The study of language learning, especially the processes by which first languages are learned by children.
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26 views
Is phonics still considered a strong teaching tool for teaching reading skills?
A number of years ago there was a company called "Hooked on Phonics", which made a name for itself with a successful ad campaign, and whose aim was to emphasize connecting different phonemes of words ...
2
votes
2answers
85 views
What language do children think in?
If a child born in Canada is spoken to strictly in another foreign tongue other than english (ie. Italian), it is inevitable that this child will also think in Italian. When this child starts going ...
-3
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2answers
91 views
What Second Language Confers the Greatest Cognitive Benefit [closed]
If I were to learn a second language which language in the world would confer the greatest cognitive benefit to a native English speaker? Would, say, Japanese confer greater benefit than Spanish due ...
3
votes
2answers
117 views
Getting familiar with accents
Would it not be nice to have a site from which people can listen to
different phrases in different languages with each phrase having the
following characteristics, in any combination:
Sample ...
3
votes
0answers
80 views
Do teachers of ESL need to know how first language is acquired?
In my class we are discussing teaching English as a second language. Some contend that to teach ESL we need to know the processes an theories about first language acquisition and it is not clear to me ...
2
votes
1answer
110 views
Would a Proto language be easy to learn?
Since English descends from Proto-Germanic, which descends from PIE, would either of those two languages be relatively easy to learn (compared to, say, Japanese), or has the language changed too much ...
5
votes
1answer
100 views
Studies of Twin Speak
I'm curious about language acquisition among twins. I've heard it said that they often develop their own language (of sorts) and I was wondering if anyone has done any studies of this phenomenon.
Is ...
0
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0answers
134 views
Understanding English deeply like native speakers
As I have noticed, a native speaker can actually judge the essence of person, the way he's feeling, even his personality through his writing or voice. Will it be possible for a non-native English ...
6
votes
1answer
228 views
Can children learn up to 4 different languages? And how to do it?
An example is parents with different mother tongues living in a foreign country,
teaching those three languages and also English.
How and when should this language be taught?
Can all be taught in ...
5
votes
1answer
305 views
Relationship between language similarity and ease of foreign language acquisition?
Inspired by this infographic, which lists a bunch of languages as either easy to learn, hard to learn, or medium. I noticed that all the languages in the easy category were either Romance or Germanic ...
6
votes
4answers
188 views
Can one's native medium of language be written, rather than spoken or signed?
(This is probably a poorly-formed question, but I'm really just trying to find out if there's any research in this area.)
Most children pick up a spoken or signed language at an early age, and this ...
2
votes
2answers
106 views
What can one gain from learning language constructed for books or films, like Sindarin? [closed]
I know about people who learn, use and even develop the constructed languages created for books or films, such as Sindarin.
Most of them are doing it because of a very geek interest in the topic, or ...
6
votes
1answer
438 views
How useful is the “pimsleur approach” for learning a new language?
I saw this video earlier today (The most important part is from 8.00 to 9.00), explaining what the "Pimsleur approach" is. It got me interested, because they claim it's the fastest method of learning ...
4
votes
2answers
197 views
How do children learn to speak compared to adults?
Why is it hard to learn a second language as an adult while the children may learn to speak more than one language more easily than adults do? If true, how can the language learning process be made ...
7
votes
3answers
488 views
Can I learn a new language just by listening or watching videos?
The question is a bit more specific than title would suggest, but I was not creative enough to put it so specifically into compact form. Let me explain.
When I was a kid I was learning English in ...
4
votes
3answers
217 views
Significance of “childish errors” in mainstream language change
Over on ELU the question Is “bettern't” an OK word to use? drew me into debate about how significant "childish errors" are in the development of mainstream language. Hence, the question:
Are ...
5
votes
1answer
135 views
Computational models of language acquisition
What are currently used computational models/frameworks of language acquisition?
Desired features:
models that are biologically plausible (such as neural networks).
Personally, I have used ...
2
votes
1answer
160 views
Do infants deliberately change the words when they omit the sounds and these words are minimal pairs?
While I was studying an infant's transcript, I realized that he deleted the [l] sound in "alma" [alma], a word in Turkish meaning "do not take". When he deleted the sound, the word became [a:ma]. ...
3
votes
1answer
210 views
Intonation for questions in different languages and child's early language development intonations
Since my 9 months old son started pointing to things and saying 'Ahh?' with a proper question intonation, I was wondering if all other languages have the same intonation for questions as in English ...
10
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4answers
1k views
Evidence for age cutoff in foreign accent acquistion
Steven Pinker in "The Language Instinct" claims that there is strong psychological evidence for the existence of a sharp age cutoff for the ability to acquire a flawless foreign accent (I may dig up ...
12
votes
1answer
229 views
Is there an equivalent to the Flesch Kincaid test for measuring quality and understandability of speech?
I want to measure the quality of speech: is it higher level/lower level (vocabulary grammar etc.) and also the understandability of the speech, i.e. is the teacher using language above a student's ...
9
votes
3answers
202 views
General mathematical frameworks of language acquisition since Gold
Gold's theorem on the unlearnability of certain sets of languages (among them context-free ones) made several assumptions in its modeling of learning a language:
At each time step the learner ...
15
votes
1answer
194 views
Are first words in signed languages composed of signs that babies frequently babble?
In many spoken languages, the words for "mother" and "father" are composed of sounds that babies make very early. Is there a similar trend for early words that babies babble across signed languages?
5
votes
1answer
78 views
Recommendations on the current state of parameters as explanation in acquisition?
In the original P&P model, we had a nice story in which there was supposed to be some finite list of principles and some finite list of parameters, the former constraining hypotheses and the ...
5
votes
5answers
1k views
Is it possible to change your mother-tongue by thinking in another language?
Once I heard from someone that your mother tongue is the language you talk in your thoughts. I've asked many people to verify the correctness of this proposition and to me, inductively this seems to ...
16
votes
2answers
1k views
Why do most words for “mother”, across languages, start with an [m], and for “father” with [p]/[b], but not vice versa?
It has been observed that in general, a word for "mother" tends to be based on a bilabial nasal [m] or similar consonant, and for father it tends to be [b] or [p]. This is found in many language ...
6
votes
4answers
323 views
When and how do children learn to distinguish languages?
At what age range are children expected to be able to distinguish languages?
Are there any factors that aid children in learning this skill?
17
votes
9answers
475 views
Are some languages inherently harder for children to acquire?
I don't see why this shouldn't be the case. Surely children around the world don't learn to speak fluently by the same age?
6
votes
4answers
566 views
When is the end of the critical period?
At what age, approximately, is the end of the critical period for native language acquisition?
Of course, I understand that many details surrounding the critical period are up for debate. I want to ...
13
votes
2answers
943 views
Why do parents refer to themselves in third person?
Why do parents refer to themselves in third person, when talking to small kids? I've seen this happening in German, English and Russian and I do this myself (even though I try not to, because I think, ...
10
votes
7answers
1k views
What makes a non-native English speaker sound foreign?
I'm not a native speaker. However, I have tried a lot during last 10 years to learn English at a high level of proficiency and to become fluent in conversation.
However, when I talk to some of my ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
Simultaneous bilingualism vs Sequential bilingualism
Simultaneous bilingualism (or multilangualism) is when a child acquires two (or many) languages simultaneously, for example when they are raised by parents speaking more than one language.
...
19
votes
5answers
561 views
What method do linguists use to rate language competence?
People on the street bandy about words like "fluent", "knows French", "speaks broken French" as if it all means something. How do linguists determine if a speaker is competent and what taxonomy do ...
12
votes
2answers
255 views
Are similar languages easier for children to acquire than dissimilar ones?
When a child is first learning a language in a bilingual environment, is it easier or harder to properly acquire the two distinct languages if they are more similar? For example, is it easier for a ...
14
votes
4answers
670 views
Corpus of baby-talk or motherese
Baby-talk or motherese is the language that parents tend to use when addressing preverbal or just-starting-to-speak children. What are the fundamental features or rules that define this subset of a ...
14
votes
2answers
299 views
Are there any fundamental differences in personal pronoun acquisition across languages?
I am interest in reversal errors in personal pronoun acquisition. My knowledge comes mostly from studies done with English-speaking children, and I was wondering if there is any languages where this ...
18
votes
5answers
304 views
Language acquisition without interactive contact with fluent speakers
Children raised in a multilingual environment learn all the languages that they are exposed to with no effort. Does the same thing happen if a child has only indirect contact with a language? For ...
