《Language acquisition: Is it possible?》
主講人：許馨仁助理教授(特教系)
2020年5月12日
Hsinjen Hus, an assistant professor from the department of special education, delivered a speech about language acquisition. In the beginning of the talk, she briefly went through the outline of her content, which were the role of language in children’s development and learning, the impossibility of language acquisition, the view of how it is possible, and advances in those interdisciplinary researches.
First, Professor Hus showed pictures of the process in which people grow from infants to adults, in that way, she highlighted the pivotal role of language in human lives. Language itself help us get to know the world, and we are able to communicate. Thus, social interacting and learning comes after that. Nevertheless, language acquisition is never an easy task. When we were young babies, we struggled to learn the native language by finding word boundaries. To simplify this viewpoint, she showed us two Russian videos. Our task was to try to find the boundaries of the word, and that’s normal if we found it difficult because we didn’t speak Russian at all. Not to mention the word order, the connection between words and referents, and the structures.
Then, Professor Hus introduced the debate of nature versus nurture to us. Since 1950, there have been heated debate about this topic. The Nature believes that everyone is born with the ability of learning language, yet the Nurture stands the opposite point. As a supporter of the Nature, Noam Chomsky said that “Language learning is innate,” which means “it’s something that happens to a child placed in an appropriate environment, and that would grow and mature when provided with nutrition and stimulation”.
However, the opposite view from the Nature, the Nurture consider language learning is not an inborn talent. For example, we watched the video of the wild boy of Aveyron, who was abandoned during the critical period of learning language, ended up saying two phrases after being found. The other example is Genie, a child who was a victim of severe abuse and social isolation, turned out not acquiring language during her childhood. These two examples show us that without appropriate input and social interaction, there’s little chances to learn a language.
Last but not least, Professor Hus took us through a vast variety of aeras which we can see research devoting to problems concerning language learning. In the end, she mentioned that we all have different viewpoints toward learning the language, and it depends on what our purposes and tasks are.
許馨仁教授來自本校特教系，今日的演講主題為語言習得。在演說的一開始，她簡單介紹今日內容大綱，從語言在孩子的發展與學習中所扮演的角色、語言習得的不可能性、語言習得的可能性觀點以及與語言相關跨領域的研究發展情形。
首先，許教授呈現了一系列人們從小至大的成長過程，以此告訴我們語言在這過程中扮演了多麼舉足輕重的角色。語言的功能至關重要，它是人們得以面對世界的工具，造就了我們能互相溝通的能力。因此，有了語言才有社會互動與學習的產生。教授也強調學習母語並非一項簡單的任務，在我們還是嬰兒時，我們其實花費了很大地努力，藉由找到字與字之間的界線來學習母語。為了簡述這個概念，她播放了兩個語言為俄羅斯文的影片，在絲毫不認識這項語言的條件下，我們要嘗試找到字與字之間的界線，甚至看著字幕，測試自己是否能將文字對應至唸出來的俄羅斯話。這是一項非常困難的任務，而這正是嬰兒所面臨的情形。除了找到字與字之間的界線，更不用說字的組成順序、字與圖之間的對應或者架構了，這些學習都不簡單。
接著，教授介紹了從1950年代始即針對語言習得的兩大辯論：語言是人類與生俱來的能力，抑或是後天習得的能力？支持語言為天生的學者們認為每個人天生擁有學習語言的機制，然而支持語言為後天的學者們則持相反意見。身為前項的支持者，Noam Chomsky大力贊同語言是天生的能力，且指出將孩子放置在適當的環境並且提供養分與刺激，孩子即能成熟與成長。
然而，持後天學習的學者們卻認為語言學習的能力並非天生。教授讓大家透過兩個例子的影片來認識這樣的觀點，首先是男孩Aveyron的故事，由於他在學習語言最重要的時期被雙親拋棄，他因而喪失學習語言的能力，即使在受過一點教育，最後也只能說出兩個片語。再者是受家暴且被社群隔離的例子：Genie，她最終也沒有習得語言。這些故事都更加顯示出學習語言的困難，必須提供適當的學習內容跟與社會互動的機會，才得以習得語言。
最後也最重要的，便是教授帶我們瀏覽過一遍各項與語言習得相關領域的研究們，是如何解決人們在學習語言上的困難。演說結束前，她總結我們每一個人都有自己對於學習語言的觀點，端看我們學習的目的與任務為何。
I’ve been looking forward to this course since the syllabus came out. Teacher Hsu is one of the teacher from our department which is special education, although I am a college freshman, but because of my special identity, I am actually twenty-one now, I have retake my General Scholastic Ability Test last year, I was supposed to be more clearly to know what I want or what should I learn in college than anyone else from the class, but at the moment I came in to Tsing Hua university, I think I make some mistakes that every other freshmen would make, I couldn’t find the meaning of learning those courses, I kept asking myself is becoming a teacher really what I want? I couldn’t figure out the answer. I still can remember that day when teacher Hsu introduced some courses about speech therapy, the thought of becoming a therapist immediately came into my mind, so I’ve paid attention to some relevant information, including a course I have taken last semester which is Methods of Oral Communication, today’s presentation has some contents were similar to what I have learned before.
Although I really concentrated on teacher’s presentation, but due to the language limited I still can’t understand some of the contents. The topic is about language acquisition, learning language may seems nature and easy to us but the mechanism of learning a language included our mother tongue is not a simple work. At the beginning we need to distinguish the word boundaries how do we make a sentence, if we recall our memory we will surprisingly find out that it seems we acquire our language natively without any effort, but after listening teacher’s explanation, we can know that we all work hard to learn a language, especially learning second language, and through the age grows up the ability of learning language will gradually weaken, for example we all learned English for at least ten years, but our English level might lower than a five year kid who lives in America.
The progress of learning a new language is tricky that everyone’s wondering how do we acquire a new language are we born to have the ability of speaking? Some said is nature because all humans are capable of learning language, language is unique to the human species; no animals acquire language spontaneously. Chomsky was one of the supporter, I learned this from a course called Child development, he said that we all born to have a language acquisition device, to help us learn a language. Others said it is nurture because the example of Victor and Gennie they both been deprived the chance of learning language when they were young they didn’t have good chance to interact with other people so they don’t have the ability of speaking. These two theories are still in a debate they both have their supporters, no matter which is right or which is wrong as an educator what we can do is known the theory well or maybe when we have the opportunity we can devote ourselves to do some researches and get to help people who have problems in learning language.
Language is the most direct way to communicate with people, but the composition is quite complicated. Chinese is my mother tongue. Since I was exposed to Chinese when I was a child, the learning process is not difficult for me. However, when the elementary school began to teach English, I began to encounter difficulties. If it was in the part of pronunciation, there was no problem with repeating after the teacher. However, in some cases, the same word, the pronunciation may sometimes be different, and so is the grammar to me. I think the grammar in English is a nightmare for me, past tense, present tense and other tenses in this foreign language always make me unclear when to use which one. And I often confused with these tenses. The grammar questions in high school exams always make me frightened. Some questions are certain, but some are only choosing the answer based on my impression. There are also English compositions. I always feel that my vocabulary is poor, When I want to write my own opinions, I do not know how to spell the words I want to use, so I had to use other vocabulary instead.
In brief, from the experience of learning English for about 10 years, I feel the language is really complicated. Sometimes it just says it, but does not mean the other person ’s meaning just as the words say, you must also observe the other person ’s expression, movement, tone, etc. So as to decide your next response. Language is really complicated, but it is undeniable that language also constitutes an important part of the culture between different races. In addition, language has also made great contributions to the development of civilization. I really can't imagine what more convenient way can we communicate with others without the existence of the language.
Since I was 7,English already appear in my life.Though most of the kids in that age didn't learn English,my dad send me into a English cram school.Because of this reason,while school start to teach English,I feel more easy to prepare this subject than my classmates.I think this really brings me a lot of confidence in study English.However,this confidence might makes me too arrogant and failed the test.Fortunately,I get a not bad result in GSAT,and successfully admitted to NTHU.
I had a other failed experience of learning language.While I was senior 2,we had to choose a lesson by yourself.I chose Korean for it.At first,I was interested in it,but the teacher overestimates us,so she skip the basic part.This really makes me unconfident to participate in this class because everytime she ask me question,I even could not understand what is she talking.In the end of semester,I did not learn anything of Korean and waste a lot of time on it.
Because of this reason,I am afraid of learning new language.When it is time to choose our schedule,some of my friends asked me if I want to join Japanese or Korean classes with them.I always refuse them.I know learning second foreign language can benefit myself a lot,but I still can not overcome the obstacle.Thus,I consider that confidence plays a important role in learning new language.Hope that I can early get my confidence back,and choose a language to be my second foreign language.