I never hesitate to take alcohol and tobacco out of the equation because I relate to neither. By all means blame my genetic make-up. These days, genes take every blame, anyway. As poetic justice—for lack of a better term—I turned out to be my party-going friends’ best designated driver. Wait. I don’t work for Uber. Meanwhile, I always designate my soul to drive me through classical Chinese poetry. Yes, I am hopelessly drunk on rhyming. That said, I could still get stuck somewhere, thanks to the stalling of my imagination-powered engine. Sorry, there’s no roadside assistance. A do-it-yourself guy, I can't help but check everything under the hood. Silly me. Writer's block is like overheating. Keep my cool and it will go away. Will it come back, though? —— Lingyang Jiang
a little curious, though. It's been said that until the age of about 12, a person's language skills are relatively vulnerable to change. Studies on international adoptees have found that even nine-year-olds can almost completely forget their first language when they are removed from their country of birth. So here is the question: Did the brave little girl, who already had a lot on her plate, have to relearn English when she first arrived in Illinois?
A virtually total loss of one’s native language did happen,
cases of native Americans. But, individually speaking, it is not that common. Basically, it is a case-by-case situation, according to Keijzer and Yukawa (Wikipedia).
Now, think about a highly self-motivated 6-yr-old. She clung to
English like her life. She had never let herself be sinicized through and through. BTW, she could actually go about her bilingual life when Chinese, post-Cultural Revolution, were no longer shy away from learning English openly. Still wonder why she did so well in school?
Yes, I was indeed thinking of language attrition, but
in the framework of Chomsky's theory (See, Principles and parameters - Wikipedia ) about language acquisition rather than Jakobson's theory about language regression. While Jakobson's theory bears largely on the loss of language due to disease, Chomsky's attempts to explain the amazing ease with which first languages are acquired by people before they reach puberty (about the age of 12 when brain lateralization is complete). Chomsky's theory may also shed light on why, until the age of about 12, a person's language skills are relatively vulnerable to change (See, Can you lose your native language? - BBC Future).
Maybe someone should use George Strait's song for the next edition of "听歌练听力":
Yes, I was indeed thinking of language attrition, but
in the framework of Chomsky's theory (See, Principles and parameters - Wikipedia) about language acquisition rather than Jakobson's theory about language regression. While Jakobson's theory bears largely on the loss of language due to disease, Chomsky's attempts to explain the amazing ease with which first languages are acquired by people before they reach puberty (about the age of 12 when brain lateralization is complete), and it also, by extension, sheds light on why, until the age of about 12, a person's language skills are relatively vulnerable to change (See, Can you lose your native language? - BBC Future).
Children are more susceptible to (first) language attrition than adults.[4][5][6] Research shows an age effect around the ages of 8 through 13.[6] Before this time period, a first language can attrite under certain circumstances, the most prominent being a sudden decline in exposure to the first language. Various case studies show that children who emigrate before puberty and have little to no exposure to their first language end up losing the first language. In 2009, a study compared two groups of Swedish-speaking groups: native Swedish speakers and Korean international adoptees who were at risk for losing their Korean.[4][36] Of the Korean adoptees, those who were adopted the earliest essentially lost their Korean and those adopted later still retained some of it, although it was primarily their comprehension of Korean that was spared.[36] A 2007 study looked at Korean adoptees in France and found that they performed on par with native French speakers in French proficiency and Korean.[37]
This discussion gives me an idea; maybe someone should use George Strait's song for the next edition of "听歌练听力":
whose "black box" theory underlies his claim to a universal grammar. My understanding is that you can put anything in his black box and explain everything, as long as you manage to arrive at his universal grammar, logically. Logic, in and of itself, is not necessarily science as we know. Good poetry has its internal logic even though it might have little to do with reality. In other words, Chomsky is an open city like Paris in 1940.
who, while building his fame on Chomsky's "language instinct" theory, actually gives more credit to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Evolution is no revolution. It takes time, really long time. From the evolutionary perspective, something gained biologically won't disappear anytime soon. Indeed, the framework you talked about should be broadened a bit to acknowledge the time factor, in my opinion.
Now, let's turn to the "Great Cultural Revolution"...
which, as prevailing as it was during the famous--or infamous--decade, did have left more than a few green shoots alone. English-speaking folks, though subdued, were still functioning. Hong Kong, despite the 1967 riots thanks to the Cultural Revolution, still broadcast BBC and VOA to the Mainland, of which the Party big shots were loyal listeners. What a bunch of shrews! Then Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, in that order, and others started streaming in. The rest is history.
Finally, my petty stuff otherwise known as microfiction...
which, whatever its merits, indicates quite clearly that the abc girl had acquired a habit of talking to God, first in English, and then bilingually, since she clung to English no matter what. She had her Bible, for God's sake. The Holy Book, presumably a current American edition, is a pretty good companion to an English learner. Her cover, if appropriate in this case, had never been blown. As most if not all her contemporaries did, she played dumb when strangers were within earshot. In this way, she wouldn't have lost her native language in just a few years. Boy, when English was back in fashion, imagine what a chatter box she was. She took it from there, all the way to Chicago.
Thanks a million for the very interesting discussion.
A few things that may be worth noting:
(1) In his attempt to explain the ease with which young kids acquire their first language, Chomsky concentrates on complex syntax. According to people like Piaget, all cognitive acquisitions, including language, are the outcome of the gradual process of construction.
Chomsky points out the obvious fact that children's language acquisition outpaces their cognitive development, especially when it involves complex syntax the acquisition of which requires computational abilities far beyond that of young children. In place of the cognitive acquisition theory, Chomsky proposes the innate language theory.
Here below is a 2016 Steven Pinker comment. Pinker is saying that Chomsky's fundamental claim--that language is innate--will endure in one form or another:
-----"My own view is that we need to create precise computational models of the language acquisition process – sentences in, grammar out – and see if they succeed in mastering the structure of any language whose sentences are fed into it, in a way that resembles the way children do it. Then whatever is in that model is the best theory of the child’s innate learning abilities. Every now and again someone will try to do that (I did in my first book, Language Learnability and Language Development, in 1984.) Failing that, it's all too easy to claim that children don't need any innate priors or assumptions or representations, only to sneak them back in when it comes to get serious and implement a model. That was the trick in a lot of the neural-network models of language that were popular in the 80s and 90s – when the rubber met the road, they always built in innate structure without calling attention to it. That's what I suspect will be true of models based on the current ideas."-----
–Steven Pinker
For his explanation of the effortless first language acquisition by children, Chomsky advances the theory of universal grammar, or a language acquisition device, that children are supposedly born with. Acquisition of complex syntax is accomplished as soon as a limited number of parameters within the universal grammar are set one way or another upon children's initial exposure to their mother tongue.
It is this device that presumably shuts down upon the completion of brain lateralization. In other words, the parameters remain flexible/resettable until puberty. This also explains why children are more susceptible to first language attrition than adults: the settings of the universal parameters have not been finalized by way of brain lateralization.
(2) It should be noted that there are elements of language, such as vocabulary and idioms, that are learned rather than acquired. There is no difference between first language and second language when it comes to learning these elements: their learning depends crucially on exposure and use-it-or-lose-it governs retention.
First of all, people, be they young or old, won't be able to learn these elements if they are not exposed to them. Many Chinese parents in the US can attest to this: they try their best to keep a Chinese immersion environment at home but find out home related topics do not provide their children with enough Chinese exposure for balanced language learning.
Most of these parents can similarly attest to the tyranny of use-it-or-lose-it: their children just don't seem to be able to retain much of what they learn in weekly Chinese classes.
(3) Now, a little bit about the Cultural Revolution, which I had the very bad luck of living through. Comparing it to anything other than Hitler Germany and Stalin USSR would fall short of fair-mindedness. If anything, it was worse.
Yes, there were some English-speaking folks then in China, such as Shafick George Hatem, Rewi Alley, David Crook, Isabel Crook, Sidney Rittenberg, Israel Epstein, Elsie Fairfax-Cholmeley, etc. But these people were either branded as spies or suspected as being spies and were under close surveillance. Many were locked up and were not released until about 1973.
I'm not sure how helpful BBC and VOA would have been in helping a young child keep his/her language. But, yes, one could tune into VOA or BBC in those days. However, it was by no means easy. First of all, it would be very very risky to do so, as these were considered “enemy stations” and, if caught, one would be in big trouble. Secondly, these stations were always heavily jammed. The signal was so garbled most times people who were trying to learn English were forced to tune into Radio Peking.
Indeed, Kissinger and Nixon's visits in 1971 and 1972 brought about a great improvement in terms of English learning in China. But, seeing that the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, so much had already been lost in between.
A native language, once planted, will stay there until and
unless it is rooted out. I think you have mentioned more than once that the degree of exposure matters. However, I would like to give equal, if not more, weight to motivation. Motivation is a psychosocial thing, which means more than Chomsky et al have covered. Who can blame them? Gaining or losing a native language, in my opinion, may have more to do with personal motivation than cognitive issues.
English learning during the Cultural Revolution --
From a wider perspective, all things politically incorrect, however defined, are victims of relentless suppression. It was cancel culture with Chinese characteristics. The silver lining was, as I mentioned earlier, the enduring existence of a few green shoots here and there. The opening chapter of Tolstoy's "Resurrection," if I remember correctly, makes a similar allusion, which I take as a good sign of hope. When the thaw came, English learners multiplied like bamboo shoots all over China. Bamboo dies hard. So does a native language.
母亲词作《水调歌头：诗乡》
举笔众山起，立者不低头。
点睛龙脉苍野，万里啸千秋。
汉陌纵横侠路，尘破雄关独步，剑影任风流。
天国报天晓，江上月沉浮。
复唐韵、新锦瑟、古诗楼。
近茶远酒，杯冷杯暖味神州。
仙赐云笺留白，人得冰心凝碧，碧绝柳烟愁。
笑拭天涯泪，銜雨燕穿眸。
…
微小说：母亲的故事
还未足六岁，随着父母到了中国。以为是来渡假的，因为正值学校放暑假。谁知夏末将临，父母就相继失去联络。照顾我的只有阿姨。阿姨不会说英语，也不学英语，只是整天微笑着劝诫我不要说英语。‘千万不可开口。’ 她捂住自己的嘴巴、指着铺天盖地的标语给我看。我，看不懂标语，又不能开口，所以有好几年上不了学去。不上学，我更好学，更须要好学。首先、学做阿姨的女儿。
阿姨待我胜如生母，因此，我学懂的第一句华语就是‘阿娘’。阿姨就是阿娘，永远是。
伴着我的、除了阿娘，就只有我的美国出生证明文件、教堂受洗礼的证书、一条十字架项链、一部《圣经》和上帝。有上帝同在，事情就好商量了。
年纪虽小，却清楚知道自己是要在中国生活下去的。要在中国生活下去，我就得做两件事。第一、学好华语。第二、不长金发。母亲是金发的。作为她的女儿，我担心自己也会长出金发来。我哪时候的头发是栗色的，跟黑发的阿娘走在一起，对她有一种不可言喻的不便，但是我死也要跟阿娘走在一起。为此，阿娘时刻提醒我要把头发剪得短短的，莫拖辫子，扣紧帽子。
为了发色，每晚临睡前都花上一个小时诵读《圣经》，然后把额头贴在《圣经》上面，默默向上帝祈求我的栗发不要变成金发。在梦里、上帝要我先学会用华语祈祷、才考慮我的发色请求。
我遵行了上帝的指示。果然，沒有长出金发来。然而，偶尔忘扣帽子外出时，还是会给一些闲人指指点点我的栗发，责怪我为什么年纪這么小就染发；又或者会好奇地问我是不是来自新疆的，是不是穆斯林。我一律回答说：嘻嘻:)
办妥了学好华语和不长金发這两件大事后，我就继续给自己另一项更重大的任务：独立。我不忍再负累阿娘了。于是，十六岁考上了大学的我，就争取参加一项中美交换学生计划，侥幸成功到了美国伊利诺伊州去。我在哪里不愁学费食宿费。课馀就到附近一家中餐馆兼职几个小时，专责接听外卖电话，好赚点钱汇给阿娘。大学生活很充实、开心。最难忘是逛芝加哥书店的岁月：边喝咖啡，边跟知识份子们论尽古今多少事，真个是‘谈笑有鸿儒’。
与此同时，我又给自己第四项重大任务：尽早返哺。于是、申请在两年内完成四年的大学课程，獲准。十八岁哪年拿了第一个学位回国，继而开始了全职打工生涯; 其后给派到香港去，阿娘就跟我住在香港。阿娘是广州人，我自小就跟她学、跟她说粤语。粤语、成为了我从事香港研究的得力助手。现在，我仍然不自觉地追忆在香港大学的时光。港大的陆佑堂、荷花池、旭和道、薄扶林道…‘念之断人肠’。
Poetically driven
I never hesitate to take alcohol and tobacco out of the equation because I relate to neither. By all means blame my genetic make-up. These days, genes take every blame, anyway. As poetic justice—for lack of a better term—I turned out to be my party-going friends’ best designated driver. Wait. I don’t work for Uber. Meanwhile, I always designate my soul to drive me through classical Chinese poetry. Yes, I am hopelessly drunk on rhyming. That said, I could still get stuck somewhere, thanks to the stalling of my imagination-powered engine. Sorry, there’s no roadside assistance. A do-it-yourself guy, I can't help but check everything under the hood. Silly me. Writer's block is like overheating. Keep my cool and it will go away. Will it come back, though? —— Lingyang Jiangshe remained an American daughter?
Thanks for sharing your mother's poem and story! She is really an amazing lady!
amazing, God answered ur call, dont be blonde,so u grew maroon hair
a little curious, though. It's been said that until the age of about 12, a person's language skills are relatively vulnerable to change. Studies on international adoptees have found that even nine-year-olds can almost completely forget their first language when they are removed from their country of birth. So here is the question: Did the brave little girl, who already had a lot on her plate, have to relearn English when she first arrived in Illinois?
你母亲的父母是传教士吗？后来一直失去联系？
formulated by Roman Jakobson in 1941, which had been popularized since.
cases of native Americans. But, individually speaking, it is not that common. Basically, it is a case-by-case situation, according to Keijzer and Yukawa (Wikipedia).
我初读之下，觉得震撼。因为我之前读过一些传教士的美好信仰见证，里面有类似的故事。不知道是不是就是你母亲的故事？
原以为你的母亲只是一位学贯中西的大才女，却没有料到身世如此坎坷。
这是可敬可佩的母亲。小羊，她值得你为她骄傲！
English like her life. She had never let herself be sinicized through and through. BTW, she could actually go about her bilingual life when Chinese, post-Cultural Revolution, were no longer shy away from learning English openly. Still wonder why she did so well in school?
Revolution. Or just the opposite.
worse about the Cultural Revolution. When it comes to this microfiction of mine, I would like to leave a bit more to the imagination.
in the framework of Chomsky's theory (See, Principles and parameters - Wikipedia ) about language acquisition rather than Jakobson's theory about language regression. While Jakobson's theory bears largely on the loss of language due to disease, Chomsky's attempts to explain the amazing ease with which first languages are acquired by people before they reach puberty (about the age of 12 when brain lateralization is complete). Chomsky's theory may also shed light on why, until the age of about 12, a person's language skills are relatively vulnerable to change (See, Can you lose your native language? - BBC Future).
Maybe someone should use George Strait's song for the next edition of "听歌练听力":
in the framework of Chomsky's theory (See, Principles and parameters - Wikipedia) about language acquisition rather than Jakobson's theory about language regression. While Jakobson's theory bears largely on the loss of language due to disease, Chomsky's attempts to explain the amazing ease with which first languages are acquired by people before they reach puberty (about the age of 12 when brain lateralization is complete), and it also, by extension, sheds light on why, until the age of about 12, a person's language skills are relatively vulnerable to change (See, Can you lose your native language? - BBC Future).
Under "Language Attrition" in Wikipedia (Language attrition - Wikipedia）, one finds the following:
Age effect
Children are more susceptible to (first) language attrition than adults.[4][5][6] Research shows an age effect around the ages of 8 through 13.[6] Before this time period, a first language can attrite under certain circumstances, the most prominent being a sudden decline in exposure to the first language. Various case studies show that children who emigrate before puberty and have little to no exposure to their first language end up losing the first language. In 2009, a study compared two groups of Swedish-speaking groups: native Swedish speakers and Korean international adoptees who were at risk for losing their Korean.[4][36] Of the Korean adoptees, those who were adopted the earliest essentially lost their Korean and those adopted later still retained some of it, although it was primarily their comprehension of Korean that was spared.[36] A 2007 study looked at Korean adoptees in France and found that they performed on par with native French speakers in French proficiency and Korean.[37]
This discussion gives me an idea; maybe someone should use George Strait's song for the next edition of "听歌练听力":
whose "black box" theory underlies his claim to a universal grammar. My understanding is that you can put anything in his black box and explain everything, as long as you manage to arrive at his universal grammar, logically. Logic, in and of itself, is not necessarily science as we know. Good poetry has its internal logic even though it might have little to do with reality. In other words, Chomsky is an open city like Paris in 1940.
who, while building his fame on Chomsky's "language instinct" theory, actually gives more credit to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Evolution is no revolution. It takes time, really long time. From the evolutionary perspective, something gained biologically won't disappear anytime soon. Indeed, the framework you talked about should be broadened a bit to acknowledge the time factor, in my opinion.
which, as prevailing as it was during the famous--or infamous--decade, did have left more than a few green shoots alone. English-speaking folks, though subdued, were still functioning. Hong Kong, despite the 1967 riots thanks to the Cultural Revolution, still broadcast BBC and VOA to the Mainland, of which the Party big shots were loyal listeners. What a bunch of shrews! Then Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, in that order, and others started streaming in. The rest is history.
which, whatever its merits, indicates quite clearly that the abc girl had acquired a habit of talking to God, first in English, and then bilingually, since she clung to English no matter what. She had her Bible, for God's sake. The Holy Book, presumably a current American edition, is a pretty good companion to an English learner. Her cover, if appropriate in this case, had never been blown. As most if not all her contemporaries did, she played dumb when strangers were within earshot. In this way, she wouldn't have lost her native language in just a few years. Boy, when English was back in fashion, imagine what a chatter box she was. She took it from there, all the way to Chicago.
A few things that may be worth noting:
(1) In his attempt to explain the ease with which young kids acquire their first language, Chomsky concentrates on complex syntax. According to people like Piaget, all cognitive acquisitions, including language, are the outcome of the gradual process of construction.
Chomsky points out the obvious fact that children's language acquisition outpaces their cognitive development, especially when it involves complex syntax the acquisition of which requires computational abilities far beyond that of young children. In place of the cognitive acquisition theory, Chomsky proposes the innate language theory.
Here below is a 2016 Steven Pinker comment. Pinker is saying that Chomsky's fundamental claim--that language is innate--will endure in one form or another:
-----"My own view is that we need to create precise computational models of the language acquisition process – sentences in, grammar out – and see if they succeed in mastering the structure of any language whose sentences are fed into it, in a way that resembles the way children do it. Then whatever is in that model is the best theory of the child’s innate learning abilities. Every now and again someone will try to do that (I did in my first book, Language Learnability and Language Development, in 1984.) Failing that, it's all too easy to claim that children don't need any innate priors or assumptions or representations, only to sneak them back in when it comes to get serious and implement a model. That was the trick in a lot of the neural-network models of language that were popular in the 80s and 90s – when the rubber met the road, they always built in innate structure without calling attention to it. That's what I suspect will be true of models based on the current ideas."-----
–Steven Pinker
For his explanation of the effortless first language acquisition by children, Chomsky advances the theory of universal grammar, or a language acquisition device, that children are supposedly born with. Acquisition of complex syntax is accomplished as soon as a limited number of parameters within the universal grammar are set one way or another upon children's initial exposure to their mother tongue.
It is this device that presumably shuts down upon the completion of brain lateralization. In other words, the parameters remain flexible/resettable until puberty. This also explains why children are more susceptible to first language attrition than adults: the settings of the universal parameters have not been finalized by way of brain lateralization.
(2) It should be noted that there are elements of language, such as vocabulary and idioms, that are learned rather than acquired. There is no difference between first language and second language when it comes to learning these elements: their learning depends crucially on exposure and use-it-or-lose-it governs retention.
First of all, people, be they young or old, won't be able to learn these elements if they are not exposed to them. Many Chinese parents in the US can attest to this: they try their best to keep a Chinese immersion environment at home but find out home related topics do not provide their children with enough Chinese exposure for balanced language learning.
Most of these parents can similarly attest to the tyranny of use-it-or-lose-it: their children just don't seem to be able to retain much of what they learn in weekly Chinese classes.
(3) Now, a little bit about the Cultural Revolution, which I had the very bad luck of living through. Comparing it to anything other than Hitler Germany and Stalin USSR would fall short of fair-mindedness. If anything, it was worse.
Yes, there were some English-speaking folks then in China, such as Shafick George Hatem, Rewi Alley, David Crook, Isabel Crook, Sidney Rittenberg, Israel Epstein, Elsie Fairfax-Cholmeley, etc. But these people were either branded as spies or suspected as being spies and were under close surveillance. Many were locked up and were not released until about 1973.
I'm not sure how helpful BBC and VOA would have been in helping a young child keep his/her language. But, yes, one could tune into VOA or BBC in those days. However, it was by no means easy. First of all, it would be very very risky to do so, as these were considered “enemy stations” and, if caught, one would be in big trouble. Secondly, these stations were always heavily jammed. The signal was so garbled most times people who were trying to learn English were forced to tune into Radio Peking.
Indeed, Kissinger and Nixon's visits in 1971 and 1972 brought about a great improvement in terms of English learning in China. But, seeing that the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, so much had already been lost in between.
we have come to the consensus, if not the conclusion, that we are hardwired to language acquisition. In terms of evolution. so are other species.
unless it is rooted out. I think you have mentioned more than once that the degree of exposure matters. However, I would like to give equal, if not more, weight to motivation. Motivation is a psychosocial thing, which means more than Chomsky et al have covered. Who can blame them? Gaining or losing a native language, in my opinion, may have more to do with personal motivation than cognitive issues.
From a wider perspective, all things politically incorrect, however defined, are victims of relentless suppression. It was cancel culture with Chinese characteristics. The silver lining was, as I mentioned earlier, the enduring existence of a few green shoots here and there. The opening chapter of Tolstoy's "Resurrection," if I remember correctly, makes a similar allusion, which I take as a good sign of hope. When the thaw came, English learners multiplied like bamboo shoots all over China. Bamboo dies hard. So does a native language.