Re: What's the different between /tS/ as one phoneme and as two?

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 07/21/04 

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 13:48:55 GMT

Mxsmanic wrote:
>
> Peter T. Daniels writes:
>
> > The reason a "native accent in a foreign language" can't be acquired
> > after puberty is that the brain mechanisms, whatever they are, for
> > acquiring a new language in adulthood are different from those involved
> > in acquiring one's native language(s) in childhood.
>
> This is speculation, not fact. You say yourself "whatever they are,"
> because nobody has ever proved them to exist. It's an article of faith
> in linguistics, not a fact established through observation and
> experiment.

The _fact_ is established through observation. (Experimentation on human
subjects is widely discouraged.) The _explanation_ is so far elusive.

> In reality, there is no such "brain mechanism" that mysteriously changes
> at puberty, as people who acquire native fluency after puberty
> demonstrate (they are rare, but not rare enough to be considered
> freaks).

Let's have some examples of these nonexistent "rare" individuals.

> > Any true multilingual person does not have a "foreign accent"
> > in any of their native languages, but will have one in any
> > languages learned later.
>
> People have foreign accents because they are not motivated to eliminate
> them. Also, language aptitude is closely correlated with intelligence,
> and the smarter a person is, the more easily he can eliminate an accent
> ... _if_ he wants to.

Are you, as Al Franken says of Rush Limbaugh, simply pulling these
statements out of your ass? Language aptitude is most certainly not
correlated with whatever elusive concept you may be intending with the
prescientific label "intelligence."

> > My question exactly ... what do you think you are learning when you
> > learn to type or play the piano or drive?
>
> If I'm learning, it's not my muscles that are changing.

You really do need to experience the real world some time.

> > Just one of the truly amazing features of the "original cast" recording
> > of Britten's *War Requiem* is that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sings
> > English with nary a trace of a German accent. This is highly
> > exceptional.
>
> There are many, many examples of people singing in foreign languages
> with no accent. It's almost the norm.

How would you know? You clearly have no ear for the foreign accents of
your Francophone students.

Try the "Gala" in Karajan's Fledermaus recording, with Birgit Nilsson
singing "I could have danced all night" in Swedish-English.

> For a contrary example of a really thick accent in singing, listen to
> Nat King Cole sing in Spanish or French. Thick accents like that are
> actually rather rare.

What bull***! Need I go any further than José Feliciano, to stay within
your genre, whose English is very clearly not native? 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net
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