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HashiriKata -



Quote:

And I'm sure you have the hard evidence to refute the studies.

I must admit to you that as a professional linguist, I just can't afford to go round collecting
nonsenses and proving that they're wrong. As always, there are simply just too many of them.



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zhwj -

david1978: I dropped this link into the other thread, but I'll repeat it here - according to the
linguists there (including one author of the paper), the study doesn't really say anything about
language learning at all:

Quote:


Originally Posted by Mark Liberman

The point is not in any way to debunk Dediu and Ladd -- I don't think that they would disagree
with what I'm saying here, and I certainly don't disagree with their conclusions, as I understand
them from what I've read so far. Their results are suggestive, and well worth following up.
Indeed, I think that the other few hundred top-ranked gene/language correlations should be
investigated as well!

But unsurprisingly, the press response is full of headlines like "Speaking in tones? Blame it on
your genes" and "Genes may help people learn Chinese". It's worth noting that if there's a causal
connection here, it need not have anything to do with the relative ease of learning tonal
distinctions. In the talk that he gave here, Bob Ladd speculated that perhaps there is a
difference in the relative psychophysical salience of the "micromelodies" that are a universal and
inevitable consequences of consonant and vowel articulations in every language, leading to
differences in the propensity to create tonal contrasts by re-interpretation of segmental
contrasts, as happened repeatedly in the reconstructed history of East Asian and Meso-American
tone languages.













david1978 -



Quote:

I must admit to you that as a professional linguist, I just can't afford to go round collecting
nonsenses and prove that they're wrong. There are simply just too many of them.

Yeah! The above statement coupled with what I'm sure is your shockingly superior Mandarin skills
puts all research on the connections between biology and language to rest.










david1978 -

zhwj: thanks for pointing that out and I noted that. However, none of the articles, including the
ones the authors pointed to, claim that it is impossible for a Westerner to learn Chinese, only
that it would be more difficult than learning a second non tonal language.



Quote:

All humans have the innate ability to speak either type fluently, but the research indicates that
genes may make one class slightly easier to learn. This raises the possibility that over thousands
of years these differences could have guided the evolution of local languages according to the
genetic variants in particular ethnic groups.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1851794.ece










HashiriKata -



Quote:


Originally Posted by david1978

Yeah! The above statement coupled with what I'm sure is your shockingly superior Mandarin skills
puts all research on the connections between biology and language to rest.


You seem to be very excited having found someone new to argue with , david1978! Anyway, try not to
jump into any conclusion before you know a bit about something, because this will undermine what
you're saying. For your information, Mandarin is my newest hobby and is self-taught, done from
thousands of miles away from where the language is actually used, so it shouldn't amount to
anything. But what does my Mandarin have to do with this thread? Have you run out of something
reasonable to say?










david1978 -

@HashiriKata:

Let me give you the benefit to add something constructive to this thread. You originally said that
these studies are "complete bull meant for the gullible." Please explain why the studies' findings
are "complete bull" that only a "gullible person" would be interested in investigating further.
I'm waiting eagerly for your reply.










HashiriKata -

From my posts above, you should know what I'd say about going to prove that someone is wrong
(unless the studies are presented to me for marking or refereeing, when it'd become my business).
Anyway, the point in my original post (#19) is simply: please do not use something unproven to
prove something else.
(If I really want to talk about these so-called linguistic-genetic studies, I'd have done so in
the other thread about them.)










simonlaing -

Hi David,

Yes, I guess my post was meant for you. But I think after debating the genes or nuture, I think
there are other advantages at looking at people who had reached that high level of language
attainment. In my examples, apart from Language genius (who might of done it for fun) the others
had strong motivations to learn Chinese. James loved Bruce lee movies and cartoons, Jack wanted to
get out of NZ I think and keep his language scholarship, Ian was his major and need CHinese at
that time to get the good job in Shanghai. (I think they were all sino-philes aswell.)
Plus all spent at least 2 years doing fulltime Chinese language study. In addition to other time
spent in their home country studying etc...

Can you see other similarities in people you know who can speak fluently?

have fun,
Simon










zhwj -

Sure, david1978, but two paragraphs below there's this:

Quote:

This does not mean that people with one set of genes cannot speak the other type of language, or
that you have to be any smarter to learn one of these groups of languages rather than another,"
Robert Ladd, who led the research, said. "What we have found, though, suggests that these genes
might have a very small effect on individuals, and a larger effect on the populations in which
they live. As the language is passed on culturally, it would then be more likely to develop along
one path than the other."

If this is the case, then the effect is probably so small that counting the numbers of westerners
who've successfully learned Chinese isn't going to tell you much at all, particularly when you
consider other variables like teaching methods (European languages have a more developed pedagogy
and there are more resources to be found) and whether the writing system takes time away from
training in the spoken language.










muyongshi -

Retract claws everybody! Otherwise my not pretty face might get clawed and become even more
unlikable.

I am familiar with the standard format that imron has mentioned and I would have to agree in terms
of fluency that it is never about the absolute proper grammar (heck just look at my posts!). And
you would disqualify everyone in Sichuan (or at least 90% of the people) if it was on perfect
pronunciation. Granted you must have to be able to be understood but an accent does not determine
fluency. It is about majority correct usage, ability to write, speak and all the other things that
no one will take time to write down (aka everyday life, a limited amount of specialty words [ie
transmission- how many americans have no clue what it is???] and no that is not a joke).

These all play a factor and heck even the most fluent native english speakers don't know all the
adjectives that are in the dictionary and that is something that we can all learn more of and it
does not affect fluency.

Another important thing is recall...but it is not entirely necessary. If I can't think of a word
in English does it mean that I am not fluent? No, but my recall in other areas (preprogrammed
responses) should be there 99.999999999999999999999999% of the time.

Basically I know many that are fluent but hey even writing being necessary to fluency is
debatable. A bum that grew up in beijing can maybe speak perfect (just because he was raised
there) mandarin (and yes I do know that in beijing there is a difference between putonghua and
beijinghua) but can't write.

I hope to be fluent someday but dang if I am going to go by your definition I might as well give
up now and kill myself because then I can never be fluent in any language. Maybe I'll go live with
the apes in a jungle somewhere. I'm sure they won't discriminate against my non-perfect language
skills.












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