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From: cindy@flode.nvg.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: prestigious speech impediments
Date: 18 Jan 1996 13:33:02 GMT

In article <4dk5ee$don@panix.com> iayork@panix.com (Ian A. York) writes:
> There are many sources for this; one, that's also a wonderful book in its
> own right, is Oliver Sacks' _Seeing Voices_. Stephen Pinker's _The
> Language Instinct_ is also well worth reading.

Never read Sacks, but i second the advice on Pinker. Ought to be required reading for anyone who comes to AFU with a language legend.

> Cindy will no doubt nail my ears to the monitor^H^H^H^Hoh-so-gently
> correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Sacks' mentions one person who,
> though deaf during the critical age and not exposed to any other language
> (i.e. no Sign, not even pidgin Sign) still managed to pick up a fairly
> significant amount of language as an adult. However, this is clearly the
> exception, even assuming that the individual really was isolated from
> language.

I believe Ian is thinking about the case of "Chelsea", the case name given to a woman from rural northern California. She was diagnosed by a number of doctors as severely mentally retarded and/or emotionally disturbed. In fact she was profoundly deaf*. Her family refused to send her to an institution and never accepted the diagnoses, always suspecting there was something the doctors were missing. They were, of course, right: at the age of 31 a neurologist discovered her deafness, and was able to improve her hearing to near-normal levels with hearing aids. She has since had some schooling, found a job and learned to live independently. She has learned about 2000 words, which covers the most commonly used words in the English language (most adults have a far larger vocabulary, but seldom use most of the words)... but her syntax is very, very weird. Pinker quotes some of her sentences:

        The small a the hat.
        The boat sits water on.
        The woman is bus the going.
        The girl is cone the ice cream shopping buying the man.

These sentences can be understood, with difficulty, but they are not normal sentences. Since i currently share my house with a normal child who is learning to talk (he's almost two), i can also tell you with great confidence that these are definitely not the kinds of sentences children use while acquiring language.

There are two other interesting cases, "Genie" and "Isabelle". In both of these cases the details of their background make for very disturbing reading, so i'll try to skim over as much as possible. Genie was kept almost completely isolated from human contact until the authorities found her when she was 13 1/2. She had no language at that time. Like Chelsea, she picked up words, but her speech sounds like pidgin English at best - her syntax never got anywhere. Isabelle was raised by a mute mother and a psychotic grandfather until she was 6 1/2, when she and her mother ran away. She also had no language. However, she managed much more than Genie and Chelsea: she not only quickly learned the vocabulary of a typical six year old, she also managed to learn to make grammatical sentences. Within a year and a half there was no obvious difference between her speech and the speech of classmates who were raised in normal homes.

One point that is being missed again and again in this thread, however, is that this only points out the existence of a critical period for _first_ language learning. (And the critical period seems to end around the onset of puberty, _not_ at age 5.) There is definitely no such clear evidence for a critical period for second language learning. In fact, the (largely anecdotal) evidence points in quite another direction. With the proper amount of talent, effort, and motivation, it is possible for an adult or teenager to learn to speak another language, even getting the accent down within a reasonable degree of accuracy. You are not doomed to sound like Henry Kissinger just because you start learning a second language "late".

Certainly talent plays a role and not everyone is equally talented. But the fact that _some_ people manage it tends to take a bit of wind out of the critical period theory's sails. An adult may not be able to learn a second language _exactly_ perfectly, but if they can come close enough to perfect that even natives have trouble noticing, how much of a handicap is it, really?

Cindy Kandolf, certified language mechanic, mamma flodnak

*Unfortunately there were many deaf children in the past whose stories are much like Chelsea's. The reason her story is unique is that her entry into the world of language is so well documented. One hopes that Chelsea's fate is uncommon today, but it's impossible to state that it isn't happening at all. _Every_ child with an unusual language delay should have a full hearing test _first_, before other causes are investigated. Since the test is absolutely non-invasive, there is no risk, and potentially much to be gained.