Multiple Language Upbringings

Undergod

It's been said, with a lot of evidence, that there is a capability for language innate in the normal human brain.
When children are raised bi- and multilingually, they rarely confuse their different langages. Is this a learned thing, or does the innate language capability for language also involve distinction between languages.

I apologise for having no references or if my English isn't the best. It's late and I haven't got any books handy...

John

Undergod wrote:

It's been said, with a lot of evidence, that there is a capability for language innate in the normal human brain.

Humans are very social and to be social you need to be able to communicate so an innate ability to learn language is in my opinion definitely the case.

When children are raised bi- and multilingually, they rarely confuse their different langages. Is this a learned thing, or does the innate language capability for language also involve distinction between languages.

I'm no developmental psychologist nor a linguist but I'd say the innate language learning ability would most likely allow a child once it gets to a more verbal age (at around three years of age) to distinguish between languages easily and know in what contexts to use them.

snorlax

at a young age children certainly have an ability to learn many laungages as their brain has more plasticity and is constantly learning from the environment around them (eg modelling/ copying their parents/ siblings), this high degree of flexiblity makes it is easier for them to learn language.

however as they get older this ability declines, that is why it is hard for some children to learn a secound laungage once they reach secoundary school and why kids should learn secound laungage from as early an age as possible.

an interesting point of note is that often in families with more then one child the youngest one often learn to speak faster then the older one/s. this could be down to modelling of it's sibling but is more likey a survival/ instinctal thing whereby the youngest won't get left out by it's siblings and can compete better amongst it's siblings for rewards such as chocolate/ staying up latter.

here's a good link on it http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/oral_language_development.shtml

Playboy

The controversy about the innate language theory arises not becuase people are arguing whether the ability is innate or not but how we developed this innate ability. Chomsky who came up with the theory maintains that it is not explainable by evolution but Steven Pinker the havard professor and friend of Richard Dawkins puts foward a good case for the evolution explanation in his book The Language Instinct. Its a very good read

John

I haven't read that particular book of Pinker's but I believe it is easily an evolutionary trait. Whilst we are the only species with a language per se, all organisms communicate in some way and stranger things have been produced by evolution. I haven't read Chomsky either so maybe I should hear his point of view first.

p.pete

I've read something recently (should really try find the source) that talked about learning in terms of schemas - say you have a schema for maths, when you're learning new maths your mind refers to the schema with information you've already built up for math. You relate it to things you've already learnt and it's not totally alien to you.

The same would be true for English (and any other language obviously), you learn new words or grammer rules and your mind slots them neatly into a place on the schema and if you've already been learning it for some time your schema will have developed (or grown if you imagine it like a tree that's bigger depending on how much knowledge you have in the area - an English professor would have a very large and developed schema for English whereas someone learning the alphabet would only be starting out).

Anyway, the point to all this is that when you're younger you're able to develop new schema a lot more easily - so if you start learning the languages earlier you'll start off with a seperate schema to relate each language to. As you get older this ability declines, so when you start learning French at the age of 40 you relate everything to what you know about English (on your English schema) as opposed to maybe starting a new schema.

I'll try track down a reference, I think it relates closely to what snorlax's post was about

John

I've just remembered another thing about learning languages. Language is broken down into sounds called phonemes and you lose the ability to recognise new phonemes as you grow older. When you are learning a foreign language as a teenager or adult you can't actually hear the subtleties of the language when a native speaker is talking. For example, Japanese people when they try to learn English have great difficulty distinguishing between an L sound and an R sound as they are not part of the Japanese language's group of phonemes.

snorlax

i'd say the ability to develop lanuage probably is an essential survival charachteristic and is very innate in all humans probably as a result of the fact we are all social beings and rely heavily on communicating in everyday life to do just about everything.
i wonder if the same is the case for deaf children? does anybody know of any studies along those lines?

i'd say the environment also has a pivotal role in language development, eg the first word is often mom or dad as these people are often in close proximity to the baby in it's early life. Piaget's cognitive development theory is also an interesting read especially around the whole symbolic use of language.

John

snorlax wrote:

i wonder if the same is the case for deaf children? does anybody know of any studies along those lines?

I'm sure they learn sign language a lot easier when they're younger. I haven't seen any studies though.

MrPudding

I have 2 children that are being brought up in a French / English environment.

My oldest child is now 7. She is fully fluent in English & French. Her speach developed quite early though it was mostly English until we moved to Dublin when she was 3. She never mixes words up. She has always "known" which word belongs to which language.

My son is now 3. His speach is at a lower level than my Daughters was at when she was 2. He is really only now begining to use sentences and his French is very weak. I think part of the reason for his underdevelopment may be due to the fact that his big sister has had a habit of talking for him. She would translate his grunts thereby reducing his need to actually talk. When Seraphine, my daughter, went to France for three weeks his speach improved dramatically.

I suppose from my experience I think that there does seem to be an inate ability to differentiate between languages. I have a habit of using French words in English sentences. Seraphine has alway told me off about this, knowing the word was not right. The only time she will use a word from the other language is when she does not know the word in the language she is speaking. In these cases she will say she does not know it.

I am looking forward to see how my son develops and whether the experience will be the same. So far he does not seem to mix words up but he currently does not speak much French at home.

Chris

Cake Fiend

Having learnt (to one extent or another) several languages at various stages of my life, I've noticed a couple of things relevant to this discussion:

As a child, I was brought up fluent in English and Irish. The idea of mixing up words between English and Irish during my childhood is as alien to me as the idea of mixing up walking and swimming. Irish was never something I had to concentrate on; it was completely transparent, unlike languages I have learnt as an adult. Despite the fact that a phrase heard in Irish would be translated directly to thought, exactly as with English, there was a clearly felt distinction between the two languages.

As a teenager, I learnt French and German in school, particularly sticking with German later. These languages of course never had the transparency of English (nor does Irish anymore, as I haven't used it since school). Naturally, I would never mix German words into English, although in constructing a German sentence, English words might come to mind. When I started to learn Japanese, I had become so accustomed to the German way of speaking (and grammar, syntax, etc) that German words would automatically come to mind when trying to construct basic Japanese sentences, as though German had now become my 'default' foreign language.

Oddly enough, this has now reversed itself (as I haven't used German in quite a while), meaning that if I try to speak German, I stumble over Japanese before I can get the German vocab together. So now, I think the only way for me to be sure I could have more than one 'default' foreign language is to go back and relearn German, while keeping my Japanese fresh!

Thought this might give a prod to someone's theories...

simu

?

Shouldn't this be in the languages forum? (It also covers linguistics).

Playboy

simu wrote:

?

Shouldn't this be in the languages forum? (It also covers linguistics).

No it's perfect right here. It's a current topic of debate in developmental Psychology.

simu

Harumpf!

Playboy

simu wrote:

Harumpf!

simu

snorlax wrote:

i'd say the ability to develop lanuage probably is an essential survival charachteristic and is very innate in all humans probably as a result of the fact we are all social beings and rely heavily on communicating in everyday life to do just about everything.
i wonder if the same is the case for deaf children? does anybody know of any studies along those lines?

This might be of interest.

nesf

Playboy wrote:

No it's perfect right here. It's a current topic of debate in developmental Psychology.

It's been a long running debate in philosophy too. That doesn't mean it's not linguistics though

snorlax

i could copy the thread and send it down to English if you want Simu?

Playboy

nesf wrote:

It's been a long running debate in philosophy too. That doesn't mean it's not linguistics though

I didnt say it shouldnt be anywhere else ... just that the topic is perfectly at home here

snorlax

it could be both places

nesf

Playboy wrote:

I didnt say it shouldnt be anywhere else ... just that the topic is perfectly at home here

It's more of a case of there being little to no linguistics threads made on the linguistics forum. When people start making them elsewhere, they should be moved to languages/linguistics.

There's the same issue with many small forums. It's not a case of threads not belonging in certain areas but that the traffic might be more benificial in other areas.

snorlax

i sent a copy of this thread down to English, it should make for an interesting discussion.

nesf

This would have been the correct forum btw

I don't think copying threads is worth it tbh. Why split the responces?

snorlax

k ill send it there too!

Undergod

I decided this would be the appropriate forum because it was a question raised by the little training I have had in psychology, and I was asking a somewhat specific question about development, but it might be interesting to see what the other forums come up with.

Thanks to MrPudding and Sico, that was helpful. My own troubles with languages are kinda similar to what Sico described, as I sometimes find it easier to think it Irish than German, or vice versa, but rarely are they equally prominent.

MrPudding

Undergod wrote:

My own troubles with languages are kinda similar to what Sico described, as I sometimes find it easier to think it Irish than German, or vice versa, but rarely are they equally prominent.

Given that my Daughter is only seven it is quite hard to get her to describe what is going on in her head. I have spoken to her a number of times about it. I tried to explain what translation is to give her an understanding. She thinks she know what I mean but does not think that that is what she does. She believes that she thinks in what ever language she is speaking and the words are "translated to thought" (Sico's phrase not my daughters, but it seems to fit.)

I have seen her at parties in our house sitting between an English speaker and a French speaker. She can be having a conservation with each at the same time but never mix up the languages. This compares to my French GF who learned English the normal French way. She has lived in NI / Dublin for about 13 years now and is fluent in English. If she was doing the same thing she would, at some point speak English to the French speaker or French to the English speaker.

MrP

Undergod

I just remembered, I have a friend whose first language is Portugese, but she's lived in Ireland for about six years, and is fluent in English. It's pretty fuuny when she talks to her portugese friends or family, it's like

"portugeseportugeseportugeseportugeseMr.Smithportugeseidiot!"

They speak Portugese at home, but with most people of their own age, they speak english so when they talk to each other, their portugese is flavoured with Englsih slang.

I know it's kinda off-topic from my original post but I thought it was interesting.