When I say language acquisition I mean L1 language acquisition for children. A few posts made here seem to assume that children, in their first few years 'mimic' their parents and that's how they learn language. Perhaps I understood them wrong and they meant a later stage of acquisition or they meant mimicking in a different sense. If by mimic they mean shadow yeah that's fine, but if by mimic they mean copying what a parent says word for word and somehow grasping the language from there, that's wrong.
For example a parent asks "Do you want a cookie" a child answers "Yes" or Nodds showing verbal indication that the kid well and truly understands the SVO structure in English and is responding grammatically to the sentence he was asked. A person who says kids learn language by mimicking their parents, what response would the kid give? how would he know the "yes" answer to another question "Do you want a biscuit" is the same yes that is needed for the cookie question.  The fact that there are an infinite number of ways one can construct/deconstruct a sentence is enough to show that children, when going through the language acquisition stage of their life, cannot simply mimic their parents and expect to understand things, there is a much deeper underlying thing about it all.

But I guess they meant mimic in the sense of learning that "I comed home" --> "I came home" by hearing corrections and what not and hence "mimic" the 'errors' in the respective language.

Where as to me, the fact that a kid uses "I comed home" instead of "I came home" shows that kids don't mimic their parents when saying a sentence for the first time, rather they are applying words they learned to this grammar structure implanted in their brain.

The context I heard 'mimic' being used was different. So there we go ruiner, all cleared up I hope. My apologies.

yudantaiteki wrote:

The majority opinion is that the way children acquire language has nothing to do with the way one should learn a second language.  That is, the fact that children do not require mimicry to acquire language says nothing about whether second-language learners should use mimicry (or how much they should use it).

The reason acquisition gets separated from learning is that it really is fundamentally different.  When you think about it, it's amazing -- children who can't even tie their shoes or dress themselves are acquiring complicated grammatical patterns that stump adult second language learners, without anyone teaching them.  And every single native speaker who does not have a disability does this, irrespective of intelligence, dedication, etc.  You don't find people who failed to acquire the passive voice in their native language, for instance, because they didn't repeat it often enough. 

So a child will not need explicit teaching, practice, or mimicking to know that you can use "less" to make comparisons (i.e. "This glass has less water than that one").  Every native speaker learns that no matter what.  However, a child will possibly (depending on dialect) need teaching, practice, or mimicking to learn how to distinguish "less" and "fewer" in the prescriptive manner.

I don't think the processes are fundamentally different. It's a brain that's continuously interacting with the environment and the language, learning as it goes along. I would argue that the differences between first and second language learners is more about the pre-existing structures and development of the brain's functions, self-awareness, et cetera, than something that points to systems in the brain that ought to be modeled and studied as an isolated component or components. I think the inability for nativists and suchlike to determine the location of an LAD, and their constant compromises with other theories related to actual proven cognitive processes and the culture/environment would give them reason to remodel--but then again, I also think the theory of sexual selection is silly and wrong, so perhaps my ideas are best left as fuzzy and untenable? ;p

liosama wrote:

When I say language acquisition I mean L1 language acquisition for children. A few posts made here seem to assume that children, in their first few years 'mimic' their parents and that's how they learn language. Perhaps I understood them wrong and they meant a later stage of acquisition or they meant mimicking in a different sense. If by mimic they mean shadow yeah that's fine, but if by mimic they mean copying what a parent says word for word and somehow grasping the language from there, that's wrong.
For example a parent asks "Do you want a cookie" a child answers "Yes" or Nodds showing verbal indication that the kid well and truly understands the SVO structure in English and is responding grammatically to the sentence he was asked. A person who says kids learn language by mimicking their parents, what response would the kid give? how would he know the "yes" answer to another question "Do you want a biscuit" is the same yes that is needed for the cookie question.  The fact that there are an infinite number of ways one can construct/deconstruct a sentence is enough to show that children, when going through the language acquisition stage of their life, cannot simply mimic their parents and expect to understand things, there is a much deeper underlying thing about it all.

But I guess they meant mimic in the sense of learning that "I comed home" --> "I came home" by hearing corrections and what not and hence "mimic" the 'errors' in the respective language.

Where as to me, the fact that a kid uses "I comed home" instead of "I came home" shows that kids don't mimic their parents when saying a sentence for the first time, rather they are applying words they learned to this grammar structure implanted in their brain.

The context I heard 'mimic' being used was different. So there we go ruiner, all cleared up I hope. My apologies.

hehe, I'm thinking of 'mimic' as, either silently or aloud, representing and reproducing the language--from the simplest aspects to the most complex, as it's encountered and understood in varying contexts, as a single part of a manifold process of learning that's progressive in establishing a mental repertoire.

I think I'm actually tending to think of 'mimicry' as 'meme-icry' in the sense of being this process of encountering, encapsulating, reformulating, and recontextualizing, this sequence acting as a kind of porous vessel that's conducive to the integration of the other components of the language/brain interaction. Or something. Guess I should've taken my own advice, re: clarifying definitions, haha.

There's also this: http://books.google.com/books?id=w-fgGz … mp;f=false

Last edited by ruiner (2009 November 06, 10:13 pm)

Here's a more skeptically thorough analysis of the study: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1869 - Comes to 'common sense' (hehe) conclusions about the aversion to rhetoric and need for further study/replication.