Lojban In General

Lojban In General


Compound vs Coordinate Bilinguals

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 23:10, Colin Wright <
colin.wright@denbridgemarine.com> wrote:

> >> Most would accept that words in one's native language often
> >> carry additional "baggage" beyond the stated definitions.
> >
> > Well, I would accept that the dictionary definitions are
> > completely inadequate to describe a word's usage.
>
> I didn't say dictionary, but you're right. Words are notoriously
> difficult to explain/define/delimit.


You can put a definition in something other than a "dictionary" but that
doesn't change it's basic nature.


> >> The thesis to which I referred found that there was no real
> >> measurable shift in personality for compound bilinguals, but
> >> a clear shift for coordinate bilinguals, which I think is
> >> what I would have predicted if the SWH is true.
> >
> > Since it seems to me that coodinate bilinguals gain their
> > ability through immersion, which also almost always includes
> > cultural immersion, that comes as no surprise, and doesn't
> > require SWH to explain it.
>
> Forgive me if I misunderstand you, but you appear to be interpreting
> as constant and unvarying fact something that is simply a correlation.
> Some coordinates gain their ability through what Krashen calls
> "learning", and some compounds gain their second language through
> acquisition.


Well, I disagree with that. As far as I can tell all coordinates get their
ability through acquisition, sometimes in conjunction with varying degrees
of learning. A coodinate bilingual who got their ability solely through
learning is probably non-existent, certainly extremely rare. I'd have to
reread Krashen but I believe the experimental evidence supports this. As far
as compounds and acquisition, there is also a complicating factor of
psychological motivation for learning the language, which seems to have a
very significant effect on what kind of language input gets accepted by the
student for the purpose of acquisition.


> Further, I didn't say that these things require SWH to explain
> them, I meant that I believe a form of SWH to be true (although
> possibly not the form S or W would originally have expounded)
> and that the findings I have to hand are what I would've predicted.
>

But if the evidence can be explained completely adequately without any
recourse to SWH then by Occam's razor we would tend to discount SWH, until
we get some other data that can't be explained in another way.

--
Adam Raizen <adam.raizen@gmail.com>
Timendi causa est nescire.