, but I wonder how the "new millennium" theory would
account for this.
I question the statement about German. When you look at the "ask the
grammar expert" sites on German, the issues are not ones that show wide
variation. They are like the questions of using the subjunctive in
English or the who/whom distinction.
(By the way, I suspect the issue in Polish, as it is for other Slavic
languages, is the learning of the standard language.)
The native speaker "myth" is the result of people who are studying
world Englishes. And, it is clear there are variety of English that
have forms not found in the major countries where English is the first
language of most people. So, what? There is an internal language and
an external language. Everyone of us has a grammar for English and no
one individual grammar has to be like everyone else's. However, there
are vast areas of grammar that we all have the same principles.
Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>>> Eduard Hanganu <[log in to unmask]> 9/23/2010 6:25 AM >>>
Craig,
I like this e-mail list. It reminds me of the open market in Rome where
people come fresh early in the morning eager to share dreams, stories,
and all kinds of fiction. It is very entertaining to read all these
language opinions based on personal FEELINGS. But this is not RESEARCH.
Your conclusions are not worth three coffee beans because there is no
empirical evidence to back them up. They are what people get when they
turn the coffee cup over and try to divine how the day will run from the
designs the dried dregs left on the inside of that cup.
Research is something completely different. Most of those who
participated in your "poll" seem to be still rereading "Syntactic
Structures." But things have moved on. There is new reading. The
"language organ" or Universal Grammar was an interesting idea fifty
years ago, along with the native speaker myth. But you people need to
read something recent before you think through the same questions. There
is new research that seems to affirm what Chomsky and his scool denied
and still denies - the fact that language is LEARNED.
I recommend the following texts for those who have not come yet into
the new millenium in language:
1. "The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality," by Alan Davies.
2. "The 'Language Instinct' Debate," bgy Geofffrey Sampson.
and,
"Could a Chomskyan child learn Polish? The logical argument for
language learning," by Ewa Dabrowska.
You first post appared to consider language acquisition of "A
language." Any language, or just English? Considering the provincial
perspective that dominates this e-mail list, it seems more than obvious
that "A language" was referring to ENGLISH ONLY. But how about learning
French, Spanish, German, Polish, Romanian, etc.? Do the same responses
apply to them too? Can a simple "stealing (acquisition)" one of the
above languages without any explicit instruction into the language do as
well? My answer, is categoric "NO!"
Dabrowska makes a clear a case that Polish cannot be "stolen." People
canot learn Polish by simply listening to other people speak the
language. The high morphological and syntactic complexity of the Polish
language prevents the native speaker from reaching even intermediate
levels in the language without hard and extensive explicit instruction.
The same applies to German, French, Spanish, and other European
languages.
You people need to get off your native dream horses, read some language
research text with fresh ink on them, and rething the whole matter.
Chomsky is a past thing! Long live Chomsky!
Eduard
----- Original Message -----
From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 12:57
Subject: how heavy a lift is grammar
To: [log in to unmask]
> I will resist the temptation to jump in and try to do a
> good faith
> summary of what I have so far from respondents. My apologies if
> I am
> leaving something substantial out. Feel free to correct or comment.
>
> I have received some posts that didn’t go out to the list, and
> I’ll try
> to include those in a blanket response.
>
> 1) There seems a general consensus (all yes votes) to the notion
> that
> people learn naturally the language they are exposed to as they
> are
> growing up. Bill cautions us (I think rightly) that it may be
> wrong to
> assume that it comes easily just because it looks that way from
> the
> outside. It’s also not clear what kind of modeling or
> interaction might
> be part of it.
>
> 2) The general consensus seems to be that reaching high levels
> of
> literacy is rare. There’s not a clear consensus on how “direct
> instruction” might influence that. A few people mention ability
> and
> motivation as factors. Others mention lots of reading and
> engagement
> with complex texts or ‘being interactively read to.” In those
> cases, it
> would seem to me that literacy is an indirect result, but
> perhaps the
> result of being in the right kind of language environment.
>
> 3) There seems a pretty good consensus on Standard English: that
> it
> comes easily to those who hear it around them as they acquire
> language,
> but not so easily to those who don’t. Standard English is hard
> for those
> students whose primary use of language is non-standard, and they
> seem to
> require some attention and instruction.
>
> 4) High levels of reading competence often come without direct
> instruction, though most seem to believe that extensive reading
> and
> conversations about what we are reading are very helpful. One
> person off
> list mentioned that he has developed much more effective
> strategies for
> reading complex texts “later in life” and wishes he had been
> given them
> earlier. I like John’s observation, that readers are often
> “instructed
> directly by the texts” they are reading. I’m not sure I agree,
> but it’s
> a thoughtful possibility. Perhaps it rubs off? We pick it up
> intuitively?The lack of input from elementary school teachers
> may be worth noting.
> It seems to me that we are taught reading early on, but then
> doing
> reading takes over. By high school, English classes seem to
> focus on
> literary texts. What’s the current status of the phonics versus
> whole
> language debate?
>
> 5) There seems a much stronger belief that writing requires
> direct
> instruction, especially for those who don’t do it well. One
> respondent
> says it can happen without direct instruction, but usually
> doesn’t.
> Another says that students often overvalue their writing and
> need a
> wake-up call. Another implies that interactive talk about what
> they are
> writing would create an environment in which they might learn to
> write
> without direct instruction. In general, though, the consensus is
> that
> writing seems to require more direct teaching than reading does.
>
> 6) There were some differences in the way this statement was
> interpreted. For those who interpreted “leaning about language”
> as
> somewhat analytical, the consensus seems to be that direct
> instruction
> is needed (though an individual can discover some of that on
> their own.)
> There was some questioning of the value of learning about
> language
> outside the context of reading and writing. Some aspects can be
> easy,
> but much of it is hard.
>
> Craig
>
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